Gunwalloe - Church Cove
View across Church Cove in Gunwalloe at the base of the Lizard Peninsula.
The church is St Winwalloe with it's distinctively seperate bell tower and surrounding Tamarisk hedge....
newlyn house
Wonderfully painted frontage....
rogers tower
A folly built 18th C, for Mr Rogers, a local landowner....
I agree Mike. They are an important part of the Cornish movement's overall picture. To tourists who attend their events it is yet more confirmation that Cornwall is different to England. A little more earthiness wouldn't go amiss, nor some improved PR.
Agree. Any organisation that furthers Cornwall's various facets of culture without causing undue grief is to be welcomed and like you say developed as time moves forward. The Gorsedh gives an aire of respectable authenticity.
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Where there's a Negative - there's always a Positive. You just have to find it.
Nice to see good healthy conversation going here on an important topic, because the Gorseth should be important to Cornwall. Unfortunately, I tend to agree with Morvran on most points. I actually think that conversation in the public domain is good for the Gorseth, rather than doing it through 'the proper channels'. I imagine those proper channels need a good rodding out by now.
I just found the thread about the Gorsedh from a year or two ago. I agree with what most people said, and hadn't realised anyone else thought that way. I'd always assumed that everyone else either thought the Gorsedh was wonderful or simply ignored it entirely.
Some years ago, when I'd not long been involved with the language, I generally turned up for the Gorsedh and several years running got given the Kowethas banner to hold just outside the magic bardic circle. This was because everyone else seemed to be a bard so had to be in the circle. Anyway, there I was, between the bards and the public, and well, do you remember the "Sermon on the Mount" scene from the Life of Brian? "What did he say?", "Sounded like 'blessed are the cheesemakers ...'" etc. Well it was just like that. The bards were doing their thing, all the public saw were the backs of the nearest encircled bards, they couldn't understand the Cornish and were just waiting for Little Johny to get his certificate or whatever. "What are they doing now?" "Have we got to this bit yet?" "Who's that?" etc., etc. ...
Amusing, yes. But I began to wonder what it was all in aid of, and who exactly it was meant to be for. I don't claim to be able to organise ceremonies, but there are certainly people who can, and I've seen better organised ad hoc. It all went on far too long (without a break) and oh yes, the dirges!
Given that they go to the trouble each year of hiring a field, why not make a day of it? Why not have an opening ceremony to establish the special ethos of the place, then use it as a focus for all sorts of events, exhibitions, demonstrations, you name it. Lots of music, every sort. Get a markee for goodness sake ... And at some point or points the bards can convene and do their stuff, and at the end they close the day, and hopefully a good time has been had by all, contacts made, schemes mooted, and Cornish identity advanced.
I just feel that a great opportunity is thrown away year after year, like I'm watching endless re-runs of an very old movie, and each time the film gets a little more scratched.
I'd like to see a lot more positive emphasis on the language too. I wonder how much damage is done by associating it with all those dirges, and halting mispronounced speeches?
Seems to me like they dress in quasi-religious robes and give each bardic names to keep outsiders, and probably those Cornish they don't approve of, out.
Do they bare one nipple down St Keverne way with a pasty balanced on their head while swearing an oath in Cornish to check the An Gof statue once a week for CNE stickers?
The Gorsedd is very important to us in that it is the only way we can recognise cultural contributions to the pro-Cornwall movement (and, as the history of Ireland, Scotland and Wales show, culture and politics are two sides of the same coin). The trouble is it has become, as an institution, an outrageously elderly, middle-class, easy-going, self-congratulatorary oligarchy focussed primarily on ceremonial spectacle (but don't run ceremonial down - it is important as it expresses something deeply).
Might I humbly suggest Pol Hodge for Grand Bard and (if they accepted him as a bard) Jack Bolitho for his deputy?
And perhaps Revd Andy Phillips as Gorsedd Chaplain?
It's radical, but perhaps that represents a truly Cornish (un)Holy Trinity!
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