Event to recognise men killed in the Dinorwig Quarries
This Sunday 23 June will see a gathering at Llyn Padarn’s Llafn y Cewri (“Blade of the Giants") sword monument in Llanberis, North Wales. The event marks the 150th anniversary of the founding of the North Wales Quarrymen’s Union and is being held to recognise the estimated 1,500 men killed in rock falls and blasts, and the many thousands more who died from the lung disease silicosis, from working for so many hours down the dusty mines in the Dinorwig Quarries, now a popular climbing venue.
There is also a move towards the protection of historic Welsh names for areas in the quarries, many of which have been replaced with English names in climbing guides and websites, for example Dali’s Hole - Yw Sinc Harriet, Never Never land – Dyffryn and Bus Stop Quarry – Ponc Allt Ddu.
Tom Carrick, BMC’s Access & Conservation officer for Wales, says “Having grown up with the Welsh language and living in Gwynedd, North Wales for most of my life, it often saddens me to see the conflict between my native language and my sport, passion and career that’s all interlinked. There is space for both in my eyes. It’s important to remember our history, but also that climbing has brought a whole new industry into the area and new meanings to the lines and experiences that climbers have.
“Across the world we are not alone in this and I advocate for trying to use local languages. The original, indigenous names of Denali, Sagarmatha and Uluru are all used more widely now, in the same way that we encourage the use of Eryri (Snowdonia) and Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon). It’s great to see the encouragement of these names, but through education and demonstration of the importance of our history and traditions, rather than division.”
BMC statement
As the representative body for climbers, hill walkers and mountaineers in Wales and England, the British Mountaineering Council (BMC) supports the principle of protecting and retaining Welsh language names for geographic features in Wales. We have adopted the use of Eryri (Snowdonia) and the Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) as the official names of these national parks in line with this principle. Similarly, we support the retention of Welsh language place names for the galleries (known to climbers as levels) of the Dinorwig Quarries and other slate quarries used for climbing.
It is, however, important to make a distinction between the names already given to certain features of the quarry by quarrymen (the distinct pits, galleries, industrial features) and those given for specific routes up the rock faces by climbers over the years. We feel that the retention of Welsh place names and these newer route names are not mutually incompatible – some route names are in Welsh and pay tribute to the quarrymen, such as "Y Rhaffwr" ("The Roper” who did the dangerous job of roping down the quarry face to place charges, then swinging to the side while they detonated) or "Hogiau Pen Garet" (“Boys of Pen Garet”). In many cases names for individual climbs were colloquially applied to the galleries, in the absence of information about the original names for these areas. In these cases, the BMC are committed to promoting awareness of the original names.
Many climbers are interested to learn more about the history and culture of the places they climb, and there has been an effort to ensure the original Welsh names are used in many newer climbing guides. The BMC are committed to continuing to promote understanding and information-sharing between these two communities, between which there is now a significant crossover – many of our members, volunteers and two of our staff members are Welsh speakers and feel passionately about this issue.
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