In 1982, a Welsh-language folk singer from Brynamman, Carmarthenshire, called Dafydd Iwan sat down to write a song about his country. At the time Iwan “felt demoralised” about Wales. The main reason being a 1979 referendum, in which just under 80% of voters decided against forming a Welsh parliament, instead favouring the status quo: Westminster rule.
Iwan, a devout nationalist who was briefly imprisoned in the 1970s for defacing English road signs and would later go on to be the president of Plaid Cymru between 2003 and 2010, wanted to write a song to “raise the spirits, to remind people we still speak Welsh against all odds. To show we are still here,” he says. He called it Yma o Hyd (“Still Here”). The song consists of rousing acoustic guitar, backing vocals that sound like a small male voice choir, synthetic organ and a snare drum that evokes a marching band.
In the 39 years since it was released, Yma o Hyd has become an anthem for “Welsh nationalists, Welsh-speaking culture and the industrial working class of Wales,” says Martin Johnes, professor of history at Swansea University. Iwan himself remembers singing it on picket lines, many times, for miners, quarrymen and farmers. “The effects of Thatcherism were so blatant, so far-reaching. And Welshness was in turmoil. Yma o Hyd was a deliberate antidote to that,” he says.
Today, the song (or at least the chorus) is known to most who have lived in Wales. In schools and stadiums, pubs and clubs, you will at some point hear people singing: “Er gwaetha pawb a phopeth / Ry’n ni yma o hyd,” which translates as “Despite everyone and everything / We’re still here”. In total, the phrase “we’re still here” is sung 19 times across the song’s four-and-a-half minutes.
“Despite everyone and everything” refers to the troubled history of Welsh identity. The song starts with the Romans leaving Wales in AD383 thanks to “Macsen” (the Roman emperor Magnus Maximus, who withdrew his troops to Gaul), “a myth but commonly attributed as the start of modern Wales”, says Johnes. It ends with Margaret Thatcher (“Er gwaetha ’rhen Fagi a’i chriw”; “Despite old Maggie and her crew”), evoking an era that felt to Iwan like an existential threat to Welshness. In 1983, Thatcher led the Conservative party to its then best general election result in Wales, and by the following year, the miners’ strike was under way. By 1986, fewer than 40% of Welsh households were headed by someone in full-time employment.
Culturally, Wales has been surviving on scraps for even longer. “Wales was politically annexed in 1280; we haven’t had a totally self-governing political unit since,” says Johnes. Add to that the language being banned by Henry VIII in 1536, a law that lasted until 1942, and “the survival of Welsh identity is pretty remarkable”, he adds. The symbolism the song carries has never been more palpable. Last year, a poll conducted by Savanta ComRes found that 40% of Welsh people were in favour of independence. Welsh nationalism is stirring once again and its main stage is not before a rugby union match at the Principality stadium, as many might think. It’s at Cardiff City stadium, where Wales’s national team play the “other” sport: football.
There has been a sea change since Wales’s historic European Championship campaign in 2016, their first appearance in the tournament. That year, Wales reached the semi-final, having knocked out Belgium (then favourites) 3-1 in the quarter-final. That particular moment marked a shift in Welsh culture for many. In footballing terms, the country showed Europe it was able to perform as well as any other nation. Five years later, Wales would be on the same stage once more at the Covid-delayed Euro 2020.
This year, Wales have set their eyes on the prospect of playing in the World Cup for the first time since 1958. Most recently on this journey, they played a qualifying play-off semi-final against Austria at the Cardiff City stadium. While the terraces have reverberated to Yma o Hyd for a few years, this time round the players requested that Iwan perform the song himself shortly before kickoff. Against Austria, he did just that, in front of Wales’s most fervent supporters, the “red wall”.
Comedian, broadcaster and avid Welsh football fan Elis James, from Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire, doesn’t remember a time before the song existed. He was at the Austria semi-final. To his surprise, “the entire crowd sang it. And it just felt like this tremendous symbol for how the Welsh language is now seen by Welsh people.”
“You could see my tears,” Iwan says, reflecting on singing the song at that moment. “The tears were because I’ve been singing the song for 40 years, and I felt as though in that moment, the message finally came through and crossed the language barrier.”
The song, as Josh Millar, a lifelong football fan and Welsh speaker who has “Yma o Hyd” tattooed on his biceps, points out “is very simple. Non-Welsh speakers can grasp the meaning and pronunciation far more easily than the national anthem.” Its catchiness was proved again in January 2020, when the pro-independence campaign YesCymru managed to get Yma o Hyd to the top of the iTunes UK chart.
That is not to say the song is unconditionally loved in Wales, even among those striving for independence. In response to the song reaching No 1, Welsh news website Nation.Cymru published a comment piece titled: “Wales needs less Yma o Hyd and more of a focus on shaping our future”. The piece lamented that the song “succumbs to the idea that our greatest strength is our ability to stubbornly remain in place, like a stain that our enemies have long since given up on removing”. Its author, Joshua McCarthy, is a campaigns officer for the youth wing of Plaid Cymru, Plaid Ifanc. “My views are my own, not those of Plaid Ifanc,” he says, adding that Yma o Hyd “doesn’t say anything about what still being here actually means. We’re not the same nation as we were in 1983, and endurance isn’t everything.”
There is at least one more chapter to this story. On 5 June, Wales face one final play-off game against Ukraine. The prize: a place at the World Cup. Before the game, as he did for the semi-final, Iwan will sing the song pitchside, backed by a stadium full of fans.
“I think that whatever happens, the future of Welsh football is in safe hands, and the song will stick around, too,” says James. It certainly doesn’t look to be leaving the stands any time soon. It is, without doubt, Wales’s other national anthem.
