“One Year of the Sea! There’s Only One Year of the Sea!”
A version of this post would have been my first of the year, and would have been published some weeks ago, had not more pressing matters intervened. *** So it’s 2018, the Wales Year of the Sea. Or so the marketing gurus who came up with the concept tell us. Now, those of us who […]
The Offpeak Day Return of the King
A bit of an oddity for this week’s second blog. (And anybody thinking ‘the blogger’s a bit of an oddity anyway’ is toast.) Last week’s trip to Galloway – see the previous post – provided me with lots of inspiration of all sorts, and, thanks primarily to Wigtown, also provided me with lots more books […]
Carmarthenshire Archives: the End of the Beginning?
Last Thursday, I attended a two-hour consultation meeting in Carmarthen on the proposed new record office for the county, following the closure of the previous one after the discovery of mould in the storerooms. Now, regular readers of this blog will know that I have just a little bit of history with this particular issue; […]
Ancient Wreck
To Wales for the weekend for my ‘big birthday’ (clue: I won’t see my twenties again – or several other decades, either). While there, we went for a bracing walk along Cefn Sidan beach, one of the relatively lesser known treasures of the Welsh coastline. By any measure, the beach is stunning in its own […]
Carmarthenshire Archives (and more) Revisited
Regular readers will remember that, some eighteen months ago, this site built up quite a head of steam about the dire state of Carmarthenshire’s county archives. To cut a long story short, a serious outbreak of mould was discovered in the strongrooms, leading to the closure of the record office, the records becoming completely unavailable […]
On This Spot, In 1753, Nothing Happened. Or Alternatively, It Did. [Rebooted]
Ridiculously busy ATM as I enter the home straight with the new Quinton novel, The Devil Upon the Wave, and try to finish off a couple of other commitments ASAP too, so a re-blog this week of a post from the relatively early days of this site, back in January 2013. However, this has regained its […]
An Investigation into Welsh involvement in the ‘Protestant’ side of the Thirty Years’ War
This week, I’m delighted to welcome a guest blogger to the site! Victoria Yee of the University of St Andrews has uncovered some fascinating material about the Welsh involvement in the Thirty Years War. This is a conflict that’s always fascinated me – indeed, I taught it for a time, to A-level students – so […]
Highways and Byways of the 17th Century: the Naval Engagement at Swansea, 1660- The Last Shots of the British Civil Wars?
This week, I’m cross-posting a blog that I first published earlier in the week on my Welsh naval history site, britanniasdragon.com. The restoration of the monarch in 1660 was an astonishingly rapid development, one which could hardly have been foreseen at all until just before it actually took place. Inevitably, this led to much confusion, […]
Carmarthenshire Archives (and Museums): a Brave New World?
It’s been a while since I posted about the situation with Carmarthenshire Archives, which took up so much space on this blog in the second half of last year, so I thought it was time I provided you with an update. My last post on the subject contained the unexpected but very welcome news that […]
