Meibion Glyndŵr (, also known by its translation Sons of Glyndŵr) was a Welsh nationalist paramilitary group which carried out 328 attacks, including 228 arson attacks against holiday cottages in Wales owned by English people, and other attacks against government offices and estate agent offices between 1979 and 1993.
The organisation was founded in 1979, during a period of increasing nationalist sentiment in Wales. During this period, significant sections of Welsh public opinion opposed the purchase of second homes or holiday cottages in Wales by English buyers, regarding it as a contributing factor to rising housing prices and a potential threat to Welsh-speaking communities. Only one person connected to the group was arrested in 1993, marking the end of the campaign.
History
Origins
In December 1962, the Western Mail reported that Birmingham Corporation had received a letter signed "Meibion Glyndŵr" threatening to poison the water supply of the planned Clywedog Reservoir. A similar threat was made in relation to Llyn Celyn during the flooding of Tryweryn, although no such action was ever taken; the name didn't re-emerge until almost two decades later. The name refers to Owain Glyndŵr, who led a major Welsh rebellion against English rule in the early 15th century. Following the failure of the 1979 Welsh devolution referendum, the militant organisation launched its first attacks in December of that year.
The first attacks occurred in the early hours of 13 December 1979, during which a holiday home in Nefyn, another in Llanbedrog, and a further two near Llanrhian in Pembrokeshire were set alight. In the days that followed, it was reported that another two holiday homes in Pennal near Machynlleth had been targeted. The devices used in these attacks were reportedly crude, consisting of sulphuric acid contained within a wax tube and a condom. Given the geographical distance between the attacks and the near-simultaneous detonation of the devices, the possibility that they were carried out by a single arsonist was ruled out. This marked the beginning of the arson campaign. In the first wave of attacks that followed, 22 English-owned holiday homes were destroyed within the space of a month. Initially, no movement claimed responsibility for the arson attacks; however, an anonymous letter, written in Welsh, was posted to HTV Wales head Geraint Talfan Davies, which read:The houses were burnt with great sadness. We are not ferocious men. It was an act of despair. The rural areas are being destroyed all over these islands. Wales is our concern. These homes are out of reach of local people because of the economic situation. We call upon individuals of goodwill to take steps before these sorry acts take place.Copies of the same letter were also sent to a number of prominent individuals and organisations in Wales, including the BBC, Western Mail, Dafydd Wigley, Dafydd Elis-Thomas and Geraint Howells, among others. Both Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (Welsh Language Society) and Mudiad Adfer () were quick to distance themselves from the attacks, and Rhodri Williams, then deputy chairman of Cymdeithas, insisted that the group's second home campaign was dormant while it focused on securing a Welsh-language television channel. Similarly, Plaid Cymru condemned the spate of arson, and Dafydd Elis-Thomas, then Member of Parliament (MP) for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy, described it as "senseless".
Over the following decade, the campaign resulted in damage to 228 holiday cottages across Wales. Attacks typically occurred during the winter months, when properties were more likely to be vacant. The only injury associated with the campaign occurred when a staircase collapsed at a targeted estate agency in London, injuring a fireman. The campaign reached its peak in the late 1980s with the targeting of Conservative Party MPs' homes with letter bombs, most notably that of David Hunt, the then Secretary of State for Wales, who was targeted in 1990. A contemporaneous arson campaign targeting English-owned properties on the Isle of Man was also taking place, attributed to Manx nationalist organisation . Ben Lake later suggested a potential link between the two campaigns, although this was never confirmed.
Claims of responsibility Throughout the campaign, four separate movements were reported to have claimed responsibility for the bombings: Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru (; MAC), Cadwyr Cymru (), Meibion Glyndŵr, and the Workers' Army of the Welsh Republic (WAWR; ), whose attacks were on political targets in the early 1980s.
Cadwyr Cymru Cadwyr Cymru was the first organisation to claim responsibility, a claim reported on the BBC programme Nationwide on 12 March 1980 after a letter from the group, postmarked in Bala, was delivered to the BBC office in Bangor. Posted a day before a house in Gwynfe was struck by an attack, the letter claimed responsibility and cited a plastic bowl left outside a previously targeted house in Rhos-y-gwaliau as proof of its authenticity. The letter, signed off by "Cadfridog Gwynedd" (), further claimed, "What the IRA has achieved so shall we." Two further letters, postmarked in Bala and Oswestry, were received by police in Caernarfon, both repeating the Cadwyr Cymru claim and describing the group as a coalition organised along a cell structure, and alleging support from the Provisional Irish Republican Army (Provisional IRA) and militant Basque separatist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA).
Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru John Barnard Jenkins, former leader of Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru and a key figure in its bombing campaign in the 1960s, was interviewed on Nationwide during its broadcast on 12 March 1980. He had initially been interviewed by BBC Wales' Heddiw the day after the first attacks on 13 December 1979, but the interview was never broadcast. During the Nationwide broadcast, he outlined the motivations for those involved in the arson campaign and suggested that those responsible were associated with MAC, noting that most of the organisation's cells had never been identified following the 1960s bombing campaign. Jenkins, however, said that he was not personally involved. Prior to the interview, an anonymous note signed "Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru" was handed to a BBC journalist, which claimed responsibility for the campaign. Former Western Mail journalist John Humphries later theorised that Meibion Glyndŵr was a third iteration of MAC, a claim which Jenkins reiterated his support for in 2005, having predicted during his imprisonment at HM Prison Albany that the organisation would reorganise. Police took the possibility seriously and believed that, if MAC was not directly involved, its members were providing instruction to the arsonists, although this was never confirmed.
Workers' Army of the Welsh Republic
The Nationwide broadcast also featured an interview with Robert Griffiths, national secretary of the Welsh Socialist Republican Movement (WSRM), of which John Jenkins was also a member. The WSRM, along with a range of other left-wing organisations in Wales, became a particular point of focus for police following the broadcast. Five of the bombings associated with the 1980 campaign were later attributed by police to the WAWR, which included attacks on four Conservative Party offices and the home of the Secretary of State for Wales, Nicholas Edwards, in Crickhowell. In October 1981, the WAWR publicly claimed responsibility for a series of bombings, including a British Army recruitment office in Pontypridd and a number of offices belonging to British Steel, the National Coal Board and Severn Trent Water Authority. The latter targets were allegedly selected to protest the closure of coal and steel industries in Wales under the government of Margaret Thatcher. Police became convinced that the WAWR was operating as an armed wing of the WSRM and that membership of the organisations was inseparable. The devices used during the wave of WAWR bombings were reported to be more sophisticated than those employed in earlier attacks, and on 27 October 1981, the day after the attacks, BBC Wales and the South Wales Echo received a note which read:The Workers' Army of the Welsh Republic has started its campaign for a free socialist Wales. We will attack all aspects of English cultural, economic and political rule including the recruitment of unemployed Welsh youth to carry out English repression in the north of Ireland and elsewhere.
Meibion Glyndŵr The first instance of an attack being directly claimed by Meibion Glyndŵr was made on 6 February 1981, when a letter was posted from Porthmadog to the BBC office in Bangor. In the letter, the group claimed responsibility for recent attacks. Specifically, the letter referred to an attack on boats that were being kept in Penyberth near Pwllheli. To prove the authenticity of the claim, the letter provided the name of one of the boats damaged in the attack, named Mariner 111. Letters claiming responsibility for attacks by Meibion Glyndŵr were signed "Rhys Gethin", in homage to one of Owain Glyndŵr's most prominent generals. In its anonymous communications, the organisation frequently referred to English immigrants as "white settlers". In one such declaration, published by the BBC in 1989, the group stated: "Every white settler is a target. We will bury English imperialism." The same term was also used by some Scottish nationalists to describe English immigrants to Scotland and has been associated with anti-English sentiment.
Operation Tân
Sul y Blodau Despite the number of arson attacks rising to as many as thirty by late March 1980, most of which were concentrated in the Llŷn Peninsula, police had failed to identify any suspects. The situation escalated after incendiary devices were discovered at Conservative Party offices in Cardiff, Shotton and Whitchurch on 28 March, prompting a major change in police strategy. Two days later, on 30 March, Special Branch and Welsh police conducted a large series of dawn raids as part of Operation Tân ('fire') in an effort to identify those responsible for the arson attacks. The coordinated raids are often referred to in relation to their timing in the early hours of Palm Sunday, also known as Sul y Blodau (). Using the Prevention of Terrorism Act 1976, introduced to combat terrorism stemming from the Troubles, approximately fifty individuals were arrested during the operation, most of whom were in some way associated with Welsh nationalism. The powers granted to police by the Act allowed for the detention of terror suspects for up to seven days without charge if they were suspected of belonging to or supporting a proscribed organisation. During the operation, police reportedly established roadblocks across north Wales throughout the weekend.
Among those detained were former Free Wales Army (FWA) and National Patriotic Front (NPF) organiser Gethin ap Gruffydd and his wife, Sian Ifan. Both were released two days later due to a lack of evidence linking them to the arson campaign. At the time, the couple organised Cofiwn (), a Welsh nationalist society dedicated to commemorating historical figures and events. Others detained during the arrests included founding MAC member and Cymdeithas yr Iaith activist Emyr Llywelyn Jones, as well as John Barnard Jenkins. Robat Gruffudd, founder of the Welsh-language publisher Y Lolfa, was also detained, along with his wife Enid Gruffudd. Police were unable to secure any evidence of the Gruffudds' involvement in the arson and later released them; they were financially compensated for their time in detention.