What’s the meaning of life? ... and other big questions

This article discusses the industrial and personal connections between the Crawshay family in Merthyr Tydfil and the Dufaud family in France. It draws on travel diaries, notes and letters by Georges Dufaud and his son Achille Dufaud on their visits to Merthyr, providing insights into the Frenchmen’s impressions of Merthyr and its industrial superiority, and of the practicalities of travel and funding at the time. These texts also suggest the extent of the technological transfer from Wales to France, and reveal Welsh fears of industrial espionage. Following the wedding of Louise Dufaud and George Crawshay, Welsh workers and Welsh machinery (from Neath Abbey) were exported to France. Both played a decisive role in the development of the Fourchambault iron works near Nevers. Author: Heather Williams

The Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916 began a chain of events that led to the independence of most of Ireland, but at the time its momentous significance was not appreciated in Wales. For the vast majority of Welsh people, it was pure treachery as it happened at a time when Ireland (like the rest of the United Kingdom) was engaged in a war unprecedented in its savagery and scale. This article traces how events in Ireland were seen in Wales through the lens of the war against Germany, and how the notion that Ireland (like Wales) was better off within the protective embrace of the British Empire was so widespread that it could not be challenged. Author: Gethin Matthews

It is often said that Wales’s devolved political institutions suffer from a ‘democratic deficit’, associated with a ‘media deficit’. This article uses the political philosophy of Jürgen Habermas to interpret these claims. The article begins by discussing the central problem and applying Habermas’s theory of legitimation to it (1), before turning to the theory’s key concept, namely the public sphere (2). Part 3 argues that an informal political public sphere is lacking in Wales today and that this undermines the legitimacy of the devolved political settlement, supporting this argument with data (3). The final part of the article places the Welsh case in a broader context, and opens the discussion regarding possible solutions (4). Author: Dafydd Huw Rees

The aim of this article is to construct the history of the irrigation system in the Lower Chubut Valley created by the Welsh settlers that arrived in Patagonia (Argentina) in 1865, which complicated the relationship that existed between this infrastructure and the ever-changing sociopolitical framework. This will involve focusing on the institutions that the Welsh settlers themselves established and the conflicts that arose between them and the Argentine state, which took over the administration of irrigation in 1943. Emphasis will be given to the agency of water within the process that led to reinforcing and growing the irrigation infrastructure, and attention will also be given to the symbolic dimension of the objects that constitute this infrastructure, thereby enabling a reflection on their changing meanings. Author: Fernando Williams