Qualla: 2022 Denbighshire Urdd National Eisteddfod

2022 Denbighshire Urdd National Eisteddfod: Introduction

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ceri Thomas, CC BY-SA 2.0. Shuchen Xie was twelve years old when she won the Composer prize for a string quartet she had written called Rhapsody in G minor. She had travelled up from Cardiff to a field outside Denbigh, played her music in front of judges and an audience, and become the youngest competitor in the Urdd Eisteddfod's century-long history to win a major prize. That was Tuesday, 31 May 2022. The week she was part of - Europe's largest youth festival, three years delayed by COVID, free to all comers, set on a working farm called Kilford on the Whitchurch Road - was an act of cultural recovery for the Welsh-language community after the longest gap in Urdd history outside the war years.

Image: Ceri Thomas | CC BY-SA 2.0

2022 Denbighshire Urdd National Eisteddfod: A Century of the Urdd, Almost Lost

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ceri Thomas, CC BY-SA 2.0. Urdd Gobaith Cymru - the Welsh League of Youth - was founded in 1922 by Ifan ab Owen Edwards to give Welsh-speaking children somewhere to play, sing, recite and compete in their own language. The Urdd National Eisteddfod, the league's annual festival, has been held every year sin...

Image: Ceri Thomas | CC BY-SA 2.0

2022 Denbighshire Urdd National Eisteddfod: The Field at Kilford Farm

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Simply south, CC BY-SA 3.0. Maes is the Welsh word for field, and at every Eisteddfod the Maes is the temporary city the festival builds. The 2022 Maes sat on the working fields of Kilford Farm on the Whitchurch Road, a short walk from Denbigh's medieval centre. The nearest railway station was Rhyl on the n...

Image: Simply south | CC BY-SA 3.0

2022 Denbighshire Urdd National Eisteddfod: Three Winners, One Festival

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ceri Thomas, CC BY-SA 2.0. Shuchen Xie's composition prize was the centerpiece newsmaker. The Chair - the prize for free-verse poetry, traditionally one of the most prestigious in any Eisteddfod - went to Ciarán Eynon, a young poet who had been a school student in Penrhyn Bay before completing an MA at Car...

Image: Ceri Thomas | CC BY-SA 2.0

2022 Denbighshire Urdd National Eisteddfod: The Parade Down Prestatyn High Street

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ceri Thomas, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Eisteddfod week opened with a parade from Prestatyn High School, led by the Cambria Band, down the seaside town's High Street, ending at Bastion Gardens. About 2,000 people gathered for an afternoon of music and dance - the Denbighshire coast turning out for the festival the ...

Image: Ceri Thomas | CC BY-SA 2.0