Welsh Keywords: Crachach
From Planet 227
by Paul O'Leary
This is the twenty-third contribution to our Welsh Keywords series – inspired by Raymond Williams’ Keywords – which offers contemporary perspectives on contested meanings of words in Welsh and how these shifting meanings continue to shape our society.
Crachach is a pejorative word. It is not a term to embrace, or a badge to wear with pride – except, perhaps, ironically. It’s always about ‘them’, never ‘us’. It is difficult to imagine somebody asserting defiantly: ‘I am that name.’ So who are they? Who are (the) crachach? This is where it gets ‘difficult’, to use Raymond Williams’s favoured description of complex keywords.
Liveried servants, Vaynol Hall, Pentir (Caern), from the John Thomas Collection at the National Library of Wales, accessed via Flickr http://bit.ly/2tJBqHh
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