Albert Evans-Jones - National Eisteddfod

National Eisteddfod

Cynan is best known for his huge influence in the modernisation of the National Eisteddfod. He was Archdruid twice, the only person to have been elected to the position for a second term. His two terms were from 1950 till 1954 and from 1963 till 1966. He was the Recorder of the Gorsedd of Bards in 1935, and joint-secretary of the National Eisteddfod Council in 1937. He was the First Archdruid to accept that the Gorsedd was the invention of Iolo Morganwg and that it had no links to antiquity or with the ancient Druids, thus healing rifts between the academic and ecclesiastical establishments and the Eisteddfod movement.

Cynan is also responsible for designing the modern ceremonies of the Crowning and the Chairing of the Bard in the Eisteddfod as they are now performed, by creating ceremonies which, he thought, reflected the spirit of the Welsh Nation.

Cynan was also prominent as a National Eisteddfod competitor. He won the crown in 1921 at the Caernarfon National Eisteddfod for his poem Mab y Bwthyn (A cottage son), which recounted the experience of a Welshman in the Great War. He won the Crown for his poem Yr Ynys Unig (The Lonely Isle) in the Mold Eisteddfod of 1923; his third crowned poem, Y Dyrfa / The Crowd ( Bangor 1931 ), described a rugby match - the first time such a topic was attempted in Welsh poetry. To add to his three crowns Cynan was also awarded the chair in 1924 for a poem I'r Duw nid adwaenir (To the unknown God), which is a unique achievement in that it is the only time that the chair has been awarded to a winning poem that was not written within the strict rules of Cynghanedd.

Cynan also adjudicated many times at the National Eisteddfod.