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A huge ‘Thank You’ to all the generous people and landlords of pubs we visited in west Swansea, Mumbles, Gower, and Swansea Valley who, during the Christmas period, watched us perform the traditional local Mummers Plays, The Gower Christmas Sport and Crwmpyn John. We have a lot of fun keeping these old traditions alive, and you all obviously enjoyed watching as we raised the considerable sum of £1060 for the Ty Olwen Hospice Trust which we consider a very worthy charity!
Here’s photographs of us donating the amount we raised to the wonderful staff at Ty Olwen Hospice. Photos by Paul Tarrant
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Wassail!
Sweyn’s Ey Morris will be performing at the Gower Heritage Centre, Parkmill on Saturday 11th from 3pm. Come along to watch us dance Morris and perform the traditional Gower Christmas Sport Mummers Play from 3pm and at 4:15pm, before joining in with the Mari Llwyd procession at dusk. It will be noisy, it will be madness, it will be fun! In the absence of a write up for this event, I have included the advert for this event that I posted up on Facebook. I could not make it as it was my grand daughter's birthday! Photos kindly supplied by Zep Agopyan. We were to have performed on Sunday 5th at Craig y Nos Country Park but sadly that event was cancelled due to another big storm that brought down several of the mature trees in the park.
We performed at the Penllegare/Penllegaer Woods Coffee Shop on Saturday. There was a Mari Llwyd in attendance too and between us we entertained quite a crowd of people walking off those dread Christmas calories and the expanding waist lines!
We gave two performances of the Gower Christmas Sport Mummers play and people watching us, very generously put £91 into our hats which will be donated to Ty Olwyn Hospice at Morriston Hospital. It was good to bump into Brian & Meg Richards. Brian was a member of Sweyn’s Ey during the 80-90s and performed as the Narrator in the Mummers Play back then. Here’s a pic of us posing by the cafe door and Brian Richards. Well, what a night! We visited the Beaufort, Valley Hotel, The Joiners, Gower Inn, and King Arthur Hotel where we gave two performances, performing The Christmas Sport Mummers Play. We had a great time, and it was very clear that the people watching really enjoyed what they saw, judging from the very positive feedback that was posted up on Facebook! The atmosphere was great and we collected a considerable amount for the Ty Olwen Hospice at Morriston Hospital. The amount collected so far after four tours stands at £737!
Huge ‘Diolch yn fawr & Thank You’ to the people of Swansea, Mumbles, Swansea Valley and Gower for your kind donations and watching us perform this crazy, local long running Christmas tradition. Photos by Sian. Wednesday 18th was an evening of big, big floods in the Mumbles area which was where we were performing the Christmas Sport! We gave performances in White Rose, Waterloo Stores and Mumbales where we received a very big welcome!
So, why do we do this? Because it’s immense fun keeping an old Swansea Valley/ Gower folk custom alive- we’ve been doing the Plays since 1978! During our performances we collect for deserving local charities, and this year we collected for Ty Olwen Cancer Hospice at Morriston Hospital. Thanks to Sian Musgrave for the photos. Friday 13th, we visited the Swansea Valley, which had its own play called Crwmpyn John which was performed by young lads in colliery villages from the early 1900s up to the 1950s. We visited The Millers at Ynystawe, The Gwachel Pontardawe, Butchers Arms Alltwen, The Chameleon Ystradgynlais, and Wern Fawr Ystalyfera. Di and Erin did sterling work playing the Crwmpyn John & Jingle In parts, with Erin fully engaging with the spirit of the thing and in the glass! Geoff deserves special mention, having ended up lying on the floor of each pub performed in on all the tours!
Thanks to Sian Musgrave for the pics. The Sweyn’s Ey Mumming Tours 2024
We started off visiting the Sketty and Killay area on Thursday 12th December, visiting The Vivs, The Village Inn and The Railway, performing the Christmas Sport Mummers Play. The play has a long history, being recorded seen at Stouthall House on Gower around 1845, and up to eight different versions being collected throughout Gower and west Swansea, as well as Killay! A couple of our regular players were struck low with flu but we performed the play with a few new characters drafted in. All enjoyed the friendliness of the pubs we visited. We visited the Cardiff Ale which was held in Penarth Conservative Club on the Friday evening. The evening followed the usual form of previous Cardiff Ales with each side there [Cardiff Morris, Carreg Las, White Hart Morris, Isca Morris and ourselves] performing a dance and then mixed sets would get up to do a dance that had been suggested by being written up on a whiteboard. Cardiff Morris had supplied two barrels of ale and the local Indian restaurant provided excellent curries to cater for everyone's needs, and of course there was the obligatory sing song after food when Squire Ben regaled us with The Pirate Song which had everyone singing. We performed our new dance 'Curly Boar' for the first time in public, and it went down well. See photo below which is a still from a video by Alex Heney showing the Arrows figure from the dance.
Most of us left for home at the end of a thoroughly good evening, but Keith and Paul took advantage of the accommodation provided in a Scout Hut down the road and travelled back next morning. Can’t wait for the next one! Photos by Paul. Morriston Victorian Day Saturday 23rd November 2024
Sweyn’s Ey Morris, along with several other choirs, singers, brass bands, craft groups and historians, visited Morriston in the midst of Storm Bert. Last year we were lucky to perform for this event in glorious sunshine, but it wasn’t quite like that this year! We had to perform in the St David’s Church hall which was great as it was warm & dry, and we gave a display that included British Grenadiers, Speed the Plough, Lads a Bunchum, Valentines, Vandals and Bonnie Green. Our main musician Sian was sadly absent (get well soon x) but melodeons were dusted off and played for the occasion. Following our performance, we visited the Red Lion for a light lunch, ale and a chat whilst the rain hammered down and the wind howled outside. A good day out, this late in the season. Thanks to Claire & Erin for taking the Photos. |
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AuthorSMost of our blog posts are written by Paul Tarrant (our archivist), with occasional contributions from other members of the side. Each post goes up first on our Facebook page, alongside a lot more photos than we put on the blog. Check out our Facebook page right here if you want to see more! Archives
February 2025
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