French Invasion Tapestry

1797 was a big year here in Llanwnda, Pembrokeshire, Wales, United Kingdom.
The French invaded.  February. Cold.

They landed from sailing ships, climbed the cliff at Carreg Wasted, tromped across the fields, sheltered in our church where they burned the hymnals and pews and tried to burn an antique Welsh bible.

They got drunk.  The local farmers, forbears of our neighbors, chased them with pitchforks and confined them to clifftops.  The invaders straggled down into Fishguard where they found some British troops waiting to demand their surrender.  The women of Fishguard put on their traditional Welsh dress (red shawls and tall black hats) marched around the hill tops.  Frightened, cold--the invaders surrendered.

The invasion was one prong of a French attempt to support the Irish rebellion led by Wolf Tone. Other landings were taking place in Ireland at the same time and were also unsuccessful. There is no discussion locally of the wider context of the invasion.  I wonder if the French and Irish thought they would receive a better reception in Wales than in English Britain?  The invasion really is a footnote to history since it was only a year or so later that Napoleon arose and Britain was embroiled in a much more serious fight.

The display does have written panels about the aftermath of the invasion including the financial disarray of the empire.  We are not used to thinking of Britain as financially fragile, but there was a run on banks and financial panic as news of the invasion spread.  The Treasury had to intervene forcefully and to the upper limits of their resources to keep the country afloat.

1997 was another big year--the anniversary of the invasion.
The women were heroes again, creating a tapestry of the historic event.

A complex and lovely tapestry, it is self-consciously modeled on the Bayeux tapestry which describes an earlier French invasion.  Women all over the area worked on the tapestry, including some of our neighbors in Llanwnda.  (Other neighbors are so glad they did not have to embroider horses and other scenes--really hard to get it right.) I am impressed with the range of local talent since the design and all aspects of the production were carried out by local people.

The tapestry is beautifully done. They used a limited range of stitches and colors as is also true of the Bayeux tapestry.  The style and color are consistent throughout the 100 or so feet of the tapestry, despite having more than 70 different workers. The super and sub scripts are in Welsh and English.

The tapestry is on display at the public library in the Town Hall.  There is a film too about how they designed and carried out the work.  For more information, click this link.

The invasion in pictures: