I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore

Clare Bailey

“Now I know how Joan of Arc felt.” Well, perhaps not quite. But I am starting to understand what it feels like to be on the receiving end of a prejudice that everybody insists doesn’t exist.

I grew up in Holyhead. Mention that in some circles and the reaction is often strange. Sometimes it’s comic. Often, it’s patronising. Occasionally it’s downright insulting.

“You’re not from Holyhead, are you?” “You don’t tell people that, do you?”

I’ve heard that more times than I can count.

It’s usually intended as a compliment.

Which is precisely the problem.

Nobody says, “You’re not from Cardiff, are you?” or “You’re not from Aberystwyth, are you?” as a way of expressing surprise that someone can string a sentence together, hold a conversation, or possess aspirations beyond the next betting slip.

But Holyhead seems to occupy a curious place in the Welsh imagination. It is the island off the island. The outlier. The place that somehow exists slightly outside the accepted Welsh narrative. Recent events brought that reality into sharp focus.

After a recent council by-election returned a Reform councillor in one of the wards, social media lit up with explanations. Not political explanations or economic explanations but anthropological explanations.

The people of Holyhead, apparently, were “very thick”. They “weren’t really Welsh”. Holyhead was “Little England”. The implication was clear enough: if only the town contained the right sort of people, it would surely vote the right sort of way. Imagine applying that logic to any other community in Wales.

We rightly recoil from that kind of language when directed at valleys communities, deprived estates or linguistic minorities. Yet when it comes to Holyhead, many otherwise progressive people seem to experience a temporary suspension of their moral faculties, and their inner egalitarian takes the afternoon off.

The thing about prejudice is that it rarely announces itself as prejudice.

It usually arrives dressed as common sense. Everyone knows what Holyhead is like, don’t they? And the assumptions begin early.

A friend of mine who grew up on a Holyhead housing estate went on to earn a PhD. Yet he has repeatedly found himself having to convince people that this is actually true, as though academic achievement and a Holyhead postcode were somehow mutually exclusive.

Another acquaintance has a child who earned a place at a prestigious university and, according to a widely repeated account, prompted a teacher to remark that they had not expected to find such talent in that school. Holyhead.

Perhaps the most revealing part of such comments is not the insult itself but the confidence with which it is delivered. The assumption runs so deep that people no longer hear it.

I remember being nineteen and out on a date in Trearddur Bay. Things seemed to be going well. At some point, the conversation turned to where I was from.

“I thought you were from Trearddur Bay. You’re from Holyhead…”

“Yeah, Holyhead, Porth y Felin…” Like it would make a difference.

A subtle shift occurred, and I never heard from them again.

Now, it is entirely possible that I was simply terrible company. Historical evidence certainly doesn’t rule that out, but I couldn’t help thinking of that line from The Smiths:

“Now you know the truth about me, you won’t see me anymore.”

Perhaps Morrissey wasn’t singing about postcode prejudice on Anglesey, but I could relate.

Holyhead’s awkward position within Welsh culture is more complicated than simple snobbery.

Welshness

Unlike most of Anglesey, the town does not have the same history of Welsh-medium education. That fact has often been used as evidence in a broader case against the town’s Welshness.

Yet spend any time in Holyhead and a different picture emerges.

People are proud of being Welsh and many speak Welsh.

Many support the preservation and growth of the language.

But try standing in the middle of Holyhead and announcing that the people there aren’t Welsh and see how warmly the observation is received.

The irony is that the same people who would immediately identify prejudice based on race, sexuality or disability can sometimes become remarkably unselfconscious when discussing Holyhead.

Suddenly broad generalisations become acceptable, and stereotypes become truths.

Suddenly an entire community can be reduced to a punchline and hardly anybody challenges it. The silence is often what stings.

Because Holyhead is not merely a collection of statistics or election results. It is a place with a long and fascinating history, an active port town that has connected Wales to the wider world for centuries. A community shaped by migration, trade, industry and resilience. The gateway to Irish independence.

Most importantly, it is a place filled with mostly good people.

The Holyhead I know is a town of neighbours helping neighbours. Of families looking out for one another. Of great humour and banter deployed not as a weapon but as a survival mechanism.

It possesses something increasingly rare in modern times: a genuine sense of community.

Yet somehow the dominant story is written elsewhere.

James

I often think of Dave Baynton-Power, a member of Y Brodyr and later drummer with James, a band whose influence stretches far beyond Wales. I knew his mum, who was a great character, yet his story seldom seems to feature prominently in discussions of Welsh cultural achievement.

Maybe that’s simply chance.

Maybe.

But many people from Holyhead will recognise the nagging suspicion that there is, indeed, a “Holyhead thing”.

An anticipatory prejudice.

An assumption made before you’ve opened your mouth.

Some people of course will say this is nonsense. That it’s all in our heads.

Perhaps.

But when enough people independently report the same experience, it becomes harder to dismiss.

Especially when social media periodically provides a public archive of the very attitudes we are allegedly imagining.

The deeper question is not really about Holyhead.

It is about whether Wales is prepared to examine its own blind spots.

Every nation likes to imagine itself as fair-minded. Every political movement likes to believe it has transcended prejudice. Every cultural establishment likes to think it judges people solely on merit. Yet reality is usually less flattering.

Self-reinforcing

The truth is that some communities acquire reputations that become self-reinforcing. Gatekeepers internalise them, decision-makers absorb them and cultural institutions replicate them. The people on the receiving end notice.

The kid from a housing estate notices.

The PhD graduate notices.

Many of us from Holyhead notice.

What I am asking for is not special treatment, only consistency.

If we object to prejudice, we should object to all of it.

If we believe stereotypes are harmful, we should challenge them even when directed at places we think we understand.

And if somebody feels inclined to post another comment about Holyhead people being stupid, backward, not really Welsh or somehow lesser, perhaps they might consider an alternative approach.

They could always come to Holyhead and say it to people’s faces.

I suspect they would discover something surprising.

Not that Holyhead is perfect – no town is.

But the caricature they’ve been carrying around for years bears very little resemblance to the place itself. And I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.

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