A Cardiff team are inviting newcomers to try Ireland’s favourite pastime: Gaelic football.
St Colmcilles are one of two GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) teams in Wales. Both are based in Cardiff. The team, active in its current setup since 1956, run mixed-gender training twice a week throughout the year.
Gaelic football has rules somewhere between association football and rugby. Rory McKenna, a coach at St Colmcilles, described the sport as a “High-speed running game using a combination of accuracy with the feet, physicality and dexterity with the hands.”
Gaelic football is Ireland’s joint-favourite sport alongside hurling and association football. This is according to research conducted for the Teneo Sport and Sponsorship Index (TSSI).
As well as a strong Irish contingent, St Colmcilles has several first-team Welsh players.
Canton Cafe open nights with new drinks menu
Ffloc on Cowbridge Road is now open until 10pm from Wednesday to Saturday. It opens at 7:30am. In celebration of their first aniversary, Ffloc are now serving beer from Cardiff brewery Crafty Devil, along with wine and charcuterie boards from Aberystwith’ importers Ultracomida. “We’d struggle to find something not Welsh here,” said co-owner Lowri Roberts, originally from Anglesey.
McKenna added that Gaelic football is a good alternative for players “who are fed up with being at the bottom of the ruck on a Saturday morning.” St Colmcilles are looking to grow the sport in Cardiff and are actively looking for players new to the sport. “Give us two months with you,” McKenna said, “and we will have you playing for a position on the pitch.” This will be a welcome invitation for many wanting to participate more in team sports.
According to the National Survey for Wales, adults in south Wales have the highest sporting demand, with 35% saying they want to play more sport.
McKenna has one tip for anyone looking to join the squad: turn up. “
If you’ve ever played anything with a ball,” he added, “with space awareness, in a team environment, turn up, come out, we’ll train you.”
Training resumes in the last weekend of January.
Community larder ‘open to all’ amid cost of
Canton’s Chapter Arts Centre is offering free food and toiletries to all Cardiff residents through its free community larder.
Organisers emphasisesd that no prerequisites are required to use it.
“From the beginning, we wanted something self-run and open to all,” said Chelsea Davies, head
of community services, “no questions asked.”
Donations include packet noodles, sanitary products and long-life milk.
Mali Hâf’s new EP nearly never existed. Her self-titled EP is the singer-songwriter’s first after a succession of bilingual singles. These singles have been heard live at Cardiff’s Tafwyl festival and this year’s Maes B in Ceredigion, as well as frequently playing on BBC Radio Cymru.
Hâf described her upcoming release as “Bilingual witchy trip hop realness.” In Fern Hill, lyrics yn Gymraeg a Saesneg are underpinned by ethereal synth keyboard and a punchy kick drum. In Pedair Deilen, the EP’s closing track, a funky, octave-hopping bass accompanies Hâf’s rhythmic clipped vocals.
In 2022 alone, the Canton creative has released five singles, with the EP still to come. Hâf’s astounding artistic pace comes with its drawbacks.
“I was known in music university for being so bored of my songs very quickly,” she said, “but I do wonder a lot of the time: how much does my ADHD play a part in it?”
Hâf, 25, was diagnosed with ADHD when she was 16 after telling her parents that studying A-levels felt impossible. “If there’s some magic pill,” Hâf told them, “or something that would make me sit down, listen, remember what people said, maybe I would do it.”
Before her diagnosis, Hâf’s ADHD was affecting her life. She was constantly being told she had more potential.
around for ages. I was going to completely leave them.”
An industry mentor convinced her to finish the EP before focusing on writing new music. “I can’t do the ‘take your time’ thing in music,” she said, “I’m just ready to make new stuff and it’s a weird thing to balance.”
The Pedair Deilen singer regularly takes medication to improve her focus: a common issue among those with ADHD. “My mind is more at 100 miles an hour [without medication],” she said, “and when it is the ideas come like out like crazy.”
Nearly 10 years on from her diagnosis, Mali understands how ADHD affects her work. Colourfully dressed in a harlequinesque jumper, Hâf embodies the technicolour nature of her music. Hâf experiences synaesthesia: she finds it easier to express feelings in colour over words.
“I can’t do the ‘take your time’ thing in music. I’m just ready to make new stuff”
She is a calming, grounded presence, but internally, Hâf’s mind is whirring.
“It’s a blessing and a curse that I want to work really fast,” she said. “The songs have been
Hâf finds it hard to hone these ideas without ADHD medication and “Wouldn’t be able to finish any of my creative projects if I wasn’t on them,” she added.
Mali’s focus is now on finishing her first full-length album. “My aim really”, Hâf said, “is to make a set of songs that I’m like ‘yes!’ I haven’t got there yet. And I hope I can get there.”
Her self-titled EP is out now. Fern Hill, the first single from the collection, is also available as a standalone release
Five years ago in 2017, Cardiff United Synagogue increased security measures as a response to a rise in hate crimes across Wales and England.
Speaking at an event in the city, Cardiff Central MS Jenny Rathbone questioned the need for this: “How much of it is for real and how much of it is in their own heads is really hard for an outsider to judge,” the Labour MS said, adding “I think siege mentalities are also part of this.”
The following year, the Jewish Chronicle published a recording of her comments. Rathbone was suspended from the Labour party in November. The Cardiff central MS was one of 96 Labour members suspended from the party due to antisemitism in 2018. That year saw the highest ever recorded rates of antisemitism in the UK. 10 of those incidents were in Wales. By 2022, this had over tripled to nearly 40 incidents in Wales. This equates to around one in five of all anti-religious hate crimes that year.
Judaism is by far the smallest major religion in Wales, making up 0.7% of the religious population. This is around half the size of the
next largest religion, Sikhi. Across England and Wales, Sikhs experience 2% of all religious hate crimes. Whilst still significant, this is notably smaller than the 17% share Welsh Jews experience
Why, for such a small community, are Wales’ Jewish community the target of such a disproportionate amount of hate?
Rabbi Michoel Rose is clearly loved by his congregation. As soon as he opens the door to the Cardiff United Synagogue in Cyncoed, he is inundated with questions, chit-chat and requests. Where others may be overwhelmed by the overlapping conversations, Rose stoically takes it in his stride.
Rose, 35, was born in Leeds. He came to Cardiff via Manchester, Israel and New York, becoming Rabbi at the synagogue in 2015.
Rose said Cardiff’ Jewish community is much smaller than other places he has lived. According to the latest census in 2021, there are 2044 Jews in Wales, the majority of which live in Cardiff. The capital is home to 690 Jewish people. Rabbi Rose’s birthplace of Leeds, which
is twice the population of Cardiff, is currently home to 6267 Jews, meaning Cardiff’s Jewish community could fit into Leeds over nine times.
In ten years, this number has broadly remained the same. In 2011, there were 2064 Jewish people in Wales: a difference of just 20 over a 10-year period.
Compared to other cities, Rabbi Rose said he has not had many negative experiences in Cardiff, which may be in part to the size of Cardiff’s Jewish population. Rose said it may be because “People never see a Jew here really, visibly Orthodox. “If they see one,” Rose continued, “they’re like ‘Oh, what’s this?’ It’s more of a curiosity than an issue.”
Rose said the streets are not where most antisemitism takes place.
“I think certainly online, there’s lots of antisemitic stuff on Twitter, on social media,” the rabbi said. “There’s anything goes there.
“The [crazier] the conspiracy theory, the more the more acceptable it is.”
A 2022 Ofcom report found that over a third of Welsh 8- to 17-year-olds have seen hateful content online.
The volume of online hate speech directly affects hate crimes carried out, according to HateLab: a data centre monitoring and researching online hate speech.
HateLab measured mentions of hate speech in specific areas along with hate crime on the streets.
Professor Matthew Williams, director of HateLab, discussed this correlation in a BBC documentary hosted by comedian and author of Jews Don’t Count David Baddiel.
“We found that, consistently, throughout those areas there was a pattern that emerged,” Williams told Baddiel. “About a week after a peak in hatred on social media we saw an increase in hate on the streets. “This gives us some indication that there’s a potential relationship between the two,” said Williams.
Rabbi Rose is aware of the correlation. The additional security for his synagogue was in response to such a spike. “The security is not for fun. It’s because there are people who are actively trying to cause harm,” he said.
Other forms of media have
combatted misinformation by highlighting the reality of Jewish history and experience.
Pentiment, a videogame released in November, is set in a historically accurate depiction of 16th century Bavaria. Your character writes often to her friend Esther: the daughter of Jewish printers living on the outskirts of nearby Prague.
Esther and her family are successful but are not allowed into the city due to their faith.
place in Wales too.
A former synagogue in Merthyr Tydfil is being transformed into the Welsh Jewish Heritage Centre.
The project, run by the Foundation for Jewish Heritage, aims to “Educate and celebrate the Jews of Wales, while conveying an important message about diversity, tolerance and understanding,” according to their website. Its patrons include Huw Edwards and David Baddiel.
Prague expelled all Jews twice in the 16th century despite many practicing valuable trades.
Josh Sawyer, Pentiment’s director, was intent on exploring characters from all walks of society. Sawyer told the Friends Per Second Podcast that he wanted to show everyone “I want to show everyone, including “Printers and millers and noble people and executioners and tinkers and Jews,” he said.
Jewish characters also use a traditional form of the Lord’s name in conversation, HaShem, educating players on Jewish history and culture.
Similar education is taking
A year after Jenny Rathbone’s comments on his synagogue’s security, Michoel Rose met with the Cardiff Central MS to discuss what she had said. “I think she realised a lot of those comments were not based on knowledge,” Rose said, “or based on an outsider’s knowledge that is not aware of the situation in the way we experience it.”
“The [crazier] the conspiracy theory, the more the more acceptable it is.”