The creation of Y Gair Rhydd

The merger gave birth to Colossus, a student newspaper that attempted to merge Broadsheet and Impact—but failed.

According to John Hartley, who cofounded the Gair Rhydd with his friend Dave Aldridge (both students at UCC studying English), the Y Gair Rhydd was born from the ashes of Broadsheet and the failure of Colossus.

Both had been editors at the predecessor Broadsheet. When the amalgamated paper Colossus was not much of a success, they decided to launch a new title. The Y Gair Rhydd. Hartley recalls, “It was free to readers – production costs were met by the Joint Student Union, and of course labour was ‘free’.”

“Dave and I were Co-Editors for a while, then he went solo while I did production and photography work, and I also worked on a “Colour Supplement” (as was the fashion then!), called Hard Times, which lasted a few issues under the editorship of Howard Blumenthal and Louise Earwaker.”

Hard Times was a colour magazine that was inserted into the Y Gair Rhydd and ran for a short time in the 1970s. It was a little more artsy than the rest of the paper, with reviews on music, literature, theatre, and television. It was also dedicated to Welsh language activism during a period of resurgence. Under each article in Hard Times, a summary in Welsh (and sometimes entire reviews) could be found.

Hartley explains that there were, “few Welsh-speakers available (they had better things to do). So [in the Y Gair Rhydd] we featured stories in Welsh when we could get them. And some in English about the politics of the Welsh language, including a full-page spread in the first issue.”

Over time, the ‘Y’ was dropped from the name that Hartley bestowed—becoming simply Gair Rhydd. Its significance, however, was not lost. The Welsh title translates as 'free word'. This can be interpreted in two ways. Either literal, because the paper was free for students to read. Or it could be metaphorical, a nod to the free press.