ABSTRACT
The notion of national identity is a complex one and it is never easy to define what constitutes national identity without recourse to stereotypes. Until the mid-nineteenth century, the idea of Welsh nationhood was likely to conjure up a romanticised version of history, folklore and the Celtic twilight'. The title Prince of Wales', though ancient, had survived into the nineteenth century as a matter of political expediency. Twenty-first-century Wales is characterised by secularism and sometimes a militant atheism. None the less, until recently, and probably still in the popular perception, Wales is a nation dominated by Protestant Nonconformity and its chapel culture. The Blue Books had a huge influence on the nineteenth- and twentieth-century development of Welsh identity in opposition to the English. In 1831 the South Wales Calvinistic Methodist Association met at Llangeitho and among its activities was the planning of celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of the Sunday school movement.
