ABSTRACT
Protestant Nonconformity has traditionally been seen as an important carrier of Welsh cultural and social identity, but religious practice in Wales is now declining at a faster rate than anywhere else in the UK. Both the Welsh reputation for piety and a distinctive sense of national identity are relatively recent phenomena, emerging in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. By the late 19th century, the individual Welsh chapel had become transformed into a form of public religion, the concrete expression of communities that lived, worked, worshipped and died in tightly circumscribed locales. The 1904–5 Revival can be seen as a prime example of a social movement acting as a vehicle for cultural resistance, articulating the concerns of many Welsh people about the growing hegemony of English culture in both the religious and secular spheres of Welsh society. Facing the 21st century, it is apparent that the Welsh are no longer 'wedded to the chapel'.
