Llanfair PG

“Oh, you speak Welsh?”—here comes the refrain,  

The same bloody question yet once again.  

“Can you say the long funny place name?”  

As if that’s the height of my nation’s fame.  

Half of you here, born and bred,  

Would trip on the words, turn speech to dread.  

Yet somehow, it lingers, a tongue-twisting dare,  

A Victorian gimmick—a tourist’s snare.  

A name so long, a name so grand,  

Yet what does it offer but sea and sand?  

Rhosllannerchrugog, once proud and tall,  

Knocked from the top—no crown at all.  

John Morris-Jones and his tailoring mate,  

Sealed poor Rhos’s unlucky fate.  

And so we are left with a name that’s absurd,  

And yes, I can say it—  

“It.”