PRESIDENT MICHAEL D Higgins joined the granddaughter of Dylan Thomas as guests of honour at a dinner held to mark the centenary of the poet’s birth this week.
The pair were among a select group hosted by Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones at the dinner in Swansea on Monday, exactly 100 years to the day of Thomas’ 1914 birth.
A bustling 36-hour ‘Dylathon’ centenary celebration was well under way as the Irish head of state arrived for his two-day visit — his first official trip to the country, which began with a number of political commitments in Cardiff.
President Higgins and wife Sabina, who accompanied him on the British trip, were first hosted by Cardiff Council leader Phil Bale at the city’s Mansion House for an early lunch on Monday afternoon. A visit to the Welsh National Assembly, for a meeting with First Minister Jones, followed, before the President met with members from all political parties represented at the Assembly.
Only then could President Higgins get to the business of honouring Thomas in his home city of Swansea at the Dylan Thomas Centre.
First Minister Jones also made the journey, with his wife, to watch the President officially open a special centenary exhibition at the centre, before attending a performance of a segment of Thomas’ Under Milk Wood.
“If there are any certainties to be carried into the future, I would suggest that one is that wherever poetry in the English language is called up, be it in lonely places or seminar rooms of universities, Dylan Thomas’ name will be invoked, and some of his lines will be quoted,” President Higgins later said.
While paying tribute to the Welsh literary great, he was also keen to remember his family — namely his wife Caitlin, a second generation Irish woman, his mother Florence and his granddaughter Hannah.
“To the friends, lovers, and true companions of art and literature, this celebration indeed belongs to you and to our honoured centenary,” he claimed.
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