Mr. Speaker, the St. David's Society of Peterborough recently hosted the Gymanfa of the Ontario Welsh Festival. A highlight of the event was a performance by the Cantorion Glan Alun from Mold, Wales. As a result of that choir's visit to Ottawa, I rediscovered two Welsh facts associated with Parliament Hill.
First, the inscription in the Peace Tower chapel, "All's well for over there, among his peers, a happy warrior sleeps", is from the poem "The Returning Man" by John Ceredigion Jones.Mr. Jones was a Montrealer who was born in Wales and died in Chapleau, Ontario in 1947. He wrote the poem in Calgary in 1921-22.
Second, the name of 24 Sussex Drive is Gorffwysfa which means place of rest in Welsh. The house was built in 1867 by John Currier. I am not sure why a Welsh name was chosen.
I refer members interested in Welsh heritage to the Ottawa Journal for Remembrance Day, 1948 and to Maureen McTeer's book, Residences-Homes of Canada's Leaders .