Dafydd Rowlands

David Heslin Rowlands (25 December 1931 – 26 April 2001) was a Congregational minister, lecturer and writer. Rowlands won the crown at the National Eisteddfod in 1969 and 1972, and was made archdruid in 1996.

Life history Rowlands was born in Pontardawe in 1931; his father, Lewis Dennis Rowlands, was a steelworker. His father abandoned the family when Dafydd was ten; he never saw his father again. After leaving education he worked as a Congregational minister. Rowlands left the ministry and became a teacher at Garw Grammar School in Pontycymer. and that same year he won the Prose Medal for his volume of essays Ysgrifau yr Hanner Bardd. This was followed by three collections of poetry, Meini (1972), Yr Wythfed (1975) and Sobers a Fi (1995) and in 1980 he produced a pamphlet of prose poetry Paragraffau o Serbia. In 1977 Rowlands wrote the experimental Mae Theomemphus yn Hen, a prose novel in the Welsh language. In the novel he explored his relationship with his father in an uncompromising self-examination, rarely seen in modern Welsh literature. He was archdruid (David Rowland) from 1996 to 1999.

Rowlands died of ischaemic heart disease in 2001.