Pubs with Welsh animal names in Cardiff

In Wales’ capital there has been a outbreak of drinking establishments with animal names in Welsh. Most are recent additions to the city. By recent, I mean in pub years. Anyway here goes.

Milgi
City Road’s arty cocktail bar. Milgi means “greyhound”. Milgi is derived from ci (dog, pronounced like the English word “key”). I’m not sure what the “mil” bit means, anyone? Anyway, the plural of milgi is milgwn. Another similar word is corgi which literally means “dwarf dog”. The food is quite dear I suppose but pretty unusual. Likelihood of a Cymraeg conversation: medium (the sisters who own it are Welsh speakers from near Aberystwyth)
milgilounge.com

Y Fuwch Goch
It means “The Red Cow” where “coch” is red and “buwch” is cow. It’s on Womanby Street and is a bar owned by Clwb Ifor Bach, which itself is directly opposite. They also do Welsh food but only on Fridays and Saturdays. Clwb Ifor Bach is not named after an animal as such, but a Welsh revolutionary. As with Clwb, in Y Fuwch Goch nearly all the bar staff speak Welsh. Likelihood of a Cymraeg conversation in Y Fuwch Goch: fairly high (on a random night) and very high (on, say, their occasional Welsh language comedy nights ayyb)
yfuwchgoch.com

Y Cadno
It means “The Fox”. It’s aiming to be a new “traditional” pub on Cathedral Road, but it has been described by some as a “Victorian theme bar”. I’m not sure if the fox is dead or alive in their big concept. I haven’t been there so I can’t give it a likelihood of Cymraeg rating. No website.

Gwdihŵ
As far as I know, gwdihw is the only onomatopoeic word for an animal which Welsh has. Or indeed any language has. (Other than the Cantonese word for duck, I hear you cry!). It means “owl” and I have a feeling it’s more of a hwntw (south Walean dialect) word. Another word for owl is “tylluan” but that’s not a drinking establishment yet. Full disclosure: I DJ there. Incidentally, if you stand on a specific spot on Guildford Crescent in front of Gwdihw you can see the back of Cineworld which resembles an owl. The owl is sometimes considered a Masonic symbol and they too have a building visible from that spot. So we have a triumvirate of owls here. I guess exploration of that line of enquiry is outside the scope of this blog post.
gwdihw.co.uk

Y Mochyn Du
It means “The Black Pig”. It’s just off Cathedral Road. It is perhaps the daddy of them all here because of the regular dysgwyr (learner) meet-up events and Cymraeg things in general (pub quizzes, folk music, ayyb). All the bar staff speak Welsh. Likelihood of a Cymraeg conversation: very high. No website though, there is a mochyn-shaped hole in the web. I have always found out about their events on the grapevine.

I used “ayyb” in this post a couple of times, which stands for “ac yn y blaen”. It means “etc”. You would say “ac yn y blaen” just like you’d say “etcetera” when you see “etc”. It’s good for conversations, meetings, lectures… I dunno, media appearances – when you run out of words. Make an appropriate hand movement and say it with confidence, they’ll assume you contain universes.

It’s not all about Cardiff, nor is it about animal names – nor a good pint of Brains. It’s just that it is in my world. If you want to redress any perceived imbalance here, comments are open (as are numerous blogging services).

Tagged as: anifeiliaid, ayyb, caerdydd, cardiff, etc, pub, tafarn