Recently there was a history program on S4C about "Y Wladfa" they used the example of a welsh farmer who was booted off his farm by the local English Landlord - the guy was an amateur poet and ended up in Argentina.



The Argies offered up a bloc of 100sqr miles on condition that the wild Patagonian land be settled. One of the people encouraging this emigration was Rev. Michael Daniel Jones - just finished reading a book about him, he was a proponent of preserving Welsh language and is therefore seen as one of the first modern Welsh cultural nationalists.*



He spent time in the U.S. and he noticed that Welsh emigrants very quickly assimilated and lost all their native Welsh culture, by having a "little Wales, outside Wales" he thought they could have a community that would preserve their language and culture far away from English speakers.





*there was alot of this about in the late 19th century - people in Ireland and Wales belatedly realised their native culture was dying out because of assimilation. Ireland had the Gaelic League to try and preserve spoken Irish and the G.A.A. to try and encourage playing of traditional Irish sports. Similar organisations popped up in Wales and Scotland.



As for preserving Irish well, the Welsh did a better job of preserving their language as a daily used language.........Irish was just horsed into us Irish school kids like we were force fed Luxembourg geese, it wasn't taught as a means of communication, everything was geared to passing one frigging exam with the goal of getting extra points if you wanted to get a cushy Civil Service job or the Police.