My mother remembers, before the War on Anglesey, there being a sort of Thanksgiving holiday on Anglesey, associated with Harvest Festival. She says the shops were closed and everyone was off work. There would be a huge family meal at home, and then a concert in the church. She’s adamant this was a weekday holiday, not a Sunday thing.
Has anyone else heard of anything like this, on Anglesey or elsewhere in North Wales. @CatrinLliarJones? I know your family are from Pen Llyn
Bore da @Catriona!
Yes I was brought up in Pen Llyn, but my paternal Nain (grandmother) was from Anglesey and that is where her and my Taid (grandfather) lived till they passed away. Having said that I’ve no memory of her celebrating Diolchgarwch/Harvest Festival in any special or different way to us.
Diolchgarwch/Harvest Festival weekend for us included a special service in church where the kids from the school took part. The church was specially decorated and the local bakery would donate a decorative loaf to display on the altar. Everyone attending to the service would bring a food gift to place by the altar during the service, which the vicar would bless, then in the following days distribute to care homes and such.
There was also always a special concert in school to which the parents were invited, we would make harvest festival related crafts and read related stories and poetry etc.
We would usually have a special Sunday dinner that day and there would be a kind of holiday atmosphere.
But Anglesey has a big farming community, so it’s quite possible that they would have celebrated harvest differently - from more of a farming point of view rather than a religious one. Therefore it is quite possible that at the end of harvest, where the farms would have employed extra hands to help, they may well have celebrated by having parties and time off?
It would certainly be interesting to find out. 
I think @AlanP has done some research into Welsh harvest traditions - he might be able to help.
It would! I think what you describe sounds much like Harvest Festival as it was celebrated round much of the country not so long ago. Mum thinks this was something fairly unique to Anglesey - and it makes sense as you say that this was a very rural. agricultural community.
I am not sure if it continued after the War, so I am asking for some fairly long-stretching memories!
Hi @Catriona, I’ve just done a quick search on the National Library of Wales website - go to Newspapers - and using ‘harvest thanksgiving anglesey’ as a search term quite a large number of references come up, though not all of them about Anglesey. (You may even wish to add in ‘holiday’ to the search term.) Short of someone on here recalling this, it may be your best bet. It is more than likely that Anglesey did something different as traditions have always varied such a lot, even with the advent of harvest festival.
My own MA thesis dealt mainly with much older harvest traditions, and in Chapter 4 I dealt with the transition from Harvest Supper to Harvest Festival - with a couple of scant references to Anglesey, but nowhere near as specific as you’re looking for. But should you wish to glance at it, it’s on this thread:
Welsh Harvest Traditions
I’ve thought of two other avenues of enquiry, if/when I can pursue them. They are both thanks to Beca a’i Phobl, @beca-brown
The first is Dyn o Paradwys, the book written by Meinir Gwilim’s hen-taid. It talks about his life in the early part of the 20th C on Anglesey. He was exactly the same age as my taid, so the fit would be perfect. I bought a copy of the book, but unfortunately I gave it to my mum in Canada. And I can’t ask her to look because her eyesight is failing and sadly she has only been able to read a couple of pages. But when I can finally travel to Canada again … !
The second was something Tristan Lewis said in his talk on Easter music. He mentioned some churches and chapels having Noson Llawen on Easter Saturday, until they decided that they were too frivolous for the solemnity of Easter-tide. But they sound a lot like the concerts mum remembers. And if they happened at Easter I can easily see them happening at harvest time.
She didn’t call them Noson Llawen, though. It was hard to catch what she said over the phone, but I THINK they called them Cyngerdd Cysglyd, ‘sleepy concerts’, because everyone was so full from their big Harvest Supper that they were falling asleep.
Actually it was worse that that. They were ‘cygerdd drewllyd’ - stinky concerts - because of all the… well, I leave it to your imaginations 