John Legonna (Q65659)

John Legonna (1918-1978), farmer, Welsh and Celtic nationalist, and conscientious objector, was of Welsh and Cornish parentage. His family came to Cardiganshire in 1939, and Legonna was educated at Coleg Harlech, the University College of Swansea and Exeter College, Oxford, where he studied law. He married Catherine Irene Thomas and settled in Cardiganshire, farming at Penrhos Fawr and Penlan Mabws, Llanrhystud, and at Ffynnon Gloch and Penparc, Llannarth, resisting conscription into the armed forces because of his nationalist beliefs. He spent much of his life involved in the politics and culture of Wales and the Celtic countries, notably as a founder of the New Nation Group and its magazine, Cilmeri. A selection of his autobiographical essays was published as 'Celtic Odyssey' in 2001. Legonna was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1974, and after an increasingly frustrating struggle with the condition he took his own life with characteristic defiance in 1978.