To be born Welsh is to be born privileged, not with a silver spoon in your mouth, but music in your blood and poetry in your soul.

-- Old Welsh saying

The red dragon with its curled tail.

The leek.

Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette Getting ready to celebrate an important Welsh anniversary are members of the St. David's Society. From left are David E. Williams, Dale P. Richards and Barbara Pietrala. Richards holds the Red Dragon, a Welsh symbol. Click photo for larger image. Recipe: Welsh Cakes

The daffodil.

The symbols of the Welsh will be prominent around the region over the next several days as the St. David's Society celebrates the life of Wales' patron saint, whose death is marked on March 1.

Central to the celebrations will be a pub crawl with traditional Welsh singing in Market Square tomorrow night, a luncheon Saturday complete with Welsh storytelling and a St. David's Run through the South Side on Tuesday night. All the events are aimed at raising awareness about the region's Welsh and bringing in donations for the new Welsh nationality room at the University of Pittsburgh. The room is slated to open by 2007.

The trio of events marks a new era for the St. David's Society here, which, like its counterparts around the country, represents the Welsh and their descendants.

Locally, the St. David's Society was formed in the late 1930s, but only now is enjoying renewed interest.

"We're putting a lot of energy into it," said David E. Williams, president.

The society has 200 active members, and more than double that number receive the monthly newsletter. A Welsh language class is set to begin next month. There also is a Welsh dance group, choir and a genealogical assistance group affiliated with the society; an annual songfest and tea; and a film festival.

"Right now, our society is getting much more vibrant," said Barbara Pietrala, the organization's vice president. "We're getting a lot of younger people. Around here, we're really growing."

	St. David's Day Pub Crawl The annual St. David's Day Pub Crawl is tomorrow at Market Square. Bring your Welsh songs, jokes and stories. The schedule: River City Inn, Market and Blvd. of the Allies -- 5:30 p.m. (assemble). Ciao Baby -- 6:40 p.m. Pittsburgh Cigar Bar -- 7:15 p.m. Ale House -- 7:50 p.m. 1902 Tavern -- 8:25 p.m. Primanti Brothers -- 9 p.m. Buon Giorno -- 9:35 p.m River City Inn, post party -- 10:30 p.m. For more information, send e-mail to blaine.popp@verizon.net or visit the Web site stdavidsdaypubcrawl.com.

Talk of building a Welsh nationality room began in the 1980s, said Dale P. Richards, who co-chairs the fund-raising committee for the St. David's Society. At the time, the organization hosted an event here for Welsh-American people from around the country that included a visit to the Cathedral of Learning.

"We'd be taking people on tours, but there was no Welsh room," Richards said.

There are, however, nationality rooms for the Irish, Scottish and English. Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales are the four separate countries that make up Great Britain.

Initial efforts to open a Welsh room fizzled but were revived in 2001. To date, $200,000 -- about half of what is needed -- has been raised.

The room, designed by architect Martin Powell of the Design Alliance, will be a replica of a pre-1787 barn converted into a Welsh chapel with a pulpit, reversible benches, box seats and pastor's residence and balcony.

The society chose a chapel because of its religious significance, but also because chapels served as the center of community life in Wales in the 18th century.

"It's going to be a tribute and a monument to the Welsh heritage in the United States and internationally," Williams said.

Although other ethnic groups, such as Italians, Poles and Irish, have been more prominent in Pennsylvania, it was people from the tiny country of Wales seeking religious freedom who made up the largest wave of immigrants settling in the Commonwealth from 1682 to 1700, according to the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. Thus it was the Welsh who shaped the political, economic and social development of Pennsylvania.

In fact, early Welsh settlers obtained a 40,000-acre tract of land from William Penn and established their own self-governed colony outside of Philadelphia. It lasted only a few years as other settlers moved onto the land. But through the first decades of the 1700s, other Welsh colonies were established throughout the mid-state and Southeastern Pennsylvania.

Skilled Welsh laborers arrived here in two subsequent waves in the 1800s, founding communities such as Ebensburg in Cambria County and then steadily moving into Western Pennsylvania. But by the late 1800s, the flow of Welsh immigrants to America subsided.

Even so, of 53,768 Welsh who arrived in America between 1881 and 1920, the majority settled in Pennsylvania. As a result, the Commonwealth today has more than 200,000 people of Welsh ancestry, more than any other state.

For more information about the St. David's Society of Pittsburgh or the Welsh nationality room, visit the Web site www.stdavidssociety.org or call Dale P. Richards at 412-795-4050.