1967 – First Mardi Gras Carnival

The Butetown Carnival traces its roots to a community Mardi Gras launched in the mid-1960s. In 1967, Cardiff politicians and community leaders organised what was then called the Butetown Mardi Gras, billed as an “International Caribbean Carnival,” as a goodwill event for the “poor people of Butetown” amid a period of local slum clearance. The festival in Butetown’s old park brought Afro-Caribbean carnival traditions (introduced by seamen from West Africa and the Caribbean) together with Welsh folk customs like the Mari Lwyd. Keith Murrell, who would later become carnival director, recalls attending that first Mardi Gras as a child: “We used to call it the Butetown Mardi Gras back then, but it has always been a celebration of the Butetown community”. Though initially successful, this early top-down carnival ran only a few years before the council cancelled it, a decision that would later inspire Butetown’s community-led carnival in the years to come. The 1967 Mardi Gras set a precedent of cultural pride, music, and dance, planting the seeds for a lasting multicultural celebration in Cardiff’s Tiger Bay.

Residents of diverse backgrounds gather outside a Butetown pub in the 1950s, reflecting the strong community bonds in “Tiger Bay.” The mid-1960s found Cardiff’s Butetown (historically known as Tiger Bay) at a crossroads. This dockside district – famous as one of Britain’s first multicultural communities – was enduring upheaval from slum clearance and urban redevelopment. City authorities, long viewing Tiger Bay’s cramped 19th-century streets as “unfit for habitation,” had begun bulldozing entire blocks of old terraced housing bytimline.com . Dozens of streets – including the historic Loudoun Square – were razed, and modern estates with concrete courts and two 16-story tower blocks (Loudoun House and Nelson House) sprang up. wikipedia Many lifelong residents were relocated into these new high-rises, a process one writer decried as “unprecedented cultural vandalism,” with once‐happy families moved into soulless tower flats. The redevelopment unsettled and dispersed the tight-knit community, where people from over 50 nationalities had lived, worked, and intermarried for generations. Amid demolition notices appearing on doorways and mixed feelings among residents, Butetown in 1967 was a community in flux: materially impoverished but rich in cultural heritage and resilience.

Cultural Crossroads: Afro-Caribbean Meets Welsh Traditions

 

Despite hardship, Tiger Bay’s culture remained vibrant. For decades, local residents (hailing from Africa, the Caribbean, Asia, the Middle East, and rural Wales) had shared traditions, music and food, creating a unique and rich multicultural milieu. By the 1960s, this melting pot gave rise to new cultural expressions, notably a community carnival. Seafarers from West Africa and the Caribbean had long infused Cardiff’s docklands with Carnival traditions: impromptu street parades, calypso and soul music, masquerade costumes, and rhythmic steel-pan drumming. These influences merged with Welsh folk customs; for example, the carnival incorporated the Mari Lwyd (the Welsh New Year “grey mare” hobby-horse ritual) and other local festivities.

“Some of the carnival’s earliest traditions were brought to the area by Afro-Caribbean seamen, and they merged with some of our old Welsh traditions, such as the Mari Lwyd,” recalls Keith Murrell, a Butetown native and future carnival organiser. A travelling fairground would also be set up in Loudoun Square during Carnival time – a continuation of the winter fairs that had visited Butetown for years. This blending of Caribbean carnival spirit with Welsh community celebration created a distinctly Butetown cultural event: festive parades, music and dance, vibrant costumes and floats, and even elements of Welsh choral singing and brass bands, all coming together under the summer sun.

1967: A Mardi Gras for “the Poor People of Butetown”

In this climate of social change, Cardiff’s leaders launched the Butetown Mardi Gras of 1967 – the event that would later be remembered as the first Butetown Carnival. Cardiff politicians and community leaders organised the festival as a goodwill or “philanthropic gesture” to bring joy to the embattled Butetown community. Billed at the time as an “International Caribbean Carnival,” the Mardi Gras was explicitly dedicated to the “poor people of Butetown,” an attempt to uplift spirits amid the disruption of the clearance scheme. The festival was held in Butetown’s old park (often called “Butetown Park”) and featured a lively street parade alongside events in a large marquee near the community centre. It brought together Afro-Caribbean music, dance, masquerade, and Welsh folk performances in a celebratory showcase of Butetown’s diversity.

Contemporary reports describe costumed dancers and steel drum bands winding through the neighbourhood, while local Welsh traditions like the Mari Lwyd and folk dancing entertained onlookers. A carnival queen was crowned, and food stalls offered Caribbean curries next to Welsh cakes – symbolic of the event’s cross-cultural flavour (as oral histories suggest). A funfair in Loudoun Square delighted local children with rides and games.

In summary, the Butetown Mardi Gras of 1967 is a landmark in Cardiff’s social history. Born of a unique collaboration between the Afro-Caribbean diaspora and Welsh locals, fueled by community spirit and a touch of political patronage, it provided a moment of celebration amid adversity. While the bulldozers reshaped the streets of Tiger Bay, the Carnival helped ensure the soul of the community survived. It established a template for multicultural festival culture in Wales and inspired Butetown’s residents to take ownership of their narrative in the years ahead. The vibrant Carnival tradition that continues in Cardiff Bay today – after revivals and new generations of organisers – can trace its roots back to that summer of 1967, when music and dance filled the old Butetown park and a diverse community proudly celebrated “what we have always been”. The Butetown Carnival story begins here, in 1967, with an event that was much more than a party – it was an affirmation of identity, unity, and the enduring spirit of Tiger Bay.