Set up by three workers from Walter Lloyds office the paper set out to defend the rights of the workingman. Though it also always had articles designed more to entertain than inform. By the turn of the century it had a circulation of around 15,000 copies a week.
However even at its height the seeds of its own destruction could be seen in the slow decline of the Welsh language in the valleys. In addition new ‘Socialist’ papers appeared offering their readers a more radical viewpoint. However ‘Y Darian’ had by this time already sealed its place in the history of the development of the Labour movement in South Wales.
In 1911 the press was sold to the proprietors of ‘The Aberdare Leader’ and both papers were printed in the Tarian offices. The papers name was changed to ‘Y Darian’ - ‘The Shield’ - and began to reflect a readership less interested in social issues as cultural ones.
There was one last great burst of radicalism however when during the First World War the paper was infamous for its antiwar standpoint. This had local workers threatening to burn it down. It continued to lose ground as a paper and was finally closed in 1934.