I Discussed This With My Uni International Languages Teacher And He Was As Confused As I Was By The Issue - Tumblr Posts

(hiraeth is a welsh cultural word that specifically relates to a longing for a wales, in particular one that never was due to english influence/colonisation & their attempted destruction of our language. if you’re not welsh, please don’t use it just to mean ‘homesickness/nostalgia/longing’ because that’s not what it means.)

Hello! The word is naturally linked heavily to these historical events due to its propagation as it attained new meaning, but 'hiraeth' has been used to mean "longing for a person, a place or a time that you can’t get back to, a kind of unattainable longing," (Marian Brosschot) since the earliest records of Welsh language. Using it in another context other than the one of the dismantling of Welsh identity is not erasure of this phenomenon — it's like saying brazilians can't use the word 'saudades' in daily life because it's inherently attributed to the longing and grief of Portuguese families during the Great Navigations.

Also, Hiraeth is a word in everyday use in both Wales and english-speaking countries to mean homesickness, as FelinFach points out. It's honestly not that big of a deal.