I won’t congratulate my Irish friends today, because apparently, on the authority of the BBC, this year 17th March is not St Patrick’s Day, at least for most of those who usually celebrate it. It is all because Easter is so early this year. This means that today, 17th March, is already the first day (or is it the second day?) of Holy Week, the special week leading up to Easter. And apparently, according to both Roman Catholic and Anglican reckoning, Holy Week takes precedence over regular saints’ days, which are simply cancelled for that year. Some Eastern Orthodox believers are still officially honouring St Patrick today (although others are not), because for them it is not yet Holy Week, but not many Irish are Eastern Orthodox.
Not surprisingly the Roman Catholic hierarchy in Ireland did not allow their patron saint’s day to go completely unmarked this year, so they celebrated in advance, on Saturday 15th. But given the rugby result that day their celebrations must have been rather muted.
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I couldn’t find my orange shirt anyway…
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This is really interesting. We campaign for a bank holiday on St Georges Day in England (http://www.stgeorgesholiday.com) and much was made this year (2011) by the anti-holiday lobby that St Georges Day interferes with Easter. But apparently so does St Patrick’s Day.
If the government does not allow a bank holiday in England on the grounds that it clashes with Easter occasionally, then they must also remove the bank holiday in N.Ireland on the same grounds. Thanks for the info.
Thank you, St George … Did you see my post pointing out that this year St George’s Day did not interfere with Easter, but with the May Day bank holiday. But my own position is that there are already more than enough bank holidays at that time of year.