Hmm, not sure about that, it was an event specifically instigated by the King/Parliament as a celebration of the plot-foiling. Apparently this kind of celebration (burning big fires) was pretty standard back in the day – I think Elizabeth did something similar to celebrate the defeat of the Spanish Armada – it’s just that this celebration stuck. Even when Cromwell cancelled Christmas he allowed Bonfire Night to persist as it represented the saving of Parliament as much as the King.
But back to the OP, if you’re asking if we have a ‘National Day’ I think the answer is ‘not really’. Guy Fawkes just comes closest. The Queen’s birthday is nothing more than a military parade in Central London and doesn’t impact on anyone outside of Westminster. Each country has a Saints Day (St George in England, for example) but how these are celebrated is patchy. It barely rates a mention in England, whereas in Wales, St David’s Day is seen as the National Day with kids taking a half day holiday from school, dressing up in national costume and throwing leeks at each other. I’m not really sure what goes on in Scotland on St Andrew’s Day. And of course, we all know about St Patrick’s Day.
Every time St George’s Day comes around, there’s much wailing that the English don’t celebrate it properly and it should be made a Bank Holiday so we can all have the time off and drink more beer. But as it’s April 23rd, it’s just too close to other Bank Holidays (including Easter). We could really do with a Bank Holiday in October, but no one can think of a good excuse for it.
It’s not news to me. I guess I misinterpreted your post; I thought by reference to “him and his entourage” that B16 and his traveling party had done something jerky upon entering the UK - insulting a HM Revenue and Customs officer, peeing on the red carpet, etc. I’m well aware of contemporary criticism of this Pope and of the Vatican generally.
Ah, I see. Actually, there was a bit of a furore about a Cardinal who called Britain ‘a third-world country’ (He was dropped from the visit) but the protests weren’t about that.
That idea has been comprehensively debunked by David Cressy and Ronald Hutton, the two leading historians of calendar customs in early-modern England. Despite much wishful thinking by generations of folklorists, there is not the slightest indication of a tradition of regular bonfires at that time of year anywhere in England in the centuries immediately preceding 1605.
There’s no real equivalent, in the sense of ‘public holiday in the summer which is an excuse for beer and cookout’. We don’t have any universal public holidays from the end of May until the end of August, which is practically the end of summer anyway. As no one has been able to agree on an arbitrary date, or some anniversary that deserves to be made an excuse, so it rests.
I once did a little chart of what season the national holidays fall in (according to the hemisphere that the national capital is located in and the astronomical start of the season (ie March 21, June 21, September 22, and December 21)), and I found that most national holidays (US = July 4, Canada = July 1, Australia = January 26) were in the nice weather months (summer for non-equatorial climes; all over, but often summer or fall for hotter climes). There were very few that were in very bad months, weather wise. (Worst I found was Falkland Islands = June 14)
They still do. (I’m a Winnipegger.)
I do find it odd that the UK is one of the few countries that doesn’t have a set “National Day”, other countries that don’t have a real “independence date” do have a national holiday, either the monarch’s birthday like in Thailand or Spain (?), or a date of important national significance, like France.
So can you explain why the millions of Catholics in the U.K. not only aren’t insulted by GFN but celebrate it themselves?
Lots of people go to Up Hellyah (Sorry about the spelling) but that doesn’t mean that they worship Odin and go a viking during the year.
Bonfire night is a festive celebration for all of the family and nothing whatsoever to do with religion, politics, race, sex, physical handicaps or Old Uncle Tom Cobbely and all.
Well, to be fair, only because most people have forgotten its source.
Heck, my Catholic girlfriend was brought up by her parents and teachers to regard it as a Catholic celebration of rising up against tryanny (I’ve put her straight).
Because they are ignorant of it’s actual original meaning… But to be fair, I’ve met plenty of actual catholics who were also anti-popery… in that they went to mass and took confession but were vocal about opposing the church hierarchy.
They’re not really into Catholicism all that much?
I was always puzzled why Guy Fawkes didn’t get more of a celebration in Northern Ireland, or any at all. It seemed to cater for the whims of a certain specific segment of the country.
As long as I can remember - so 1973 or so. It was always called Bonfire Night though.
Close to Hallowe’en too. Never a holiday in Scotland, but guising was very popular as long as I can can remember. It’s mutated into trick or treat pretty much now though, unfortunately. In my day you had to sing a song or tell a joke to get a gift. :mad:
To all the people objecting to “guy Fawkes” night as Uk’s independence day let me make one thing clear:
UK to this day is “free of popery” in that the Pope is not the head of the official church of england. The Catholic church exists but it has no official relationship to the government. That was a very big deal at the time it happened, and the multiple plots to re-introduce the Catholic church as official church of state are all documented. The Gunpowder plot is only the most well known.
Bonfire night IS UK independence day “free from popery”, just because the majority of the UK are ignorant of that doesn’t change the history as written and well documented.
Shouting the same thing over and over doesn’t make you righter. Insofar as anyone remembers the history at all, we remember it as the scuppering of a treasonous plot to murder the King and his Parliament. We were already independent of the Pope and had been for many years, and he never had the same influence over us as King George had over the American colonies in any case.
I think the primary point for celebrating the 4th of July was that that’s the day the United States of America became a country (leaving aside the issue of what happened on July 2). We date the start of our country from July 4, 1776.
Is there a British equivalent of that? A date on which Britons can say that’s the day our country started on. Maybe July 12, 927 or May 1, 1707.
There are reaches, and then there’s detaching one’s arm and putting it on the end on a 20 foot pole. This is the latter.
You’d really have to split it up by country. The United Kingdom is easy: the Acts of Union of 1800.
Arguably the coronation of William the Conqueror (25th of December 1066) for England but I think if you asked a dozen Englishmen you’d get a dozen different answers. For one thing, many people still think of themselves as Anglo-Saxon, and that the Normans were outsiders.
I was figuring the United Kingdom was originally formed in 1707 and was then expanded in 1800.
As an admitted outsider, I’ve always felt that 1066 was over-rated. England was really the same country before and after - it was more like a change in the ruling dynasty. William, after all, felt that he was just pressing his claim as the legitimate succesor to Edward (although admittedly the details of his claim look questionable). But 1066 was really no more epoch making than 1485 or 1688.
