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St George is the patron saint of England but his festival date is rarely celebrated. Why is this?
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its because the English arent drunks like the Irish who look for any excuse to have a good piss up
But the real truth is if we celebrated our own culture in our own country it would be considered racist to some communities... political correctness gone mad
Popular festivities are on a steady decline. Just look at the Mayday: unless some dynamic association or dedicated individual puts time and effort into it where is celebrated nowadays? Guy Fawkes' Night is the only widespread national festivity though I suspect it has more to do with blowing up a tiny bit of your motherland than celebrating it.
I also suspect that it has something to do with how the notion of "nationality" is evolving. All over Europe, British Isle included, the tendency is towards a very slow but steady disintegration of the unitarian State and resurgence of the "Small Motherlands". Even that granitic bastion of centralization that is France is experiencing local revivals in Provence, Brittany, Basque Countries etc while the national coscience is slowly melting away.
As a fellow I know of told me "victory in sports events are the only national festivities nowadays"!
"Louhi spoke in riddled tones of three things to achieve: find and catch the Devil's Moose and bring it here to me. Seize the Stallion born of Fire, harness the Golden Horse. He captured and bound the Moose, he tamed the Golden Horse. Still there remained one final task: hunt for the Bird from the Stream of Death"
-Kalevala, Rune XIII-
I guess Scotland, Wales and Ireland all held on strongly to their heritage as they were brought into a unified nation and this has passed down the generations, like a last act of defiance!!
I plan on celebrating St George's Day, although since I have a bit of Irish and Scottish blood I enjoy the other days too (no Welsh in me though so St David is out of luck!!)
Happy St Georges Day everyone :)
I guess Scotland, Wales and Ireland all held on strongly to their heritage as they were brought into a unified nation and this has passed down the generations, like a last act of defiance!!
Agreed - for those nations with a history of subjugation or, impudent young empires, such celebrations display a signature of identity. However, neither of those categories describe England.
I don't agree with Knight Templar's suggestion that we do not celebrate St George's day for reasons of political correctness; I think that's a myth perpetuated by nationalist/far-right elements of our society to forward their own agendas.
In all honesty, I think we should leave St George's day alone, it's fine as it is. Otherwise we may find it ending up like another St
Guinness'Patrick's Day, when the pubs are full of people wearing wacky hats pretending to be 'Oirish'. :-)I like dragons! i think they've had a bad press.
I recall a segment in the Telegraph a while back about Brown trying to evoke a bit of national pride in St George's day. A survey was done in which people were asked if more of a fuss should be made of it, and majority agreed. But when asked if they personally would do anything to commemorate it, majority disagreed citing that it would be 'Too embarrassing' and 'too much bother'. So yeah...Muddled Englishness at it's best.
That is an excellent point Columbine. What would you like to do to celebrate St Georges day if anything. Actually, what did you do to celebrate it. Personally I did not actually do anything differant to any other day.
I don't do anything. There's no formula or tradition TO do anything. Honestly this year I completely forgot about it and I wouldn't have remembered except there was a man dressed as a town crier in the city, yelling about it. To which i thought, "Huh, so it is," and then got on with my day. As did about 100 other people.