Happy St George’s Day

Saint George is the patron saint of England. He’s popularly identified with England and English ideals of honour, bravery and gallantry – but actually he wasn’t English at all.

dragon
One that got away…

Why is it that we don’t celebrate our patron saint’s day in the same way as the Irish? Why aren’t we in the streets dressed in red and white, wearing a rose and waving the St George Cross? Oh, I forget, we reserve that for the football World Cup. And we all know how successful that is.

george crossPerhaps it is time we had a new saint for England, after all this chap came from Cappadocia, now Turkey, and has no direct connection with England. Very little, if anything, is known about the real Saint George and he obviously hasn’t caught the imagination of the English. George’s reputation grew with the returning crusaders. A miracle appearance, when it was claimed that he appeared to lead crusaders into battle, is recorded in stone over the south door of a church at Fordington in Dorset. This still exists and is the earliest known church in England to be dedicated to Saint George.

April 23 was named as Saint George’s day in 1222 replacing St Edmund who gave his name to the Suffolk town of Bury St Edmunds. Perhaps it is time to reinstate him?

What are your thoughts? Do you celebrate St George’s Day? Should it be a national holiday? Should we have a new patron saint of England? If so who would you choose?

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Heyjude

I have lived in the UK for most of my life, but when young I definitely had wanderlust and even ended up living in South Africa for several years which was a wonderful experience. I now look forward to a long and leisurely retirement doing what I like most - gardening, photography, walking and travelling.

48 thoughts on “Happy St George’s Day”

  1. It’s a shame that English national pride, and to a large extent the flag too, was more or less allowed to be hijacked by football hooligans and the Far Right during the 1970s.
    Speaking personally of course, I would prefer a secular ‘Cromwell Day’, but I might be the only one celebrating it!
    Regards as always, Pete. x

  2. Hi Jude,
    I think our lack of national pride is much more a product of politicians selling our nation down the river in the name of political correctness and multi-culturalism. Why we don’t celebrate the culture of the nation that the immigrants have come to join I’m completely at a loss. I certainly don’t believe by any stretch of the imagination that that is a racist or far right wing thing to suggest that we do but it is is viewed as such sadly. As a nation, whilst mistakes were made in our history of course, (what nation doesn’t have things in their history they’d rather foget), our history is also full of so many positives we exported around the world, education, health, communication in the form of ships and railways, the list goes on.. only the negatives and are raised and apologies made however. The story of Mary Seacole, whilst an important one to be told in schools, has eclipsed that of Florence Nightingale who gave us aesceptic technique that has saved countless lives around the world. Just one small example. It’s a very sad state of affairs. It is ironic that St Georges day, not celebrated, comes on the same day as Community Day in Israel where the Israelis celebrate their nation. How different it all is.

    1. By that I mean we should take a leaf out of Isreal’s book and be proud of who we are as a nation, inclusive of course but not to exclusive of our own cultural heritage.

      1. I totally agree. We should be proud of our English heritage, though quite what that is I’m not sure, being that we have been invaded that many times over the centuries! I’m most likely from Viking and Norman stock!

  3. Being of Scots descent, I, of course, celebrate St Andrew’s Day but he wasn’t Scottish. St Patrick was from England. Seems the Welsh are the only ones who have a native saint.

  4. how can we celebrate when some years ago the very term ‘English’ was removed from ethnic categorisation without a murmur of protest?! We are a nation of Scots, Welsh and Brits – melting into a UK hotch potch in a land called Europe.
    “But we in it shall be remembered-
    We few, we happy few,”….

      1. those diversity forms do not include English but rather types of Britishness – I could be Jamaican since I was born there 😉

  5. I don’t know about the whole saint thing, but the dragon at the beginning made me laugh. He’s so very cute with that silly smile and googley eyes 🙂

  7. And I agree with Tess – gorgeous header !
    That dragon, Jude … I think it has been smoking the wrong kind of weed … [grin]
    I didn’t know that George was a Turk; but it fits with most legends, eh ? And from Cappadocia ! – d’you think he lived in one of those holes in the hills ? Must’ve, I suppose …
    Great little post, anyway !

      1. We claim to be a christian country, so I suppose there might be one, tucked away somewhere … But as I’m a total atheist, I know not ! 😀

  9. Think you opened a can of worms here, Jude! It’s a shame we don’t celebrate a saints day – if only as an excuse to do something eccentric as we English are so prone to do. Perhaps our new government could consider it as a national holiday. That would be a start to some sort of recognition for St George. Or is that promoting jingoism? 😆

    1. Other countries celebrate their saint’s days with no problem. Gosh Malta has a parade every other day it seems! I still think we should move away from the religious (Catholic) connection and have a Queen Boudicca Day 😀

    2. And I did see some Morris dancers on the TV last night – in London I think! Now they are pretty eccentric 😉

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