St George's Day, April 23rd

Posted by David Whitley Mar 17, 2007

Today, as anyone who loves pulling out their tatty green T-shirt and giant novelty Guinness hat will know, is St Patrick’s Day. This is common knowledge – everybody seems to like to pretend to be Irish on March 17th. The Pogues must manage to survive on the royalties for the amount of times Dirty Old Town is played on this day alone.

In just over a month’s time on April 23rd, though, it’s the turn of the English to celebrate their patron saint, St George. Except they probably won’t bother, apart from a few tabloid columnists desperate to make a name for themselves having a pint of warm beer whilst draped in a flag, hoping someone will join in the ‘fun’.

There have been campaigns over recent years (such as by the Charles Wells Brewery in Bedfordshire, obviously keen to try and turn their Bombardier brand into a marketing machine like Guinness), but none have properly taken off. Why is this? Well, I reckon there are a few reasons.

• The British are notoriously rubbish at organising celebrations. Remember the string of comic Millennium Eve bungles?
• The English flag has gained an unfortunate association with football hooliganism over the years, and many people are still ashamed to display it, even though this problem has largely been stamped out.
• He picked the wrong date, really. William Shakespeare was born (and died) on April 23rd, and surely he’s far more deserving of a day in his honour?
• St George’s story is preposterous. He killed a dragon. Yes, of course he did...
• St George has nothing to do with England – he was born in the Middle East and never set foot on British shores.
• Georgey boy has to be the least fussy patron saint imaginable in terms of picking his causes. Amongst many, many others, he is the patron saint of soldiers, scouting, freemasonry, Barcelona, Genoa and syphilis sufferers. Even worse for many English people nursing the mental scars of football penalty shoot-outs – he is the patron saint of Germany.

This said, I’ll not let it be said that I’ll get in the way of a party, no matter how half-hearted it turns out to be. Mine’s a pint of warm Bombardier, please.