A NATIONAL HOLIDAY

The Kildare Observer 10 March 1906

A NATIONAL HOLIDAY

This day week will be celebrated throughout Ireland, and wherever an Irish community exists, as the National Festival – St. Patrick’s Day. It is a striking fact that the old-time custom of wearing the shamrock on the 17th March has gained enormously in popularity in recent years. This is due in great measure to the late Queen of England, who during the later years of her reign gave her undoubted approval to the wearing of the trefoil by her soldiers who hailed from the Emerald Isle. Up to that time the Irish soldier who sported the shamrock in his cap or helmet stood a fair chance of being brought to book. Now the “chosen leaf of bard and chief” is so popular that even in the streets of London on St. Patrick’s Day hundreds who never set foot on the soil of Ireland sport the plant, whose colour and formation has so much signifiance for all Irishmen. So much for the sentimental observance of the Feast of St. Patrick, and now for the practical side of a question which at the present time is agitated by all classes and creeds in the country, viz., the suppression of over-indulgence in intoxicating liquors on the National Holiday. It is a matter which has caused profound regret that the Irish people at home and in other countries have desecrated St. Patrick’s Day by drinking to excess. In America, Canada, Australia, the day is made one of riot, and up to a comparatively recent period it resembled a Saturnalian revel rather than a Christian festival. Clergymen of all denominations denounced the excesses which arose from the wrong idea of celebrating the anniversary of the patron saint of the Island of Saints and Scholars. Police records showed that the vice of drunkenness was particularly rampant on and about the 17th March, and without exaggeration it may be said that at one time the Irish character sunk very low indeed in the minds of outsiders on account of the orgies which marred the National Festival. We should be devoutly thankful that there has been a considerable change for the better. Wiser counsels have prevailed, and for some years passed there has been a growing reformation in the observance of the national holiday. The Government have made it a Bank holiday in Ireland, and there is a strong tendency to make it thoroughly observed by the closing of houses which retail intoxicants. This movement is one which has enlisted the sympathy of all classes of the community, including the highest church dignitaries of every persuasion. The argument might be advanced by traders that their business would suffer if their premises were closed, but for one day, or even half a day, there cannot be so much money lost by the doors of the public-houses being shut. If St. Patrick’s Day is to be observed properly, not alone should the licensed houses, but all other business concerns, have their shutters up, and public bodies whose day of meeting falls on the next Saturday should suspend business for that day. Thus the object of having a real national holiday – not a mockery –would be achieved. Apart from this, there is another aspect of the question which cannot be overlooked. There are hundreds of shop assistants in all the cities and towns of Ireland who instead of welcoming the coming of St. Patrick’s Day, look forward to it with loathing on account of the extra hardship with which it is accompanied. Why not give these over-worked people the full benefit of the national holiday? Taking every circumstance into consideration, we consider that the aims and objects of these who wish to have St. Patrick’s Day duly observed desire general support pending compulsory legislation on the matter. 

The Kildare Observer of 10 March 1906 reports on St. Patrick’s Day becoming the National Holiday