St David's Week

The tradition & historical record

Saint David's Day (Welsh: Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant or Dydd Gŵyl Dewi [ˈdɨːð ˌɡuːɨ̯l ˌdɛu̯.i ˈsant, ˈdiːð ̩ɡʊi̯l ˌdɛu̯.i]), or the Feast of Saint David, is the feast day of Saint David, the patron saint of Wales, and falls on 1 March, the date of Saint David's death in 589 AD. Traditional festivities include wearing leeks and daffodils (both recognised as symbols of Saint David and more widely as symbols of Wales) eating traditional Welsh dishes such as cawl and Welsh cakes, and wearing traditional Welsh costume. School celebrations, including concerts and eisteddfodau, have been common since the early 20th century and played a significant role in the cultural education of Welsh schoolchildren. An increasing number of cities and towns across Wales, including Cardiff, Swansea, and Aberystwyth also put on parades throughout the day. The feast has been regularly celebrated since the canonisation of David, in the 12th century by Pope Callixtus II. However, it is not recognised as a public holiday by the government of Wales or the United Kingdom, which has prompted calls for St. David's Day to be a bank holiday in Wales and some organisations designating unofficial celebrations. ¹

Saint David (Welsh: Dewi Sant) is said to have been born to Saint Non at Caerfai, southwest Wales. He was reportedly a scion of the royal house of Ceredigion, and founded a number of monastic communities in his early life before establishing his most notable community in Meneva, at the "Glyn Rhosyn" (English: Vale of Roses), the location where St Davids Cathedral stands today. By the end of his life, David was renowned throughout the Celtic church for his wisdom as a teacher and for his devout asceticism, with the founding of 1,200 Christian communities attributed to him and his followers. Saint David is said to have died on 1 March 589, with his foundation at Meneva quickly becoming an important shrine and site of pilgrimage after his death. ¹

The feast day of Saint David on 1st March has been celebrated since at least the 10th century according to the Medieval Welsh literature such as the Annales Cambriae, with Saint David being widely recognised as the patron saint of Wales since at least the 12th century, and the peak of Welsh resistance to the Norman invasion. David was canonised in the Catholic church by Pope Callixtus II in 1120, thanks to the accession of Bishop Bernard, the first Norman bishop of Saint Davids and thus March 1st becoming an official celebration in the Catholic calendar. During the War of the Roses in the 15th-century the celebration of Saint David, his flag and his feast day took on a new meaning following the landing of an invasion force at Mill Bay near Dale, Pembrokeshire. The invasion's leader was Henry Tudor, who linked his Welsh ancestry and used Welsh symbols such as Saint David's Feast Day during his march through Wales to encourage Welsh patriotism and gather support to his banner (a Welsh Dragon). ¹

Various Welsh Regiments of the British Army use aspects of Saint David's cross, Saint David himself, or songs of Saint David in their formalities during the celebrations. Many Welsh people wear one or both of the National symbols of Wales to celebrate St. David: the daffodil or the leek (Saint David's personal symbol) on this day. The leek arises when Welsh troops wore leeks to distinguish each other from similarly dressed English troops (some historical accounts indicate Saxon invading forces). The flag of Saint David often plays a central role in the celebrations and can be seen flying throughout Wales. Popular dishes traditionally eaten on Saint David's Day include cawl (soup), bara brith tea loaf, Welsh Cakes, Welsh lamb and Welsh rarebit. ¹

Around Wales each year, Saint David is commemorated in parades, the largest of which is in Cardiff. The parade is a non-military celebration of Welsh heritage and culture. To mark Saint David's Day and their return from a six-month tour of Afghanistan, soldiers from the Royal Welsh Regiment provided the Changing of the Guard ceremony at Cardiff Castle's south gate on 27 and 28 February 2010. On 1 March 2010, the seventh National Saint David's Day Parade occurred in Cardiff city centre. Celebrations included concerts, a parade, and a food festival. The food festival ran from 26 February with the third annual Really Welsh Food Festival in Queen Street, featuring all-Welsh produce. Following the parade, several Welsh entertainers performed and in the evening Cardiff Central Library provided free entertainment and food. Many towns now hold an annual parade through the town centre. Concerts are held in pubs, clubs, and other venues. In the town of Colwyn Bay in north Wales, an annual parade through the town centre is now held with several hundred citizens and schoolchildren participating. Other events are centred on the parade. Swansea inaugurated a "St David's Week" festival in 2009 with a range of musical, sporting, and cultural events held throughout the city to mark the national day. For 2018, the city followed St David's Day celebrations with a two-day food festival. ¹

Russell Grigg, an historian of early St David's Day celebrations in schools, comments that the day has been "one of the most significant events in the school calendar of Wales for more than a century". The first examples of school events for St David's Day were organised in the late 19th century and often linked to the contemporary campaign for the Welsh language to be given an official role in Wales's education system. For instance, Iwan Jenkyn, the headmaster of Cefnfaes British School in Bethesda and a member of the Society for Utilizing the Welsh Language, organised celebrations for St David's Day involving his pupils in c. 1890. However, such activities appear to have been rare in that period. The Welsh department, created in the Board of Education of England and Wales in 1907, began to encourage schools to organise celebrations in the early 1910s. Schools in the Rhondda in 1914 marked the occasion with marching, patriotic songs, Welsh dancing, performances, reciting poetry and traditional Welsh costumes. This was praised by T.W Berry, an education official in the area, as teaching children "the full significance of what is meant by 'A Welshman'" The Welsh Department's pamphlet Patriotism: Suggestions to Local Education Authorities & Teachers in Wales Regarding the Teaching of Patriotism (1915) argued that the teaching of patriotism towards Wales and the wider British Empire was particularly important in the context of the First World War. The pamphlet gave a celebratory account of Welsh history and encouraged a love of Welsh culture. Though it did briefly mention that Thomas Picton had damaged his reputation by allowing torture when Governor of Trinidad. ¹

Disneyland Paris organises yearly events to celebrate Saint David's Day, which includes a Welsh-themed week, fireworks, parades, and Disney characters dressed in traditional Welsh attire. Washington, DC holds a St. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Saint David's Day”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

St David's Week is annual festival in Wales, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 1 external register, which can be verified through the citation. ²