Should St. David’s Day be a Bank Holiday?

I have lost count of how many March 1st’s have passed by since I first heard calls to make it a bank holiday. Dydd Gŵyl Dewi, or St. David’s Day, is celebrated each year in every school in Wales, with songs, poetry, and dressing up in traditional Welsh clothing and rugby shirts (well, rugby shirts in the early 2010s, compared to the many Fishlocks and Bales now).

Just 32% of Cardiff University students will have any experience of this, and the concern is that once you leave school, the celebration of Welsh culture ends. Of course, there’s Tafwyl, the Welsh music festival, or Eisteddfod Genedlaethol, but for Welsh learners, like me, or those who do not speak Welsh at all, it can be very daunting to attend. Just 9.18% of Cardiff University students speak Welsh.

A bank holiday on March 1st needs to be able to engage the other 91% too.

Despite both St. Andrew’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day being bank holidays in their respective countries, I haven’t always thought St. David’s Day should be a bank holiday in Wales. The absence of Welsh culture year-round meant that if we didn’t celebrate St. David’s Day, we weren’t celebrating Welshness at all at school. I’m incredibly lucky to have been raised in a bilingual home, and have always considered myself Welsh, and never British. Not every child is so lucky to know their culture and their country’s history.

If it wasn’t for a school Eisteddfod on March 1st, would we know the words to Hen Wlad fy Nhadau? Or Calon Lân? But this is just it.

Yes, St. David’s Day is March 1st, but we weren’t always in school on March 1st. Those who say that St. David’s Day cannot be a bank holiday because schools must engage with Welsh culture fail to recognise that sometimes, March 1st can be on the weekend. In which case, you hold St. David’s Day celebrations on a different day.

It’s very simple.

But it is imperative that these celebrations continue alongside an understanding of why we have a day off and use it as a nation-wide celebration of our country.

The decision to make St. David’s Day a bank holiday is one of the many decisions made for Wales, in England. Currently, the UK Labour government has no plans to make it a bank holiday. It was the Conservative Secretaries of State for Wales who often had the most interesting of responses.

As Secretary of State in 2022, Sir Robert Buckland supported calls for a bank holiday on March 1st instead of May Day in Wales. Current leader of the Conservatives in Wales, Darren Millar, also backs a bank holiday. But Buckland was in the minority amongst his Conservative colleagues in Westminster.

Stephen Crabb, who was Secretary of State for Wales in the Cameron government, set out his position in the Commons in 2023. He said that St. David’s Day has always been “first and foremost about the children.” This really summed up the problem.

He’s referring to St. David’s Day and the celebration of Welsh culture simply as child’s play. But he didn’t stop there. “... When you go to North America, yes they get Ireland, they understand the Irish national story, they perhaps understand the Scottish national story, but I sometimes think that the Welsh national story is less understood.” To Mr. Crabb I say, how can we expect the people of North America to understand Wales if we are not actively encouraging the Cymry to understand Welsh culture and history? Furthermore, when he passionately asked, “do we really think that the cultural richness that St.David’s Day today would be the same if it was a day for children to remain at home?”, I remind him once more of weekends.

The semantics of having a bank holiday are not the only factors to consider.

Identity politics is dominating hostile online debate. Last summer we saw the St. George’s Cross appear across the UK. And yes, I use ‘UK’ and not ‘England’, because they too were plastered in Wales, from Cŵmbran to Conwy. The word Wales itself means foreigner, in contrast to ‘Cymry’, referring to the people of Wales, which means ‘fellow countrymen.’ The Welsh language makes this country more inclusive and welcoming when politics continues to marginalise anyone who could be considered ‘other.’

St. David’s Day and a celebration of Welsh culture and values will ensure that everyone who lives within these borders is part of the Cymry. This debate is about allowing everyone to feel welcome in their home; more than just singing songs and reciting poetry at primary school.