Is St Georges Day the right day to celebrate our country?

Question

Seeing as 40% of Britons don't know who St George is or what he did is St Georges Day the right day to celebrate our culture? Is their another person or event that would be more appropriate?

Answer 1

No St George is our Patron Saint and St George's Day should be a public holiday in England. The Irish and the Welsh get it for their national day.

Answer 2

We should celebrate our national identity, it does not matter if you are not 100% English. Everyone celebrates St Patricks Day, let everyone in England on that day celebrate the fact that they are in one of the most liberal countries in the world.
If not happy to celebrate being English then at least celebrate being British on St Georges Day. If you are not British but are in England then this is probably by some kind of choice, so no matter how much you moan about the place, you must be able to see some good in the country.

Answer 3

St George is the patron saint of England, but originally the position was held by St Edmund who gave his name to the Suffolk town of Bury St Edmunds. His official date is the 20th November which I believe was the date he was executed by
the Danes in 870AD
Unlike many medieval saints, St Edmund was a real person but not too much is known factually about him. We do know he was a king who ruled the Anglo Saxon realm of East Anglia between 855AD and 869 AD.
It was the Normans who actually changed the patron saint a fact of cleansing the old Saxon ideals
King of East Anglia, born about 840; died at Hoxne, Suffolk, 20 November, 870. The earliest and most reliable accounts represent St. Edmund as descended from the preceding kings of East Anglia,though, according to later legends, he was born at Nuremberg (Germany), son to an otherwise unknown King Alcmund of Saxony. Though only about fifteen years old when crowned in 855, Edmund showed himself a model ruler from the first, anxious to treat all with equal justice.
Further to that the original Saxon Flag was a red background with a white Dragon. Infact the Saxon flag on the Bayeax tapestry is the white dragon flag.

Answer 4

I know who St George is but its not for me to celebrate , i am Welsh and have St David , just as the Irish have St Patrick and the Scottish have St Andrew......
I don't see why the English shouldn't celebrate St George ...

Answer 5

Not only are most Brits ignorant of who St George is, the man is not even a native of the British isles.He was born and lived in what is now Georgia in the former Soviet Union, where he is a the patron saint.Saint Albans wold be a more appropriate for Britain

Answer 6

Oliver Cromwell - 100% english. Victor in the Civil War.
St. George was a Turk foisted on the English by the Normans

Answer 7

I agree that England should celebrate St. George's Day with more pomp and pizzazz than we do now. As many other posters have said Scotland and Wales are proud of their respective national days. Why shouldn't we English be similarly. The only trouble, of course, is that (for the present anyway) we are ruled by a clique of Scots. Let them have full independence and perhaps we can get rid of a cabinet full of people with Scots accents, or who are Scots but have lost such accent.

Answer 8

You really ought to ask whether our schools should be teaching the works of St.George and that he is the Patron Saint of England. As St.George was chosen to be our Patron Saint, of course, we should celebrate on the appropriate date 23rd April. I am a strong believer in tradition

Answer 9

Why are you celebrating a foreign st anyway!Please check your facts PauL S!The welsh do not get a public holiday for St Davids day,I wish we did!

Answer 10

Yes for the English not the Britons as you put it.For the racists here St.George is also known in Islam.