Junior Minister: Make St Brigid's Day a public holiday
Martin Heydon said St Brigid's Day would officially celebrate an Irish woman.
St Brigid's Day, February 1, should be a public holiday, a junior minister has said.
Kildare TD Martin Heydon, who is Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, said Ireland should introduce the public holiday as a way of recognising the difficulties of the pandemic, saying that it would also be well-positioned in the calendar and would officially celebrate an Irish woman.
Mr Heydon said he has sent his submission to Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar and Tourism Minister Catherine Martin.
In Europe, only Hungary, the Netherlands, and the UK (eight) have fewer public holidays than Ireland (nine) and globally, only Mexico has fewer (seven). On the upper end, Austria, Sweden, Poland, and Portugal each have 13, though some countries in Europe do not make up for lost holidays which happen to fall on weekends.
The Tourism Recovery Taskforce earlier this year said, among its recommendations, that an additional bank holiday in the off-peak season should be considered to boost the flagging tourism sector. Mr Heydon said this was a reason to examine the idea.
“In line with their recommendation that any additional public holidays should be considered during an off-peak season to help create additional short-term domestic demand and to extend the tourist season, a new public holiday on February 1 would bridge the considerable length of time between existing public holidays on January 1 and March 17.
“It also would bring a welcome boost to the tourism sector during what is traditionally a quiet time for visitors, and when people can holiday once again after the pandemic.
"Scholars tell us that she presided over the local church of Kildare and was head of a double monastery for men and women."
The Taoiseach said before Christmas that his government would examine the idea of an additional holiday.
"We will consider it," he told journalists, saying that acknowledging the sacrifices of the pandemic could take a number of forms.
"I think that is one potential, yes, that we could do in terms of reflecting and acknowledging the work of many workers in different fields and in different sectors, and which I referenced earlier," he said.
