St David’s Day — Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant — falls on 1 March and is the national day of Wales. It is not a public holiday, despite repeated campaigns and a Welsh Assembly vote in favour, because the power to create one is reserved to Westminster.
He was actually Welsh
David is the only patron saint of a UK nation genuinely from the country he represents. George was Cappadocian, Andrew Galilean, and Patrick a Romano-Briton. David was born in Pembrokeshire around AD 500, founded a monastic community there, and is buried at St Davids — Britain’s smallest city, which has cathedral status and a population of under 1,800.
He was an ascetic even by the standards of early monasticism: his community drank only water, ate only bread and herbs, and pulled the plough themselves rather than use oxen. He was known as Dewi Ddyfrwr, David the Water-Drinker.
The last words
His reported final sermon has become a Welsh motto in its own right: “Gwnewch y pethau bychain” — do the little things. It is quoted constantly in Wales, appears on public buildings, and is a genuinely used phrase rather than a museum piece.
What happens
Observance is centred on schools, and it is substantial:
- Children wear traditional dress — girls in the tall black Welsh hat, shawl and apron; boys in waistcoats and flat caps. Nearly every Welsh primary school does this.
- Daffodils and leeks are worn on lapels. Both are national emblems, for reasons explained under national emblems.
- School eisteddfodau — competitions in poetry, recitation, singing and music, held across the country. This is the day’s real cultural content.
- Cawl — a lamb and vegetable broth — and Welsh cakes, cooked on a griddle.
- Parades in Cardiff, Swansea and elsewhere, with the Welsh dragon everywhere.
The leek in the army
The Welsh Guards and the Royal Welsh mark the day formally. Soldiers are presented with a leek on parade, and by regimental tradition the youngest soldier eats a raw one — a genuinely unpleasant duty performed in front of officers and cameras.
The custom is said to date from a battle at which Welsh soldiers wore leeks in their caps to distinguish themselves from the Saxons. Shakespeare has Henry V refer to it.
The holiday campaign
Making 1 March a Welsh bank holiday has cross-party support in Wales, was voted for by the Senedd, and has been repeatedly refused by UK governments on the grounds of the economic cost of an additional holiday. Polls in Wales consistently show large majorities in favour, and the refusal is a recurring minor grievance.