Why St George's Day should not be a bank holiday

I doubt that anyone from the government is going to read this but for what it's worth, this is my considered opinion as a calendar-minded person.

Whilst it might sound like a good idea for St George's Day to be a holiday, there is one thing that needs to be considered. What is it? The minor religious festival known as Easter, which in the UK has two bank holidays attached to it, Good Friday and Easter Monday. The proximity of St George's Day to these existing bank holidays needs to be considered.

St George's Day is 23 April, two days before the latest possible date for Easter, so in most years it should be clear of Good Friday and Easter Monday by at least a couple of weeks, even a month if Easter is very early. However, in the 50-year period from 2011 to 2060 St George's Day collides with the Good Friday/Easter Monday weekend no less than 17 times. That is, roughly a third of the time. In fact, it does almost work out as every three years when you look at the years where the collisions occur:

2011, 2014, 2017, 2019, 2022, 2025, 2028, 2030, 2033, 2038, 2041, 2044, 2049, 2052, 2055, 2057, 2060

Not exactly every 3 years but not far off. The longest without a collision of St George's Day and the Easter weekend is 5 years, which occurs only twice.

There are also five instances of St George's Day falling in the week after Easter Monday, which would give 3 bank holidays in 3 weeks:

2020, 2031, 2036, 2047, 2058

I think it would be utter foolishness for St George's Day to become a bank holiday in this case, which means the government will probably go for it and adopt it.



Timestamps are GMT.