Thanksgiving is the great family holiday in North America, perhaps more so in the United States than in Canada. But what about Thanksgiving in Ireland? Is it celebrated at all? Yes and no. Thanksgiving, as it is known in the United States, with a late November feast starring a turkey, does not exist in Ireland. However, there are some mid-fall harvest festivals that have similar origins to American Thanksgiving.
What is Thanksgiving?
Thanksgiving, as it might be understood by most readers, is, after all, a specifically American celebration. In Canada, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday in October. This has been the norm since 1957, when the Parliament of Canada declared “A general day of thanksgiving to Almighty God for the abundant harvest with which Canada has been blessed, to be observed on the second Monday in October.” In the United States, Thanksgiving is celebrated at a later date, that is, the fourth Thursday in November.
This date was first set in 1863, when the President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, inaugurated a day of “Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwells in Heaven.”
Note that both statements emphasize the Christian background of the holiday, which would have been much older than the official holiday anyway.
Basically, Thanksgiving is one of many harvest festivals that are celebrated around the world, not only in Christian societies, at different times, but connected roughly with the end of the harvest, and generally in fall. Actually, the word “harvest” itself comes from Old English hærfest , a word that could mean both autumn in general and “harvest time” in the agricultural calendar. The full moon in September was also known as the “harvest moon” (long before Neil Young used it).
Harvest festivals obviously depend a lot on the region you live in (and the crops you grow). The Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival is held in late September or early October, the German Erntedankfest on the first Sunday in October.
Irish harvest festivals
As for Ireland, we could have three candidates for “Thanksgiving Day”:
- Michaelmas on October 29, near the old Samhain “quarter day” and traditionally the end and / or beginning of the agricultural year, especially under Anglo-Norman influence. This is very close to the October holiday weekend today.
- Samhain or Halloween on October 31, the end of the Celtic year and the beginning of winter. A festival around which a lot of cattle and other cattle were slaughtered and a lot of food was consumed.
- Martinmas or Saint Martin’s Day on November 11: another designated “end of the year” and another holiday that involved large amounts of food.
Today only Samhain is actually observed … and then often in its completely bastardized, Americanized Halloween form (complete with pumpkins, definitely not a native Irish fruit). And with the odd twist that most of the foods eaten around Halloween will be of a sugar-rich, processed variety that couldn’t be further from traditional harvest time foods.
So is there Thanksgiving in Ireland?
No, if you think of a US-centric celebration in late November with such ridiculous rituals as the “forgiveness” of a single turkey (as if the turkey had done something wrong). There will be American expats celebrating Thanksgiving in their own way, while the Chinese community celebrates the Moon festival and Chinese New Year. But generally… that Thursday is just another Thursday in Ireland (and before you ask, there is no Black Friday as well).
Yes, although it has been largely forgotten. Today, Halloween arguably replaced the three harvest festivals that were once observed (depending on the weather and the region) in Ireland.
As for the main churches, their position is not as clear as one would have thought:
- The Catholic Church does not have a designated day set for a harvest festival or Thanksgiving celebration – it is very much up to local parishes to organize this on their own time.
- The Church of Ireland also does not have a designated Sunday for harvest celebrations, however a thanksgiving service is usually observed in each parish, with special prayers and often a special charitable collection.
- The Presbyterian Church again does not have a designated standard Sunday reserved, but there will generally be a celebration in each local community around harvest time.
