5th Mar 2021
Today is St Piran's Day1, once a miner's holiday and now Cornwall's national day named after one of three patron saints of Kernow. A fifth-century holy man exiled from his native Ireland, Piran (or Perran) found refuge and purpose in Cornwall. The people of Kernow embraced Piran's powers that had made his homeland turn against him. In return, he is said to have given the Cornish people the gifts of Christianity and tin mining. Much has been written about who Piran was or might have been, and what he did for Cornwall. His story is retold every year to celebrate Cornwall's national day on 5 March. What does the legend of St Piran means to Cornwall now? How does St Piran inspire pride in the Cornish identity?
THE BIRTH OF CORNWALL
In Popular Romances of the West of England, folklorist Robert Hunt explains that St Piran 'landed on the 5th of March on the sands which bear his name'. No one in the fifth-century could have definitively recorded Piran's arrival in Cornwall. However, the arrival of Piran signifies a defining moment in the story of Cornwall's cultural heritage. The things for which people remember him are integral components of Cornwall's national spirit.
There is evidence of a Cornish tin trade being in operation before Piran's arrival. Yet the story of St Piran’s accidental discovery of tin is widely told. By fictionalising history, significant events combine into one moment of creation, akin to the Big Bang. St Piran has become a symbol for coastal civilisation. He is a marker of the moment that Cornwall gained industrial, religious and cultural prominence.
SPRING FEVER
This connotation of birth and creation could explain why St Piran's Day is celebrated in March. Traditionally, the beginning of spring falls around this time. The month is often synonymous with new life, renewal, growth and revival. Festivals of springtime such as Easter, Mother's Day and May Day are dedicated to honouring these seasonal qualities.
St Piran's healing powers and miracles are not insignificant to this time of year. While pre-Piran Cornwall was far from uncivil or empty, the cultural figure of St Piran represents the county's fertile lands, thriving communities and expanding industries.
The festival diminished during the nineteenth-century. Cornwall's modern revival of St Piran's Day marks an ever-growing appetite for ways of preserving and honouring the Cornish identity. It is all about celebrating people of the past and present who make Cornwall what it is today. Gool Peran Lowen!
Notes
1 Today would have marked another miner's holiday, Friday in Lide. M.A. Courtney's Cornish Feasts and Folklore contains only a minor reference to St Piran's Day, denoting its unpopularity at the time. Courtney outlines the 'serio-comic custom' of Friday in Lide in more detail. On the first Friday in March (Lide means March) miners sent a young worker to sleep on the highest hill of the works. The length of this worker's nap would determine how long their breaks would be for that year.
Further Reading
Courtney, M.A. Cornish Feasts and Folklore. (1890) Books on Demand, 2018
Hunt, Robert. Popular Romances of the West of England. John Camden Hotten, 1865
"St. Piran. " Cornwall Heritage Trust, 2021, https://www.cornwallheritagetrust.org/learn/resources/stories-and-rhymes/st-piran/
"St Piran's Oratory." Cornwall Forever, 2021, https://www.cornwallforever.co.uk/places/st-pirans-oratory
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