May Day 2019; When Is Why How It Is Celebrated?: May Day is a public holiday which is celebrated every year on 1 May. It is an ancient Northern Hemisphere spring festival as well as a traditional spring holiday in a lot of cultures. Dancing and singing, as well as cakes, are typically part of the celebrations. This year in 2019, May Day is going to be celebrated on 1st May 2019, Wednesday.
May Day was selected as the date for International Workers’ Day in the late 19th century by the Socialists and Communists of the Second International to honor and remember the Haymarket affair in Chicago. International Workers’ Day can also be denoted as “May Day”, but it is a dissimilar festivity from the traditional May Day.
May Day Other Significance
In some places around the world, May Day is most usually related as an honor of the accomplishments of the labor movement. The holiday may also be known as Labour Day or International Worker’s Day and is marked with a public holiday in more than 80 countries.
Sometimes the date happens together with International Workers’ Day, which has its origins in a labour union movement that supported an eight-hour working day.
In the year 2000 and 2001, there were May Day protests in London in which McDonald’s, a statue of Sir Winston Churchill as well as the Cenotaph were attacked and a total of 95 people was arrested due to this incident. Other protests took place around the world in the year 2013, 2014 and 2015 in order to promote workers’ rights.
How did May Day originated?
Three different festivities in late April have fused to give 1 May its exceptional meaning.
Gaelic May Day is celebrated in Ireland and Scotland, which is also known as Beltane. The day was organized halfway between the spring equinox in the middle of March as well as the summer solstice in the middle of June.
Marking the commencement of summer, Beltane was observed by villagers with bonfires and ceremonies in order to protect harvests and cattle, along with a big feast.
Still, in this time also Beltane is celebrated in its traditional pagan form in particular parts of England as well as Glastonbury.
In Germany and Finland as well as Sweden, in the meantime, Walpurgis Night celebrated that saint with a feast on 1 May that involved dancing and young women being kissed – and was occasionally seen as a night when witches would look forward to the appearance of spring.
An additional festival observed by the Romans to rejoice Flora, the goddess of flowers, in late April also marked the coming of summer. Ultimately, together these celebrations turn out to be the earthly festival of May Day currently in presence.
Celebration Of The May Day
May Day is identical with the maypole and it is believed to be deep-seated in a pagan practice of cutting down young trees and sticking them in the ground to mark the coming of the summer season – and then dancing around them in competing performances among the villages.
The day is also related to Morris dancing, commonly by groups of men wearing different coloured clothes depending on the part of the nation they dance in.
Well-dressing as well as making flower wreaths can be part of the celebrations, however a May Queen and occasionally a “Green Man” might also make arrival as the personifications of spring.
