St Andrew's Day: Celebrating Scotland

The ruins of St Andrew's Cathedral, St Andrews, Fife.

St Andrew has been recognised as the patron saint of Scotland (as well as Greece, Russia, Poland and a few other places...) ever since the declaration of Arbroath in 1320. Several relics of the martyred apostle (a fisherman by trade)  were brought to a small coastal village in Fife in the middle of the 10th century, and the town on the site today is named St Andrews after him. The cross of St Andrew - deriving from the form of the crucifixion by which he died - is also a national symbol of Scotland, and is represented in our national flag, the Saltire.

In the 11th century, Queen Margaret (later canonised and made Saint Margaret) established a ferry crossing to carry pilgrims journeying northwards to the reliquary in St Andrews. The site of this crossing is still marked today by the villages of South Queensferry and North Queensferry on the banks of the Firth of Forth, some distance to the north of Edinburgh. The world-famous Forth Rail Bridge was constructed to carry a rail line across the Forth in the same area, opening in 1890.

The national shrine to St Andrew is located in St Mary's Metropolitan Cathedral at the eastern end of Edinburgh's New Town, where two relics of St Andrew (one described as a 'large portion of the shoulder of the Apostle Andrew') are kept, presented to the cathedral in 1879 and 1969. St Andrew's body is today housed in Amalfi, in southern Italy.

St Andrew's Day is celebrated on 30th November each year, and following the Scottish Parliament's introduction of the St. Andrew's Day Bank Holiday (Scotland) Act 2007 the day is officially a bank holiday across Scotland. Perhaps confusingly, banks are not required to close and employers are not required to grant the day as holiday to employees! Nevertheless, the day is usually marked in a variety of ways across the country, as much in a celebration of Scotland and Scottish culture and identity as for St Andrew himself. 

The weekend nearest to 30th November is usually the most prodigious period of celebration, and visitors are likely to be able to enjoy a variety of experiences during this weekend and the surrounding days, including ceilidhs, dinners, concerts or dramatic performances, or special menus or deals in restaurants across the country. 

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