Gool Peran Lowen! (or Happy St Piran's Day!)

Wales has St David, Scotland has St Andrew,  Ireland has St Patrick and England has St George.

But we Cornish have St Piran.

To be completely honest, I didn't see much celebration of our patron saint when I was a boy. That's probably because the tin and copper mines were starting to shut down everywhere and St Piran's Day was primarily used as an excuse by the 'tinners' as one of their many holidays. Other miners' holidays  including Picrous Day (last Thursday before Christmas), Chewidden Thursday (second Thursday in December), Nickanan Night (Shrove Tuesday), Bodmin Riding (late June), and many town and village feasts on Advent Sunday. 

The miners of Breage and Germoe observed St Piran's feast day until at least 1764. There is little description of specific traditions associated with this day apart from the consumption of large amounts of alcohol and food during 'Perrantide', the week leading up to 5th March. The day following St Piran's Day was known by many as 'Mazey Day', a term which has now been adopted by the revived Golowan festival in Penzance. The word 'mazey' means dazed and confused or slightly bonkers, and the phrase 'drunk as a Perraner' was used in 19th century Cornwall to describe people who had consumed large quantities of alcohol.

The modern observance of St Piran's day as a national symbol started in the late 19th and early 20th century when Celtic Revivalists sought to provide the people of Cornwall with a national day similar to those observed in other nations. Since the 1950s, the celebration has become increasingly observed and since the start of the 21st century almost every Cornish community holds some sort of celebration to mark the event. Saint Piran's Flag is also seen flying throughout Cornwall on this day.

Saint Piran or Pyran was a 5th-century abbot and saint, possibly of Irish origin. He is the patron saint of tin-miners, and is also generally regarded as the patron saint of Cornwall, although Saint Michael and Saint Petroc also have some claim to this title. The consensus of scholarship has identified the story of St Piran as a copy of that of the Irish saint Ciarán of Saigir. It's generally accepted that he was Irish, that he spent time in Wales and later was expelled from Ireland because of his powerful preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Irish tied him to a millstone and rolled it over the edge of a cliff into a stormy sea, which immediately became calm. Piran then miraculously floated safely over the water to land upon the sandy beach of Perranzabuloe in Cornwall. His first disciples are said to have been a badger, a fox, and a bear. 

He established himself as a hermit and his sanctity and his austerity won for him the veneration of all around. He was joined at Perranzabuloe by many Christian converts and together they founded the Abbey of Lanpiran, with Piran as abbot. According to legend he also 'rediscovered' tin-smelting (tin had been smelted in Cornwall since before the Romans' arrival, but the methods had since been lost) when tin melted out of his black hearthstone, which was evidently a slab of tin-bearing ore. It bubbled up and formed a silvery-white cross, hence the image on the Cornish national flag. The flag is now ubiquitous and can be seen on car bumper stickers, food labels and even in a stained glass window at Westminster Abbey. It was unveiled in 1888, in memory of the Cornish inventor and engineer Richard Trevithick.

The earliest documented link to the design of the St Piran's Flag is on the 15th century coat of arms of the de Saint-Péran or Saint-Pezran (pronounced Péran) family from Cornouaille in Brittany. 

The village of Perranporth (Porthpyran in Cornish) hosts the annual inter-Celtic festival of Lowender Peran, which is also named in honour of him. The largest St Piran's Day event is the march across the dunes to St Piran's cross which hundreds of people attend, generally dressed in black, white and gold, and carrying the Cornish Flag. 

As for me, this is how I'm celebrating my heritage tonight.

Gool Peran Lowen!