Talk:St John's Eve
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Merge with Midsummer? --Troels Nybo 18:36, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Standard dates for the June Solstice?
Referring to the date(s) for the June Solstice, the article was stating: "which technically can occur anywhere between June 20 - 26th." - This is erroneous as stated. In the Gregorian calendar, in effect for most of Europe from 1582 CE and later in the UK and American colonies since 1752 CE, the June solstice falls on June 21st or otherwise on the 20th for persons living in Britain. The correction of the drifting of the calendar away from the astronomically fixed moments of the solstices and equinoxes was the very reason for the Gregorian reform (so that the date of Easter could be reliably calculated by the Church). In the 1752 reform in Britain, the old Julian calendar was 11 days off, which required the change made wherein the 11:59 PM September 2, 1752 was followed by 12:00 AM September 14, 1752. In the Old Sytle (O.S.) vs. New Style (N.S.) date keeping confusion which followed, perhaps a wider spread of dates for when the June Solstice ocurred could have been muddled for a while in the local records. On the new Gregorian calendar though it would have been one of the two adjacent dates allowed by the leap year and century year correction in effect.
[edit] st. johns eve, ireland 19th century?
Just wanted to add something on the topic of st.johns eve/midsummer... my father was born in 1945 in a rural area in Ireland and in his childhood, st. johns eve, the 23rd of june, was still celebrated by bonfires every night of his childhood...I was myself born on the 23rd of june in dublin and despite the urbanness of it all everyone in his family still mentions to me, every birthday(as if I have not heard it before 27 times) that I was born on st. johns eve and that that is somehow important...he was also much delighted upon seeing it celebrated one year in lisbon, portugal on the same evening.... possibly a reason to mention it in a more contemporary irish context rather than confining it to the 19th century
