Easter is almost here, but is Good Friday a bank holiday? (Picture: Getty Images/500px)
Your cupboard is full of Easter Eggs, you’ve got fresh bedsheets on for that well-deserved lie-in and you’ll only need a light jacket outside.
But nothing quite says Spring like not one, not two but four Bank Holidays over the next three months.
Two of them are to celebrate Easter. While named for the pagan goddess of spring, it’s now one of the main festivals in the Christian calendar and is spread out over several days.
There are many Christian traditional days surrounding Easter, from Lent to Maundy Thursday and more.
One of the most well-known is Good Friday – although, let’s be honest, its origins sound mostly anything but good.
But is Good Friday a bank holiday?
Here is what you need to know.
Is Good Friday a bank holiday?
You will be glad to know that not only is Good Friday a bank holiday, but it’s not a long way off either.
Good Friday will be observed on Friday (March 29).
However, before you rush off to the beach, park or pub, you should check in with work first.
Got any bank holiday plans? (Picture: Getty)
Employers don’t have to give you paid leave on bank or public holidays.
It’s also worth remembering that some shops have different opening hours over bank holidays than at other times, especially over Easter.
Why do we call it Good Friday?
Anyone who has watched the Passion of Christ might be wondering why the day Jesus was brutally crucified is called ‘Good Friday’.
The Oxford English Dictionary suggests the ‘good’ is more about it being a holy day.
However, some Catholic scholars feel it’s a Chinese-whipsters-style corruption of ‘God’s Friday’ or a similar-sounding phrase.
Why does Easter change dates?
Unlike Christmas, Good Friday doesn’t have a fixed date. As much as it always lands on – you guessed it – a Friday, it isn’t the same date every day.
This is because it all depends on when Easter is, which in turn depends on the moon. Easter coincides with the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox.
Why is this? Well, early Christians wanted Easter to happen at the same time as Passover as Christ’s death happened after it. Passover, however, is tied to the solar and lunar cycles, making the date up in the air.
There’s also the not-as-well-known Good Wednesday, also called Holy Wednesday, which commemorates the day Judas decided to betray Jesus.
Sadly, though, that’s not a bank holiday.
What other bank holidays are coming up?
If you are lucky enough to get bank holidays off of work, the excellent news is you don’t have long to wait for the next one!
Easter Monday is also a bank holiday, meaning that a four-day weekend is for many.
Lucky for some…
Remaining bank holidays in 2024
Here is a complete list of upcoming bank holidays:
March 29 – Friday – Good Monday
April 1 – Monday – Easter Monday
May 6 – Monday – Early May bank holiday
May 27 – Monday – Spring Bank holiday
August 26 – Monday – Summer Bank holiday
December 25 – Wednesday – Christmas Day
December 26 – Thursday – Boxing Day
Why do we have bank holidays?
Of all people, it’s bankers you have to thank for getting all these days off.
Then again, the word ‘bank’ was a pretty good hint here.
Sir John Lubbock, a banker and the first Baron of Avebury, drafted the Bank Holiday Act in 1871 which designated everything from Easter Monday to New Year’s Day as a public holiday for banks and other financial buildings.
At the time, Good Friday wasn’t included in the act for people in England, Wales and Ireland as the day was already widely considered a day of rest.
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Cheers for that, John. (Picture: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Over time, however, businesses, schools, shops and the government joined in – who doesn’t love a Monday or Friday off, to be fair?
For an entire century, each part of the UK had different designated bank holidays. But the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 changed that, while New Year’s Day and May Day applied to the whole of the UK a few years later.
The royal family can also add extra bank holidays (remember ‘Platy Jubes’?).
Some people feel we need even more bank holidays – the UK has barely any compared to some countries in Europe.
St George’s Day and a ‘UK Day’ are among the new days off pitched over the years by politicians, while some people in Cornwall get March 5 off for St Piran’s Day.
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