THE CATHEDRAL OF ST PETER AND PAUL IN NEWTOWN TRIM
Newtown Abbey is a medieval monastery and National Monument located in Trim, County Meath and it is a much visited location at Christmas. I visited the location on Christmas Day as well as today the 26th December.
It is Saint Stephen’s Day here in Ireland but it is known as Boxing Day in the United Kingdom. I mentioned this as a number of people asked me how do we celebrated Boxing Day here in Ireland.
Saint Stephen’s Day, also called the Feast of Saint Stephen, is a Christian saint’s day to commemorate Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr or protomartyr, celebrated on 26 December in Western Christianity and 27 December in Eastern Christianity. The Eastern Orthodox churches that adhere to the Julian calendar mark Saint Stephen’s Day on 27 December according to that calendar, which places it on 9 January of the Gregorian calendar used in secular contexts. In Latin Christian denominations, Saint Stephen’s Day marks the second day of Christmastide.
It is an official public holiday in Alsace-Moselle, Austria, the Balearic Islands, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Catalonia, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Ukraine, Switzerland and Newfoundland. The date is also a public holiday in those countries that celebrate Boxing Day on the day in addition to or instead of Saint Stephen’s Day, such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and the United Kingdom.
