Guy Fawkes Day In Canada
Guy Fawkes Day, or Bonfire Night, is mostly an English tradition, but there was a time when the day was widely celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic. Celebrating the foiling of the plot to blow up King James I and the English Parliament in 1605 by the Catholic, Guy Fawkes, it is strongly connected with the Protestant Tradition in the English-speaking world. There was a time when this day was kept across Anglo-Canada with raging bonfires and the burning of effigies of Guy Fawkes. The most notorious celebrations of the holiday in Canada were the Guy Fawkes Day of 1864 in Toronto (basically a riot), and the Guy Fawkes Day of 1889 in Ottawa, which started as a protest against the government of Sir John A. Macdonald for not interfering with Quebec’s new law which would compensate the Jesuits. Both events were spurred on by the once powerful Orange Order. The tradition mostly died out in Anglo-Canada, with the exception of Newfoundland, with some relics in BC (fireworks on Halloween).
Guy Fawkes Day, or Bonfire Night, is mostly an English tradition, but there was a time when the day was widely celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic. Celebrating the foiling of the plot to blow up King James I and the English Parliament in 1605 by the Catholic, Guy Fawkes, it is strongly connected with the Protestant Tradition in the English-speaking world. There was a time when this day was kept across Anglo-Canada with raging bonfires and the burning of effigies of Guy Fawkes. The most notorious celebrations of the holiday in Canada were the Guy Fawkes Day of 1864 in Toronto (basically a riot), and the Guy Fawkes Day of 1889 in Ottawa, which started as a protest against the government of Sir John A. Macdonald for not interfering with Quebec’s new law which would compensate the Jesuits. Both events were spurred on by the once powerful Orange Order. The tradition mostly died out in Anglo-Canada, with the exception of Newfoundland, with some relics in BC (fireworks on Halloween).