Public Holiday
Since Pentecost itself is on a Sunday, it is automatically a public holiday almost everywhere. Additional restrictions to Sunday opening hours may apply.
Pentecost Monday is a public holiday in many European countries including Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania (since 2008), (most parts of) Switzerland, Ukraine and also in the African nations Senegal, Benin and Togo.
In Sweden it was also a public holiday, but Pentecost Monday (Annandag Pingst) was replaced by Swedish National Day on June 6, by a government decision on December 15, 2004. In Italy and Malta, it is no longer a public holiday. It was a public holiday in Ireland until 1973. In the United Kingdom the day is known as Whit Monday, and was a bank holiday until 1967 when it was replaced by the Spring Bank Holiday.
Read more about this topic: Pentecost
Famous quotes containing the words public and/or holiday:
“It is a besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which masses of men exhibit their tyranny.”
—James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851)
“You will think me very pedantic, gentlemen, but holiday though it may be, I have not the smallest interest in any holiday, except as it celebrates real and not pretended joys.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)