St Patrick in Ireland 2019

The rules say that when a Solemnity (such as that of St Patrick in Ireland) falls on an important Sunday, such as one of the Sundays in Lent, it is celebrated on the Monday instead.

The Irish bishops have asked the Vatican if they can not apply the rule this year, and the Vatican has agreed. Accordingly the Solemnity of St Patrick will be celebrated in Ireland on Sunday the 17th of March, in place of the 2nd Sunday in Lent.

Universalis has just been updated to include this change. If you are in Ireland and haven’t received an update by Friday, you may want to update yourself “by hand”. Here are the instructions.

We presume that this applies whenever the 17th of March falls on the 2nd Sunday in Lent, so Universalis will do the same thing in 2030, 2041 and 2052.

It is an open question whether the same thing should apply when the 17th of March falls on the 5th Sunday in Lent, because that Sunday is one of the last Sundays in Lent and therefore, in a sense, more “special”. We will have to wait till 2024 to see what happens.