29th Febraury, Ladies Privilege in Ireland and Leap Year

If you take a look at your calendar you'll notice that the days of February run to 29 this year. That's because of course 2012 is a leap year and according to Irish tradition February 29th is the day when women may propose to men. This is known as ‘Ladies Privilege' and the tradition in Ireland has its origins in the legends of Ireland's Saints; St Bridget and St Patrick, after Bridget urged Patrick to allow women the right to propose. Patrick refused but later agreed to allow Ladies Privilege once every seven years, Bridget bartered him down to four and the tradition was established. Here it is the story! In the 5th century St Bridget from Ireland complained to St Patrick about women having to wait for the men to propose. So according to legend St Patrick replied that on the 29th February women can propose to the man of her choice. The right for women to propose on this date goes back many hundreds of years to when the leap year day had no recognition in English law so had no legal status. People assumed that tradition would also have no status on that day. It was also reasoned that the leap year was to fix a problem with the calendar so could be used to fix an old and unjust custom that only let men propose marriage. Bear in mind that Ireland is an ultra catholic country, and so it was in 5th century!! If your planning on popping the question or taking a romantic vacation in Ireland, what better place to start than Dublin. Ireland's capital city has charm, character and romantic landmarks such as Ha'penny Bridge, Croke Park and the burial place of St Valentine. It is a little known Dublin fact that in 1836, the relics of St Valentine were brought to Dublin and are kept in the Shrine of St Valentine at the Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church, a short walk from St Stephen's Green. What better place to be this St Valentine's Day? So ladies, if you're tired of waiting to here the question, why not pop it yourself and take advantage of ladies privilege this year with a trip to some of the romantic places in Ireland? And gentlemen - remember if you were to get hitched on February 29th you only have to remember your anniversary once every four years!

The XXIst Century Wedding and other British Royal Weddings

Today it's the first wedding of the British Royal famuly in the XXIst century. I am going to publish a historical article for all of us who like the British Culture with videos, links and comments on everything.

This is a good video to learn about the most important weddings in the XXth century up to now, before William and Kate's, but I think the first important issue is to learn about this Royal family:

As you can learn from this video, the actual Prince of Wales, the heir of the Kingdom is Charles, and his wedding was the one titled as A Prince and Lady Tale, most of the girls of the 80's dreamt to become princess in the 90's or early XXIst century. Here it is the history:

We'll prove that there are many coincidences and differences between this one and William and Kate's wedding, as we will see in a bit.
In this moment, I want to do a break with the joy of wedding and remember the problems that Diana had and his tragical end in Paris on 29th August 1997. It was a shock for me in that time I was studying in Salamanca, and it was my issue to get my grade in the university.This is my tribute for her and the song of Eltonn John in her funeral.


After her death, everything changed at Buckingham Palace and the British society suspected on the British Royal family and the mass media were blame for their harassment to Diana, but Diana's children could calm them down.

You may continue with the next nine videos of this mourning of Diana, to find out about the consequences of her death, but to make this article shorter I have to continue with the history and this is the time for Charles's happiness as he finally got mariied his true love: Camila Parker Bowles.

And we finally reach the end of this article, Kate and William's wedding. I didn't pay attention to it until I came across a funny video to announce this historical wedding:

I was very funny indeed, but I think It's time to make fun of the Royal families, included the Spanish, and I think they are very good ambassadors for both countries, but they cost a lot too.
CONGRATULATIONS FOR YOUR WEDIING, WILLIAM AND KATE!