Mad-dgalen College
by Jack Watson, The New Conservative:
Magdalen College, the wealthiest constitutional college of the University of Oxford, has come under fire for scrapping a traditional St George’s Day celebration, which falls every year on 23 April and honours the patron Saint of England. The dinner has been replaced by a ‘special’ banquet for Eid – the second consecutive year the college has made such a move, despite the fierce row it sparked in 2023. The request for this change was made by Muslim students in order to celebrate the end of Ramadan, a month of fasting during which they abstain from food and drink between dawn and sunset.
The Eid dinner may also take on extra significance this year in light of the Israel-Palestine war, which has led Oxford bosses to warn that “there is no place for anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian discrimination, or hate directed towards any faith, race, nationality or ethnic group”.
Here is what Reverend Professor Robert Gilbert, the university’s Vice President, said in an email which he sent out to all the students at the college: ‘We will sit together in the body of the Hall, and the meat will follow Muslim customs: the meat dish will be Halal and no alcohol will be served.’ He also encouraged a ‘cultural dress code’.
St George became a legendary figure in English history due to his courage and bravery. The country adopted him as its patron saint, with April 23 being chosen as the date of celebration to mark his death. A feast day of St George has been celebrated in England for hundreds of years on this date, which was possibly the date of his martyrdom. Following the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, St George’s Day became one of the most important feast days in the English calendar.
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