Whanganui Chronicle
  • Whanganui Chronicle home
  • Latest news
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Death notices
  • Classifieds

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Residential property listings
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology

Locations

  • Taranaki
  • National Park
  • Whakapapa
  • Ohakune
  • Raetihi
  • Taihape
  • Marton
  • Feilding
  • Palmerston North

Media

  • Video
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

Weather

  • New Plymouth
  • Whanganui
  • Palmertson North
  • Levin

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Premium
Home / Whanganui Chronicle

Rob Rattenbury: Celebrating Guy Fawkes is irrelevant to 21st-century New Zealand

Rob Rattenbury
By Rob Rattenbury
Columnist·Whanganui Chronicle·
20 Nov, 2022 04:00 PM5 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

Many New Zealanders do not know the backstory of Guy Fawkes Day, writes Rob Rattenbury. Photo / NZME

Many New Zealanders do not know the backstory of Guy Fawkes Day, writes Rob Rattenbury. Photo / NZME

OPINION:

"Guy, Guy, Guy, penny for the Guy. If you haven't got a penny, a ha'penny will do; if you haven't got a ha'penny, God bless you."

Another Guy Fawkes Day has rolled by. Fireworks, scared domestic pets, cats disappearing for days, and farm stock near towns distressed. For a day or two before and for days afterwards we are besieged by the sounds of fireworks, mostly set off by people old enough to know better.

It's a celebration of the execution of English Catholic terrorist Guy Fawkes in London on January 31, 1606. A very different time in a very different country.

On November 5, 1605, Fawkes was caught under the Houses of Parliament guarding a stash of gunpowder intended to be used to blow Parliament and King James I into oblivion when the opportunity arose.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

This was supposed to set off the restoration of a Catholic monarch to the British throne.

Now, 416 years later and 18,390 kilometres away, some New Zealanders still celebrate the death of this religious fanatic. Fawkes and his co-conspirators have no connection whatsoever with 21st-century secular New Zealand. The last sectarian prejudices between Christians in New Zealand pretty much died out 50 years ago. Christian denominations are closer now than at any time since the Reformation.

So, why is there a need to celebrate Fawkes' execution here? Some will say it is our right, as our population includes many with British heritage. Really?

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

We are not a British nation; we are a Pacific nation peopled by literally hundreds of different cultures.

When I was small, the Guy chant used to wake up the neighbourhood in the town where I grew up. Children pushing homemade trolleys or old prams with a homemade dummy inside clothed in old garments - a makeshift Guy Fawkes - would go house to house asking for money, presumably to buy crackers.

Discover more

Rob Rattenbury: The art of buying a car

13 Nov 04:00 PM

Comment: A 'railway nut' dreams of a future with more trains

06 Nov 04:00 PM

Rob Rattenbury: As children, we took our cup of cocoa for granted

23 Oct 04:00 PM
Kahu

Rob Rattenbury: Morvin Simon dramatically shifted my horizons

09 Oct 04:00 PM

They kept away from the Catholic homes because they knew the reception that awaited them. They were only children, but they would be told firmly yet kindly by a parent to be on their way.

You see, Catholic kids knew the story of Guy Fawkes, and knew he and his gang were acting wrong-headedly in trying to restore their faith to the throne of England. This all happened within 50 years of the Reformation.

We never saw the reason for a celebration of something that spelled the end of the open practice of our faith in Britain. But that was our problem to deal with - not the kids, many our mates, who were just having a good time.

I left my church behind years ago, a non-practising Christian. I still, to this day, do not know why we celebrate the death of a person who was fighting simply for religious freedom in his country, however wrong he may have been by our standards.

The day is still allowed in our politically correct time, which is really unusual. I am not sure what the attitude of the Catholic Church is to Guy Fawkes Day now, but it was a day that was simply ignored in our lives, both at home and at school, in the 1950s - almost a day of shame.

Many New Zealanders either just do not know the backstory to Guy Fawkes Day or, if they do, it's of no consequence to them, and just another chance to have some fun.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

The occasion has no relevance to modern life in New Zealand and should be placed on the back-burner. We are supposed to be a religiously tolerant nation, yet some still celebrate the death of a misguided religious zealot from the Jacobean Age.

Here's the rub; our society would not tolerate New Zealanders celebrating deaths or tragedies in other religions by having bonfires and setting off minor explosives, scaring the willies out of older people and nearby animals.

Those two other peoples of the Book, Jews and Muslims, would not tolerate any such behaviour. They would be strident in their condemnation of such insensitivity. They would be in the national media, on the telly, decrying, quite rightly, such thoughtlessness.

So, why does a group of Christians have to still feel slightly marginalised once a year? They were not responsible for Fawkes' madness.

Here, other celebrations are becoming widespread such as Diwali, the Festival of Lights in the Hindu, Jan and Sikh faiths, a time of dancing and joy.

There are some things that must never be forgotten but, also, which should never be celebrated. The part of British history Guy Fawkes comes from shows no credit to those Catholics or Protestants. It was one of the bloodiest times in British history. Thousands of people of both faiths died what were often slow, miserable deaths in the name of Christianity and the madness of it all. Yet they worshipped the same God.

Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

Latest from Whanganui Chronicle

Whanganui Chronicle

Body of missing man found

Whanganui Chronicle

End of the line for former St George's School buildings

Whanganui Chronicle

Netball: Kaierau edge Pirates in thrilling Premier 1 clash


Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Whanganui Chronicle

Body of missing man found
Whanganui Chronicle

Body of missing man found

Kahu Gill's body was recovered near the Cobham Bridge on July 14.

16 Jul 08:34 PM
End of the line for former St George's School buildings
Whanganui Chronicle

End of the line for former St George's School buildings

16 Jul 06:00 PM
Netball: Kaierau edge Pirates in thrilling Premier 1 clash
Whanganui Chronicle

Netball: Kaierau edge Pirates in thrilling Premier 1 clash

16 Jul 05:00 PM


Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

06 Jul 09:47 PM
NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • Whanganui Chronicle e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Whanganui Chronicle
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • NZME Events
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP