DCHP-3

Bonfire Night

DCHP-2 (Nov 2012)

Spelling variants:
bonfire night

1n. — predominantly Newfoundland < from English tradition

an annual celebration held on November 5th to mark the escape of James I from assassination.

Type: 2. Preservation — November 5th bonfires were first lit to celebrate King James I's escape from assassination with the failure of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 (see DWH-2 reference). The annual celebration, also named Guy Fawkes Night after one of the conspirators, traveled to Canada with the surge of immigrants to Newfoundland from southwest England in the 17th to 19th centuries (Clarke 2010a: 366). Schwoeffermann's interview with a Newfoundland local (see the 1994 quotations) suggests that the term Bonfire Night is preferred to Guy Fawkes Night, as it strips the event of British historical associations.
See also COD-2, s.v. "Bonfire Night", which is marked "Cdn (Nfld)", and OED-3, s.v. "bonfire night".

Quotations

1896
BONFIRES BLAZED.--No less than sixteen big bonfires blazed at Channel on bonfire night. The young people had a really happy time of it.
1917
Nanaimo was in the glare of flames all last evening and until early this morning, the young people of the city celebrating Guy Fawkes' Day. [...] The local High School students will hold their bonfire night on Friday evening.
1922
Bonfire night has come and gone, and with it has gone the old time gusto. In our few years of experience memory is ripe with the exhilirating times we used to have on November 5th. Now everything seems utterly different, and there is rarely a "tar-barrel" to flare the beacon lights.
1964
Guy Fawkes' Day is almost exlusively an English festival, although it has been exported to Newfoundland, where last night was celebrated as Bonfire Night.
1977
Celebrations marking Guy Fawkes night, commonly known as bonfire night in Newfoundland, got so far out of control on Saturday that the mayor felt it necessary to warn citizens they were risking "a major conflagration."
1985
Then on Nov. 5, there's Bonfire Night at the Last Drop Village [...]
1994
With its shift to North America and a different cultural context, the fall fire festival of Guy Fawkes Night has become known in Newfoundland as Bonfire Night.
1994
It is also called Guy Fawkes Night on occasion but this is infrequent, and as one Newfoundlander noted, "'Guy Fawkes' is only used by old people around the community. You won't catch nobody nowadays calling it that. It's just 'Bonfire Night' to us."
2005
Newfoundland is one of the only places in Canada to celebrate Guy Fawkes night, also referred to as Bonfire Night.
2013
Tomorrow should be cool but some sun will push through, with a mix of sun and cloud and a high of -1°C. Wind will be 30 km/h, gusting to 50 km/h, but it's expected to lighten up early tomorrow evening, if anyone's planning to celebrate Bonfire Night.
2n. — predominantly Newfoundland < from Irish tradition

a celebration of St. John's Day on June 24th.

Type: 2. Preservation — St. John's feast day in the Catholic tradition coincides with the summer solstice, or Midsummer Day, which has long been celebrated with bonfires. The dual nature of the holiday made it popular among both religious and secular communities and was a particularly significant event in Ireland until the Second World War (Gailey & Adams 1977: 14-15). Newfoundland's 19th-century Irish settlement history (Clarke 2010a: 366) ensured the continuation of this celebration in Canada (see the 1887 quotation). It is also celebrated in Quebec, where St. John's Day (see also St. Jean Baptiste Day) coincides with the Fête nationale.

Quotations

1887
The twenty-fourth of June -- St. John's Day, and Bonfire Night.
1940
It was St. John's Eve in Ballycladdy. This night, however, was always known in the district as Bonfire Night because that was the night on which a bonfire blazed on every hill in rural Ireland.
1992
Early French-Canadians brought to the festivities a midsummer bonfire tradition: on the night before St. John's Day, a town along the St. Lawrence River lit a fire, and that bonfire was a signal for the next village to light its fire and so on.

References