St Piran’s Day Flags – St Piran’s Flag, Cornish Bunting & Hand Flags

St Piran’s Day, 5 March

St Piran’s Day is 5 March every year, and in 2027 it falls on a Friday. St Piran, or Peran in Cornish, is the patron saint of tinners and one of the patron saints of Cornwall, and his day has become the national day of Cornwall, kept by Cornish people at home and wherever they have settled. Towns hold parades with the black-and-white flag at the front, among them Truro, Redruth and Bodmin, and at Perranporth people walk across the dunes of Perran Sands to St Piran’s Cross near the site of his oratory. Schools hold Cornish assemblies, pubs put on music and pasties, and the greeting of the day is “Gool Peran Lowen”, happy St Piran’s.

The story of St Piran

Piran is said to have been an Irish abbot of the fifth or sixth century. The legend has the Irish tying him to a millstone and throwing him into a stormy sea, only for the sea to calm and the millstone to float him across to Cornwall, where he came ashore at Perranzabuloe and built a small chapel in the sand. Another story makes him the discoverer of tin smelting: the black hearthstone of his fire grew so hot that white tin ran out of it in the shape of a cross. That is the usual explanation of the flag, white tin on black ore, and it is why the tinners took him as their saint.

St Piran’s flag: the flag of Cornwall

The St Piran’s flag is a white cross on a black field. It was described as the banner of St Piran in the early nineteenth century and through the twentieth became the flag of Cornwall, so “Cornish flag”, “Cornwall flag” and “St Piran’s flag” all mean the same flag. You will see it on civic flagpoles across the county, on car bumpers and at every Cornish rugby match. Cornish people were recognised as a national minority under the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention in 2014, and the flag is flown with that in mind. It comes in 20x12in, 3ft x 2ft, 5ft x 3ft and 8ft x 5ft, with a nylon version that flies in a light breeze off the sea and the heavy-grade Cornwall DuraFlag for a pole that flies it all year. We also stock the Cornwall Ensign and its DuraFlag, the Kernow silhouette flag with the shape of the county, and the Cornwall Pirate flag.

St Piran’s Day bunting

Cornwall bunting carries the white cross on black on every pennant and starts at £9.98. The Cornwall triangle bunting is the pennant shape for a school hall, a village fete or a pub garden, and the Cornwall giant bunting has oversized pennants on an 18.25m length for a high street, a parade route or a shopfront. Cornwall Ensign bunting mixes in well. A 9m length dresses a bar or one wall of a classroom; for a street, tie two or three lengths together or use the giant length.

Hand flags, table flags and windsocks

Cornwall hand flags on wooden sticks are the ones for the parade, the school procession and the walk to St Piran’s Cross, with Cornwall Ensign hand flags too. The Cornwall table flag comes with a base for the bar, the restaurant or the reception desk, alongside the satin, wooden and large wooden versions and a Cornwall Ensign table flag. The Cornwall windsock suits a garden, a caravan, a campsite or a boat. For the county’s regiment there is the Somerset and Cornwall Light Infantry DuraFlag, and for sailors the Royal Cornwall Yacht Club Ensign DuraFlag.

No flagpole? A telescopic flag pole goes up in a garden in minutes, and the wall flag pole and bracket suits the front of a house or a pub. Neighbouring county flags are in British county flags.

St Piran’s Day flag FAQs

Popular in this collection

• St Piran’s Flag (20x12in to 8x5ft)from £5.99
• Cornwall Buntingfrom £9.98
• Cornwall Giant Bunting18.25m
• Cornwall Triangle Buntingpennant cut
• Cornwall Hand Flagswooden stick
• Cornwall Table Flag with Base6x4in
• Cornwall DuraFlagheavy grade
• Cornwall Ensign Flagfrom £5.99