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Name
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Tynwald Day Ceremony
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Description
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The open-air parliamentary ceremony held at Tynwald Hill on 5 July (originally 24 June, Midsummer Day, shifted when the Gregorian Calendar was adopted in 1753). Laws are proclaimed from the hill in Manx and English. The Deemsters fence the court and declare that no one shall quarrel or make disturbance. Rushes are laid along the procession way from the chapel to the hill. The ceremony is not a museum piece. It is a working constitutional act, the formal proclamation of legislation on a hill where legislation has been proclaimed since before the Norman Conquest. The forms survived because the forms are the substance. There is no Tynwald ceremony separate from Tynwald itself.
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Date / Season
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5 July (originally 24 June)
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Manx Name
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Laa Tinvaal
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Type
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Civic Ceremony
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Constitutional
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Source
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Moore, Folk-lore (1891)
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Kneen, Proceedings IoM NHAS (1935-37)
