In Search of Lost Time – An Irishman’s Diary about the French republican calendar

Another year over already – it's hard to believe. Where did Fructidor go? That's the worst thing about observing the French republican calendar. The summer months are even shorter than the conventional July and August, so that before you know, it's Vendémiaire all over again. Oh well, here's to the year 225. Let's hope it's a good one.

All right, I don't actually observe the calendar of the French revolution, except now and then, to amuse myself. It was officially abandoned in 1805, after only 12 years in existence. And even if I did, Fructidor (the fruit month) 224 having ended on Thursday, there would now be a hiatus before new year began.

The calendar’s rationalised system of three 10-day weeks in each of a dozen 30-day months meant there were always five days left over at the end, or six in a leap year.

These were known first as the "sans-culottides", in honour of the long-trouser-wearing insurgents who had risen against the silk-knee-britch aristocracy. Later, more simply, they were designated "les jours complémentaires".

Each was a themed holiday, on which citizens were invited to celebrate certain qualities of the brave new world the revolution had created, wherein “cults” had been abolished in favour of a calendar based on everyday reality and the agricultural economy.

So the jours complémentaires were dedicated in turn to "virtue", "talent", "work", "convictions" (a day when people were free to satirise the new administration with songs, cartoons, and sarcastic speeches), "honours", and finally, leap years allowing, the "revolution" in general.

Only after that would a new calendar commence, resuming the general scheme whereby every fifth day was named after an animal, every tenth after an implement, and all others after plants. Here the revolutionaries had old-fashioned priorities. New Year's Day, 1 Vendémiaire, was dedicated to the "grape".

Of course, underpinning the whole plan was the autumn equinox, which in the northern hemisphere falls next Thursday. And the equinox aside, there is plenty to be said for having a calendar that pivots on September.

Schools and universities are already embarking on their new years, after all. Meanwhile, for older students, the season of night classes now looms, offering the chance of self-improvement, at least, and maybe a new start. I’m a sucker for such optimism myself.

Among next week’s events, I notice, is an Astronomy Ireland public lecture (Monday, in Trinity College) on the search for “Dark Energy”. They mean the theoretical stuff that makes the universe function as it does. But I think of dark energy as the surge of enthusiasm that – along with a certain sadness – the shortening of the days brings.

It probably won’t come to anything, but yet again this week I found myself studying brochures of evening courses. In fact, speaking of the revolution, and for old time’s sake, I even picked one up from the “People’s College“ – the trade-union-organised night school that since 1948 has offered modestly priced classes in everything from art to yoga.

When I first came to Dublin in the 1980s, I considered for several autumns doing their “harmonica for beginners” course, and going so far one year as to buy a harmonica.

But I never did the classes. And the main thing I learned about the instrument – a revelation in its own right – was that my father could play it. At home one weekend, he said, “Give me that a minute”. Then he improvised an Irish reel, something I had never seen him do on anything, and that he probably hadn’t done since the 1950s, when he got married and took vows to be sensible. After that brief reprise, he never played it again either.

I still have the harmonica somewhere, but alas the People’s College no longer offers the course. That’s probably just as well for my children, or they might spend the coming months listening to me doing bad Neil Young impressions, blowing the “harp” and whining along to his seasonal classic: “In the field of opportunity, it’s ploughing time again.”

Actually, according to the republican calendar, ploughing time – or the day of the plough, at least – doesn't happen until Brumaire 10 (October 31st). That gives them plenty of time to sober up after the grape harvest.

But the sans-culottes of Ireland won't wait so long. Like true revolutionaries, they will celebrate the last of the jours complémentaires next week with their annual pagan festival of the soil. Also known as the National Ploughing Championships, the event begins on Tuesday and ends, naturally, on 1 Vendémiaire.