"18 April would be a terrible date to have another holiday on. We already have loads around that time of year with Patrick's day and Easter."
"Surely the point about Ireland having one of the lowest holiday rates in the EU is that there is room for an Independance Day holiday, should the majority of the population feel that it should be celebrated."
No, I'm not suggesting unpaid leave. The question of whether and how to celebrating our independance is an extremely important issue which apprears to be missing from some of the posts about this question. The question of whether we have a low number of public holidays compared to the rest of the EU is irrelevant to this issue. The issue of commemorating this event/occurance should be decided on a stand alone basis and not be used an an excuse or give us a leg up the Euro public holiday league table.
Likewise, its date (if we are to have a such a holiday) should not be chosen to discommode us on existing public holidays. It appears to me in this thread that people are more concerned with getting the public holiday than the actual event it is proposed to honour.
Finally, the original post asked the question "why don't we celebrate our independence day" it did not suggest a public holiday. Indeed, there are many ways to celebrate it than other than having a public holiday and I might add that it might be better to have a commemoration that does not include a public holiday. If you look at Paddy's Day, it give certain people the excuse to spend the day in the pub which i dont think would be a fitting way to remember Pearse, Collins and many many other who fought and died to secure Irish independence.