Who was St Isidore? Why is Feast Day of San Isidro celebrated?

Feast Day of San Isidro is praised in Spain on May 15. St Isidore was a Spanish patron saint as well as the patron saint of farmers.

Isidore the Farm Labourer, otherwise called Isidore the Farmer (Spanish: San Isidro Labrador), was a Spanish farmworker known for his devotion toward poor people and animals. He is the Catholic patron saint of farmers and Madrid, and La Ceiba, Honduras. His feast day is celebrated on May 15.

The Spanish profession name labrador originates from the verb word labrar (“to till”, “to plow” or, from a more extensive perspective, “to work the land”). Consequently, to allude to him as basically a “laborer” is a poor interpretation of the Spanish labrador as it does not refer to the fundamental farming part of his work and his identity. His real name was Isidro de Merlo y Quintana.

St Isidore was born in Madrid, in about the year 1070, of poor yet ardent parents, and was initiated Isidore from the name of their patron, St Isidore of Seville. Isidore spent his life as a hired hand in the service of the wealthy Madrilenian landowner Juan de Vargas on a farm in the city’s region. He shared what he had, even his meals, with poor people. Juan de Vargas would later make him bailiff of his whole estate of Lower Caramanca.

The date of his liturgical feast, which, however, excluded from the General Roman Calendar, has been praised for centuries in a few nations and sees, is May 15. Numerous towns venerate St Isidore and his wife Saint Maria Torribia with parades in which the fields are honored.

One of the most celebrated holidays of Madrid is held on May 15, the Feast Day of San Isidro. The traditional celebration and feast are held in an outside region known as the Pradera del Santo. Toward the afternoon, the picture of San Isidro and his wife, Santa Maria de la Cabeza, are paraded through the streets, from Calle del Sacramento to the Plaza de la Villa, through Calle del Cordon.

The feast day to pay tribute to San Isidro is announced of National Tourist Interest in Andalusia and is one of the most significant festivals in the region of Malaga. The celebration is extremely popular in the region of Alameda because San Isidro is a patron of the town.

Festivities honoring the two saints are additionally held somewhere else in Spain. For years, the Alicantine territory of Castalla has been celebrating the Fair of San Isidro, where various organizations show their products in a playful and festive atmosphere. A medieval swap meet and mechanical attractions are particularly well known.

An enormous festival is held in Estepona, (close Marbella) in Andalucia, where local people celebrate the feast day by drinking a mix of brandy and a popular energy drink which is named in his honor. This has prompted St Isidore frequently being named as the patron saint of krunk (because of the name of this combination drink in the US).

The Romería celebration in Almogia, a pueblo Blanco in the campo north of Malaga (somewhere between Malaga and Antequera) in Andalucia, celebrates San Isidro, its patron saint, on the middle weekend of May with a fiesta carnival. Floats from the encompassing farming communities, joined by traditionally dressed women in flamenco dresses and Caballeros on dancing horses, sing and dance from Almogia to the Romería ground a few kilometers north of the town and the celebration incorporates music, traditional horse races, a bar for horses as well as their riders, and much parading of costume and finery. The best-dressed float is awarded a prize.

St Isidore died on May 15, 1130, at his birthplace near Madrid even though the only official source places his death in the year 1172.