NEXT weekend’s celebration of the historic uprising that brought about reforms of the States of Jersey has been greeted as an opportunity to rediscover the spirit of the Island’s culture and identity by the head of the Jèrriais teaching service.
Ben Spink said: “The theme of this year’s Corn Riots festival is L’esprit Jèrriais, so hopefully the fact that Islanders are being invited to the Royal Square, which is where the events actually happened, shows that we still want to make something of that spirit today.”
The two-day festival – first introduced three years ago – celebrates the popular uprising of 1769, which saw disgruntled Islanders march on the Royal Court to protest about law changes that it was suspected were intended to inflate the price of wheat for the benefit of Jersey’s richer landowners. The dissatisfaction led, two years later, to reforms that served to separate the functions of the States and the Royal Court, and have been hailed as a “key moment in the development of the Island’s democracy”.
Mr Spink said that the event had a particular significance for those involved in promoting the resurgence of the Jèrriais language, as it had always been branded bilingually as La Folle d’Avoût – or the wild spirit of the harvest – and contained a strong emphasis on the language in its programme.
“The Jèrriais language would have been the dominant one of the time, so it’s an appropriate vehicle for this celebration of Jersey’s culture and identity, and an important component with a number of Jèrriais events including a schools choir of pupils from Mont Nicolle, St Lawrence, Beaulieu and d’Auvergne, Les Chaboleurs dancers and the Jèrriais folk band Mêli-Mêlo. There’s lots of Jèrriais in the festival and lots of support for keeping it in the public consciousness and associating having a good time with the language,” he added.
Commenting on the importance of continuing to mark the events of 1769, Mr Spink said: “It’s a commemoration of a significant event in Jersey’s history when the people of the Island expressed their dissatisfaction with aspects of the way in which the Island was being run, and the fact that Jersey’s democracy evolved as a result of that is certainly something worth celebrating,” he said.
The festival opens in the Royal Square on Saturday at 1pm with a programme running until the evening, and then continues from 11.30am on Sunday.
Full details are available at gov.je/leisure/events/whatson/pages/cornriotsfestival.aspx#anchor-1
