Honours are awards given by the state to acknowledge a personal achievement, bravery, exceptional performance or extended periods of service in public life or in institutions like the military.
Today – as a companion piece to last week’s post on titles and heraldry (and another re-write) – I’ll be looking at how an independent Wales could run an honours system.
With this out of the way, the next “meaty” series on independence will be:
Chivalric Order
- In use by: UK, The Netherlands, Denmark, Holy See/Vatican City and Sweden.
Chivalric orders are a continuation of the knightly/chivalric ideal from medieval times and as such are usually awarded by states that are constitutional monarchies, or by organisations such as the Catholic Church. While they used to have a practical role in promoting gifted military commanders, it’s long been symbolic.
Civil Order
- In use by: France, South Africa, Canada, Japan and Italy.
Nations with a civil/national order award honours in the same way as a chivalric order, but without the knightly connection. These orders aren’t restricted to republics (as in the case of Canada and Japan) and in some cases may have evolved from previous orders that once had a monarch as a patron.
Civilian awards (without an order)
- In use by: United States, Germany, India, Austria, Israel and Bangladesh.
Nations with a civilian awards system – which may operate separately from awards for the military and other uniform services – usually confer awards in the name of the government/head of government, the nation’s legislature (such as the US Congressional Medals) or to mark an event of some kind.
No formal honours system
- As in: Republic of Ireland, Switzerland, Costa Rica (possibly).
It’s difficult to find countries without some kind of honours system, though there are two surprises in Ireland and Switzerland. Ireland used to have its own chivalric order as part of the UK honours system (Order of St. Patrick) but that’s now dormant.
In some cases, even in the absence of a national civilian honours system, there may still be decorations and medals for military service or for uniform services. Even though the Republic of Ireland doesn’t have a national/state honours system there are plenty of informal civilian awards.
The closest thing to a national civil award is the Gaisce (President’s Award) which is given to under-25s who undertake a programme of activity and is very similar (if not identical) to The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award.
