Holiday Calendar

Daffodil Day

Next celebratedMonday, March 22, 2027

Cancer societies in Ireland, Australia and New Zealand each hold a Daffodil Day of their own, months apart, selling the same yellow flower to pay for cancer research, counselling and lifts to treatment.

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Last updated September 3, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATEMarch 22
OBSERVED INInternationally
CATEGORYAwareness
SUBCATEGORYCancer
ORIGIN

Institutional Initiative

FOUNDING ENTITY
Canadian Cancer Society
FIRST OBSERVED
~1957
HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

The fundraising teas came first, and the street sale came after.

Canadian Cancer Society volunteers in Toronto used daffodils at fundraising teas through the 1950s, and in 1957 took to the streets selling the flowers in what is described as the first Daffodil Day fundraiser. Cancer societies in Ireland, Australia and New Zealand later built their own Daffodil Days on the Canadian model.

INTRO

Four countries keep this appeal on four different dates

Ask when Daffodil Day falls and the answer depends on which country you are standing in. The Irish Cancer Society holds it on Friday 20 March in 2026. Cancer Council puts Australia's on Thursday 20 August, and the Cancer Society of New Zealand keeps its own on the last Friday in August.

That is not a scheduling error. Each of those appeals was built separately, by a different national cancer society, on its own calendar. The flower they all reach for came from Canada.

The daffodil is the constant. The charity behind it is not: a pin bought in Ireland in March and a daffodil bought in New Zealand in August support two different organisations in two different countries.

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ORIGINS

Daffodil Day history

INTRODUCTION

Lady Flora Eaton's Daffodil Tea filled a Toronto department store in 1954. Seven hundred women came, and each of them brought funds for the Canadian Cancer Society. Volunteers had set daffodils on the tables.

Three years later the flowers left the building. In 1957 the volunteers took them out to the street, and an anonymous donor paid to fly 5,000 blooms in from British Columbia, where the growing season starts earlier. The sale raised more than $1,200.

CHAPTER 01

The flower leaves Canada

Australia went first. Cancer Council held the country's first Daffodil Day in 1986, and says the daffodil has stood since then as a national symbol of hope for people facing cancer.

Charles Cully, a founder member of the Irish Cancer Society, travelled to Toronto in 1987. There he met the daughter of a founder member of the Toronto daffodil day. Ireland held its own first Daffodil Day the following year.

Professor Austin Darragh led it, and the society says he was inspired by the campaign in Canada. The target was £100,000. Volunteers raised £320,000.

New Zealand followed in 1990. The first group of volunteers were in Feilding, and they picked daffodils out of local paddocks to exchange for donations.

CHAPTER 02

Canada lets the flower go

Then the country that started it stopped selling the flower. In April 2013 the Canadian Cancer Society said it was ending its fresh-daffodil fundraiser, because shipping the blooms from the West Coast had become too costly and too labour-intensive. Lapel pins and a text-to-donate number took over.

The daffodil itself stayed. It had become the Canadian Cancer Society's official logo in 2000, and the society still raises money under it.

TIMELINE

Timeline

First Toronto street sale

Canadian Cancer Society volunteers sold daffodils on Toronto streets in what is described as the first Daffodil Day fundraiser.

Australia holds its first

Cancer Council ran the first Australian Daffodil Day, and the flower became a national symbol of hope for people facing cancer.

Ireland holds its first

Professor Austin Darragh led the Irish Cancer Society's first Daffodil Day, inspired by the Canadian campaign.

New Zealand adopts the appeal

The Cancer Society of New Zealand introduced Daffodil Day as its major street appeal, with ANZ as principal sponsor.

Daffodil becomes an official logo

The Irish Cancer Society adopted the daffodil as its official logo.

Canada drops the fresh flower

The Canadian Cancer Society ended its fresh-daffodil fundraiser and moved to lapel pins and text-to-donate.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why Daffodil Day Matters

LANGUAGE

A bright, brave symbol for a word nobody would say.

The Irish Examiner reported that in 1980s Ireland people hardly dared say the word cancer, and used hushed tones and coded language when they did. It credited Daffodil Day with attaching the disease to a bright, brave symbol.

SERVICES

The money pays for nurses and lifts

The Irish Cancer Society says its funding provided more than 29,800 free lifts to and from cancer treatment in 2025. It also paid for 5,900 nights of Night Nursing care so that patients could die at home.

SCRUTINY

Where the money goes has been questioned

A 2011 CBC Marketplace analysis of twelve years of Canadian Cancer Society reports found the share of spending going to research fell from 40.3 per cent in 2000 to under 22 per cent in 2011, while the share going to fundraising rose from 26 per cent to 42.7 per cent. CBC noted that the dollar amount spent on research rose slightly across the same period.

We went around, badgering everybody who had daffodils, and everybody said 'yes, I'll pick some'.
Margaret CullyWidow of Irish Cancer Society founder member Charles Cully
The beauty of the flower and the idea that it is connected to the Canadian Cancer Society is a wonderful thing and it will continue to do so, even in future years.
Anne Marie MuraskaCanadian Cancer Society volunteer and cancer survivor

GOOD TO KNOW

Daffodil Day Around the World

Ireland

The Irish Cancer Society runs Daffodil Day on Friday 20 March in 2026, and says it typically receives only 5 per cent of its income from the Irish Government.

Australia

Cancer Council's Daffodil Day falls on Thursday 20 August in 2026, the fortieth year of the appeal.

New Zealand

The Cancer Society runs its street appeal on the last Friday in August, supplied by more than 50 daffodil farms, over 40 of them in the Wairarapa.

Canada

There is no single day. The Canadian Cancer Society runs a month-long Daffodil Campaign through April, which is also Cancer Awareness Month there.

United Kingdom

Marie Curie runs a separate Great Daffodil Appeal through March, and its pin funds end-of-life care rather than cancer research.

United States

The American Cancer Society runs Daffodil Days regionally as a flower order-and-delivery drive, with one 2026 ordering window open from 10 January to 13 February.

BY THE NUMBERS

Daffodil Day by the Numbers

~46%
Australian 5-year cancer survival, 1986
72%
Australian 5-year cancer survival today
600,000+
Fresh daffodils needed in New Zealand
63,000+
Australian Daffodil Day fundraisers, 2025
$21M
Raised by Canada's daffodil campaign, 2025

GOOD TO KNOW

Surprising facts about Daffodil Day

The daffodil replaced a sword

At the Cancer Society of New Zealand the flower took over from a sword, which had been the society's emblem since it was set up in 1929.

Christian Dior dressed the volunteers

When the Canadian appeal reached Calgary in 1961, the designer made daffodil-yellow smocks for the volunteers. The money raised that first Calgary year went to the study of total body radiation at the University of Alberta Hospital.

Ireland's first buttonholes came from Hong Kong

Contacts there sent 10,000 artificial daffodil buttonholes for the 1988 appeal.

Britain had to warn shops about daffodils

Public Health England wrote to supermarkets in 2015 under the heading 'Steps to avoid daffodil poisonings this spring', after shoppers mistook the bulbs for onions. The agency had logged 63 poisoning inquiries in the previous six years.

The flower has real anti-cancer chemistry

A 2018 paper in the journal Structure showed that haemanthamine, an alkaloid found in daffodils, binds the ribosome and represses cancer cell growth. That is a laboratory finding about a compound, not a treatment.

GET INVOLVED

How to Observe Daffodil Day

EDITOR'S PICK

Check which date your country keeps

Daffodil Day is not one date worldwide. Look up your own national cancer society before you plan a fundraiser or a collection around it.

WEAR

Wear a pin from your national society

The Irish Cancer Society sells boxes of pins to individuals, schools and workplaces. Buying from the society that runs your country's appeal keeps the money with it.

VOLUNTEER

Volunteer for a street collection

Cancer societies run their street appeals on volunteers. Ask the society in your country what a collection shift involves and when sign-ups open.

POINT

Point someone toward a cancer support line

If someone close to you is facing a diagnosis, point them to their national cancer society's support line. Share the number rather than offering advice of your own.

READ

Read what the appeal actually funds

The national societies publish what their Daffodil Day money paid for, from night nursing to research grants. Reading that before you give tells you which part of the work you are backing.

GET INVOLVED

Resources and Support

EDITOR'S PICK

Irish Cancer Society

Irish Cancer Society. Support Line on 1800 200 700, plus Daffodil Centres in hospitals nationwide

CANCER

Cancer Council

Cancer Council. Runs the Australian Daffodil Day appeal and funds cancer research nationally

Test your knowledge

How well do you know Daffodil Day?

1 / 8

In which country did the daffodil first become a cancer fundraising symbol?

Answer

No. It is a charity fundraising day run by national cancer societies, not an official or public holiday, so it is a normal working day.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

15sources
10primary records
13independently dated
Primary records
Irish Cancer Society2026
Daffodil Day
The society's own campaign page, giving the 2026 Irish date and the services its Daffodil Day funding paid for in 2025, including free lifts to treatment and nights of Night Nursing care.
View source
Irish Cancer Society
Who we are
The society's own account of Professor Austin Darragh leading Ireland's first Daffodil Day in 1988, inspired by the campaign in Canada, and of the daffodil becoming its official logo in 2001.
View source
Cancer Council2026
About Daffodil Day
The Australian campaign's own page, dating the first Daffodil Day there to 1986 and setting out the five-year cancer survival figures the charity reports for then and now.
View source
Cancer Council ACT2026
This Daffodil Day marks 40 years of growing hope
A Cancer Council division's release corroborating the 1986 first year and reporting more than 63,000 fundraisers and donors supporting the appeal in 2025.
View source
Cancer Society of New Zealand17 December 2021
Daffodils and the Cancer Society
The society's own page recording the daffodil's first use in Toronto in the 1950s, the flower replacing the sword that had been its emblem since 1929, the 1990 introduction of Daffodil Day, and its daffodil supply figures.
View source
Cancer Society of New ZealandAugust 2020
Cancer Society Daffodil Day Turns 30
The society marking thirty years of Daffodil Day in New Zealand, describing it as the country's largest fundraising street appeal and naming ANZ as its principal sponsor.
View source
Marie Curie2026
Donate to the Great Daffodil Appeal
The charity's own page for the UK daffodil-pin appeal, confirming that it runs through March and funds end-of-life care, which is what separates it from the cancer societies' Daffodil Day.
View source
American Cancer Society2026
Daffodil Days of the Capital Region 2026
An American Cancer Society region's own event page, showing that the US programme is an order-and-delivery flower drive with a January to February ordering window rather than a single fixed day.
View source
Canadian Cancer Society
History of the Canadian Cancer Society
The society's own institutional history, which sets out its formation in 1938 and its research investment but makes no mention of the daffodil, Daffodil Day or 1957.
View source
Structure2018
The Amaryllidaceae Alkaloid Haemanthamine Binds the Eukaryotic Ribosome to Repress Cancer Cell Growth
The peer-reviewed paper identifying how a daffodil alkaloid binds the ribosome and represses the growth of cancer cells in the laboratory.
View source
Additional coverage
SaskToday27 April 2026
April is Daffodil Month: a bloom with a backstory
The fullest published account of the Canadian origin, covering Lady Flora Eaton's 1954 tea, the 1957 street sale, the flowers flown from British Columbia, the 1961 Calgary expansion with Christian Dior's smocks, and the sum raised in 2025.
View source
Irish Examiner23 March 2012
From where it all stemmed
Interviews with Margaret Cully and the Irish Cancer Society's chief executive on how Charles Cully's 1987 Toronto trip led to Ireland's first Daffodil Day, and on how the appeal changed the way the disease was discussed.
View source
CBC News8 April 2013
Cancer society ends daffodil fundraiser
Reporting on the Canadian Cancer Society ending its fresh-daffodil sale on cost and logistics grounds, and the volunteer reaction to losing the flower.
View source
CBC News6 July 2011
Cancer Society spends more on fundraising than research
A Marketplace analysis of twelve years of Canadian Cancer Society financial reports, tracking the falling share of spending on research against the rising share on fundraising.
View source
NBC News7 February 2015
Daffod-ill: U.K. Stores Warn Shoppers Not to Eat Flowers
Coverage of the Public Health England letter asking supermarkets to separate daffodils from produce, with the number of poisoning inquiries the agency had logged.
View source
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