Holiday Calendar

National Kathleen Day

Next celebratedWednesday, January 13, 2027

For roughly fifty years, English-speaking commerce called an unpayable debt a Kathleen Mavourneen loan -- 'it may be for years and it may be forever'. January 13 takes the name back from the joke.

Countdown to the day
--DAYS
--HRS
--MIN
--SEC
Last updated September 6, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATEJanuary 13
OBSERVED INUnited States
CATEGORYNames
ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY
Not documented
FIRST OBSERVED
Not documented
HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

A well-documented name attached to an undocumented day.

No founder, establishing act, proclamation or formal record of when National Kathleen Day began has been identified. It circulates through online holiday listings, and that circulation is the only documented trace of the observance.

+ Know the story? Submit a founder Help us complete this holiday
INTRO

An 1835 song that became slang for bad debt

National Kathleen Day carries a name that English-speaking commerce borrowed for roughly fifty years as a joke about bad debt. In 1882 a New York debtor, sued by his creditor, admitted he had taken the money and then argued that the lender had known all along what sort of loan it was. It was a Kathleen Mavourneen loan, he said, one of the "it may be for years and it may be forever" sort.

That phrase was two words and always two words, never the given name on its own. Word Histories records it as having been used especially of a loan that the borrower refuses to pay back, and gives the 1882 paragraph in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle as the earliest occurrence its author has found.

The observance itself is thinner than the name it borrows. National Catherine Day falls on January 13 as well, and the two are separate days for separate names.

Advertisement
ORIGINS

Kathleen Day history

INTRODUCTION

In September 1835 the Metropolitan Magazine, published in London by Saunders and Otley, printed a song called Kathleen Mavourneen. The music was Frederick Crouch's, the words Mrs. Crawford's, and mavourneen is the Irish mo mhuirnin, "my darling".

One line outlived the song: "It may be for years, and it may be for ever." Word Histories finds an early metaphorical use in The Sun of London on 25 May 1852, applied to the Earl of Derby abandoning Protection.

CHAPTER 01

The Indiana schoolteacher and the answer song

In 1875 an American wrote the other famous Kathleen song. The University of Pittsburgh's Voices Across Time describes Thomas Westendorf as "a teacher in an Indiana reform school and an amateur composer and musician".

The usual story is that he wrote "I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen" for his wife. Voices Across Time calls that incorrect: the song answered "Barney, Take Me Home Again" by the composer George W. Persley.

It was the only song by Westendorf that achieved a significant amount of popularity. Publishers then were not obligated to pay royalties, and his small monthly income came through the publisher's gratitude.

CHAPTER 02

A debt that may be for years

By the 1880s the line had a second career in commerce. Word Histories says the 1882 Brooklyn paragraph was reprinted in many U.S. and British newspapers, which "probably popularised" the phrase. It "may be the origin of" a Lichfield Mercury paragraph that August, taken from the London magazine Funny Folks, that explained the American joke to British readers.

The Kathleen Mavourneen system followed, its earliest found occurrence in Coventry's Midland Daily Telegraph in 1892. By 1929 the phrase had attached itself to hire purchase, paying in instalments while already using the goods. A furniture advertisement in The Sunderland Echo and Shipping Gazette explained that traders had "many experiences of defaulting clients, so the system was humorously dubbed the 'Kathleen Mavourneen.'"

CHAPTER 03

The day arrives without a paper trail

National Kathleen Day is the newest thing here and the least documented. A controlled sweep of four holiday registries in the Internet Archive found no capture earlier than October 2022, and the one registry carrying the day names neither founder nor year.

Absence from a web archive is not proof that nothing existed earlier. It does mean everything solid about January 13 belongs to the name, not the day.

BY THE NUMBERS

National Kathleen Day by the Numbers

No. 31
Kathleen's rank, US births 1926-2025
No. 42
Katherine's rank, US births 1926-2025
No. 52
Catherine's rank, US births 1926-2025
No. 77
Kathryn's rank, US births 1926-2025
72 years
Kathleen's years in the US top 100

TIMELINE

Timeline

The song is printed in London

The Metropolitan Magazine printed Kathleen Mavourneen in September, carrying the line "It may be for years, and it may be for ever."

Kathleen enters the federal record

The first year of American federal name records lists 21 girls named Kathleen.

The name's highest American count

American records counted 26,716 girls named Kathleen, in the last of four consecutive years inside the top ten.

Last year inside the top thousand

Kathleen ranked 987th, and it falls outside the American top 1,000 in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025.

The day's earliest archived listing

The earliest listing for National Kathleen Day found in any web archive appears in October.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Kathleen Day

STAGE

A name given the walk of a queen, standing in for a country.

Cathleen ni Houlihan, the one-act play W. B. Yeats and Lady Gregory wrote in 1902, gives the name to a figure who stands for an independent Irish state, played in the first performances by Maud Gonne. She appears first as an old woman describing her "four beautiful green fields", the four provinces, and later with "the walk of a queen".

MEMORY

The name still carries the emigrant's homesickness

Voices Across Time writes that I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen continues to be performed as a melancholy portrayal of the Irish immigrant's desire to return home. The name, not the composer, is what the song uses to stand for the person who left.

LANGUAGE

A day for a name that arrived through Irish

Behind the Name files Kathleen as the anglicised form of Caitlin, itself the Irish form of Cateline, the Old French form of Katherine. The reference lists the name's usage as Irish and English, and an American January day sits at the end of that route.

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Kathleen Day

EDITOR'S PICK

Play the two Kathleen songs oldest first

One was printed in London in 1835, the other written by an Indiana schoolteacher in 1875. Play them in that order and put forty years between the two Kathleens.

READ

Read Cathleen ni Houlihan in one sitting

Yeats and Lady Gregory's play runs a single act, which makes it an evening rather than a project. Give the title role to whoever reads best out loud.

TRACE

Trace the spelling back to its Irish form

Kathleen, Caitlin and Cateline are the same name at three stages of one journey. The entries at Behind the Name lay the chain out in order.

ASK

Ask a Kathleen which spelling she was given

Kathleen, Katherine, Catherine and Kathryn are four separate entries on the federal century table. Ask which one before you write it down.

PUT

Put the old loan joke back into circulation

In the 1880s the phrase named money that was never coming back, and it came out of an 1835 song. Try it on the next friend who owes you.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Kathleen Day?

1 / 10

What did a Kathleen Mavourneen loan mean in the 1880s?

Answer

No. A Federal Register search returns no documents for the phrase against a working control, and a search of government sites turned up no proclamation or resolution, so January 13 is a normal working day.

COLOPHON

Sources

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

9sources
3primary records
3independently dated
Primary records
U.S. Social Security Administration
Top Names of the Last 100 Years
The 100 most common American given names for births in 1926 to 2025, ranked.
View source
U.S. Social Security Administration2026-04-13
National data on the relative frequency of given names (names.zip)
One file per year from 1880 to 2025, giving every name recorded at least five times.
View source
Office of the Federal Register
Federal Register API document search
Full-text search across federal documents, returning a document count for any phrase.
View source
Additional coverage
word histories2021-07-04
'Kathleen Mavourneen': meaning and origin
Dated newspaper quotations tracing the phrase from an 1835 song to 1929 hire purchase.
View source
University of Pittsburgh, Voices Across Time
I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen (teacher's guide, Unit 5)
Thomas Westendorf's life, and the correction that the song answered another song.
View source
Behind the Name2024-04-23
Kathleen
Kathleen as the anglicised form of Caitlin, with its Irish and English usage.
View source
Behind the Name
Caitlin
Caitlin as the Irish form of Cateline, the Old French form of Katherine.
View source
Encyclopaedia Britannica
St. Catherine of Alexandria
The saint's November 25 feast day and the doubts about her historicity.
View source
Wikipedia
Cathleen ni Houlihan
The 1902 Yeats and Lady Gregory play and its title figure as a personified Ireland.
View source
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

Related holidays

THU
25
Feb 2026
National Kathy Day
Names

National Kathy Day

Kathy went to 34,766 US girls in the 1940s and 22,706 in the 1970s, then vanished: no decade since has put it among the country's 200 most popular girls' names. February 25 is its day.

137Read
TUE
08
Jun 2026
National Karen Day
Names

National Karen Day

Karen got there first: Merriam-Webster files the insult as based on the given name, not the other way round. June 8 is the name's day, and a survey of 681 bearers found more than three quarters reported being laughed at.

162Read
THU
08
Jul 2026
National Kathryn Day
Names

National Kathryn Day

Across 146 years of American birth records, Kathryn was never once the most common spelling of its own name; it held second place for 23 unbroken years. July 8 is the day for a spelling that did not have to win.

83Read
FOR MARKETERS & CREATORS

Turn every day into a moment your audience actually shows up for.

8.4M
Monthly readers
5K+
Holidays tracked
Holiday Calendar for Brands Developer API