Uganda Martyrs' Day

Uganda Martyrs' Day centres on Christian converts and court pages executed in the Kingdom of Buganda between 1885 and 1887, including the group killed at Namugongo on June 3, 1886. Catholic tradition counts 22 martyrs later canonised by Pope Paul VI in 1964, while the Church of Uganda remembers 23 Anglicans; other prisoners also died. The victims' faith and refusal of royal commands are central to church memory.

The executions also occurred in a contested political setting in which Kabaka Mwanga II faced competing Muslim, Protestant and Catholic factions, missionary influence and threats to royal authority before formal British protectorate rule. Explaining that context neither excuses killing nor reduces the martyrs to colonial agents. African converts exercised agency, and later missionary and colonial narratives also shaped how Mwanga and Buganda were portrayed. Catholic and Anglican shrines at Namugongo now anchor a transnational pilgrimage.

Uganda Martyrs' Day is expressly listed in Schedule 2 of Uganda's Public Holidays Act and is therefore a nationwide public holiday. The Act contains no rule moving a Saturday or Sunday holiday to Monday: the calendar date remains the legal holiday unless the President separately declares another day under section 2(2). Covered employees receive ordinary full remuneration; holiday work attracts additional pay or paid leave in lieu under the Public Holidays Act and Employment Act, subject to those Acts' conditions. In 2026 the government postponed the large national celebrations because of an Ebola outbreak risk; that public-health decision changed the gathering, not the Schedule 2 date itself.