Currently, Ireland has 10 public holidays per year, which is below the EU average of 12:
- New Year’s Day (January 1st)
- St Brigid’s Day (first Monday of every February except when February 1st falls on a Friday)
- St. Patrick’s Day (March 17th)
- Easter Monday (date changes every year)
- May Bank Holiday (first Monday in May)
- June Bank Holiday (first Monday in June)
- August Bank Holiday (first Monday in August )
- October Bank Holiday (last Monday in October)
- Christmas Day (December 25th)
- St Stephen’s Day (December 26th)
Rest days or festival days were significant in history, centred around regional traditions, harvests, religious observances, feast days, or local saints.
These days gradually diminished with urbanisation as people transitioned from farming to factory work in the 19th century. There was also pressure for landlords to reduce the number of holidays their agrricultural labourers were entitled to under local and religious customs. Various laws brought in by the colonial regime in Dublin Castle stipulated that workers would be whipped if they took saints’ days off work.
Prior to the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922, it was the responsibility of the English monarch to declare new public holidays in Ireland.
Bank holidays
The Bank Holidays Act (1871) introduced four days off in Ireland under British rule: St. Stephen’s Day, the first Monday in August, Easter Monday, and Whit Monday. That first Bank Holidays Act primarily focused on matters like settling debts and promissory notes, the term “bank holiday’ is still widely sued for public holidays today.
In 1903, the Bank Holiday Act (Ireland) was passed, adding St. Patrick’s Day on March 17th as a bank holiday, which was sponsored by Irish Parliamentary members led by James O’Mara, including John Redmond, William O’Brien, John Dillon and George William Russell.
According to Article 28 of the 1922 Constitution, new public holidays in Ireland were to be declared by the Executive Council during general elections.
When the Dáil passed the Public Holidays Act (1924), it was to address a legal issue and repeal Westminster acts. It was considered insignificant by Vice-President Kevin O’Higgins.
TD Thomas Johnson proposed that workers should receive pay for public holidays in a debate during the passage of the bill in 1924. It was not successful but the Holidays (Employees) Act of 1939 established workers’ entitlements to paid leave and designated several holidays as bank holidays, including Christmas Day, St. Stephen’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter Monday, Whit Monday (later changed to the first Monday in June), New Year’s Day, and the October and May holidays.
.Good Friday is not a public holiday but a bank holiday in Ireland. The term “bank holiday” is often used interchangeably with “public holiday.”
St. Brigid’s Day on February 1st was the most recent public holiday added in Ireland, initially to recognise the efforts and sacrifices during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Ireland had one-off public holidays in 1999 for the Millennium and in 2001 as a National Day of Mourning for the September 11th attacks in the United States.
Entitlements
Public holiday entitlements for employees are outlined in the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 and the Organisation of Working Time (Determination of Pay For Holidays) Regulations 1997.
Full-time workers generally have the right to paid leave on public holidays, but there may be exceptions for certain part-time workers.
Employees eligible for public holiday benefits can choose one of the following: a paid day off on the public holiday, an additional day of annual leave, an additional day’s pay, or a paid day off within a month of the public holiday.
Part-time workers qualify for the paid day off or pay in lieu if they have worked 40 hours in the five weeks leading up to the public holiday. If they are required to work on that day, they are entitled to additional pay. Those not scheduled to work should receive one-fifth of their weekly pay.
It is crucial to review your employment contract as entitlements may vary based on your employer, industry agreements, trade unions, and contract type (such as agency contracts).
35 recognised holidays
An act of 1695 imposed a fine of two shillings or a whipping on labourers and servants who refused to work on any day other than Sunday or statutory holiday, but it generously set the number of holidays at 29.
After the institution by Pope Clement XI of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception in 1708 there were 35 recognised by the Catholic church.
As well as the movable feasts, Easter Monday and Tuesday, Ascension Thursday, Whit Monday and Tuesday and Corpus Christi the seemingly interminable list went: January 1st Circumcision; January 6th Epiphany; February 2 Candlemas; February 24 Saint Mattias, Apostle; March 17 Saint Patrick; March 19 Saint Joseph; March 25 The Annunciation; May 1st Saints Philip and James, Apostles; May 3 Finding of the Cross; June 24 Saint John Baptist; June 29 Saints Peter & Paul; July 25 Saint James, Apostle; July 26 Saint Anne; August 10 Saint Lawrence the Martyr; August 15 The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary; September 8 Nativity of the Blessed Virgin; September 21 Saint Matthew, Apostle; September 29 Saint Michael Archangel; October 28 Saints Simon & Jude, Apostles; November 1 All Saints; November 30 Saint Andrew, Apostle; December 8 Immaculate Conception; December 21 Saint Thomas, Apostle; December 25 Nativity; December 26 Saint Stephen; December 27 Saint John, Apostle; December 28 Holy Innocents; and December 31 Saint Sylvester.
On these days the faithful were bound to attend mass and abstain from work, but 22 of these were abrogated by Pius VI at the height of penal era in 1778. Some may have remained on in Irish tradition, as well as local patron days and the feasts of Brigid on February 1st and Colmcille on June 9th.
Valentine Lawless, Lord Cloncurry, wrote to Bishop James Warren Doyle in May 1830 that “the saints’ days and holydays of observed by the people, in greater number than in any other country, proved a great loss to Ireland, and a great cause of one of her besetting evils – drunkenness,” adding that “a reform on that subject is in the sole power of the Catholic bishops.”
Bishop Doyle too maintained in 1830, the number of holidays was “injurious to good morals and to all the interests of the people.” He did maintain that “amongst a religious people, and where the laws of the state accord with those of the Church, holydays contribute to the exercise of piety and of every good work; when these laws clash, or when a spirit of irreligion prevails, the effects are other.”
He led an appeal to Rome which resulted in the abrogation of two feast-days, Easter Monday and Whit Monday in 1829, and of the feast of Saint John the Baptist (June 24th) in 1831. Doyle wanted to seek the abrogation of most of the remaining ten festivals but unanimity could not be obtained with the rest of the hierarchy. He still defended the church against Cloncurry’s charge by stating that of the “eight or nine” remaining holy-days, “two occur within what is called the Christmas holidays. The sum total of our holydays which interfere in any way with public industry, are reduced to six or seven each year.”
A puzzled Cloncurry wrote back enquiring why holydays could not be changed to periods less injurious to agriculture that “the 18th, 24th and 30th of June, the 15th of August, and the 8th of September, by which we so often lose or injure a portion of God’s bounty in the fruits of the earth.” He may have referred to Corpus Christi, Saint John, Saints Peter and Paul, the Assumption and the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, two of which feast days had been abrogated by the Pope 52 years earlier.
