Ireland public holidays 2026
Ireland has 11 national public holidays in 2026. Take those and the weekends out of the calendar and 251 working days remain.
Holiday list for 2026
| Date | Weekday | Holiday | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Jan | Thursday | New Year's Day
Lá Caille |
Nationwide |
| 2 Feb | Monday | Saint Brigid's Day
Lá Fhéile Bríde |
Nationwide |
| 17 Mar | Tuesday | Saint Patrick's Day
Lá Fhéile Pádraig |
Nationwide |
| 3 Apr | Friday | Good Friday
Aoine an Chéasta |
Nationwide |
| 6 Apr | Monday | Easter Monday
Luan Cásca |
Nationwide |
| 4 May | Monday | May Day
Lá Bealtaine |
Nationwide |
| 1 Jun | Monday | June Holiday
Lá Saoire i mí an Mheithimh |
Nationwide |
| 3 Aug | Monday | August Holiday
Lá Saoire i mí Lúnasa |
Nationwide |
| 26 Oct | Monday | October Holiday
Lá Saoire i mí Dheireadh Fómhair |
Nationwide |
| 25 Dec | Friday | Christmas Day
Lá Nollag |
Nationwide |
| 26 Dec | Saturday rest day | St. Stephen's Day
Lá Fhéile Stiofáin |
Nationwide |
2026 at a glance
January 1 holiday
February 1 holiday
March 1 holiday
April 2 holidays
May 1 holiday
June 1 holiday
July
August 1 holiday
September
October 1 holiday
November
December 2 holidays
Working days in each month
| Month | Days | Weekend | Holidays | Working | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 31 | 9 | 1 | 21 | 168 |
| February | 28 | 8 | 1 | 19 | 152 |
| March | 31 | 9 | 1 | 21 | 168 |
| April | 30 | 8 | 2 | 20 | 160 |
| May | 31 | 10 | 1 | 20 | 160 |
| June | 30 | 8 | 1 | 21 | 168 |
| July | 31 | 8 | 0 | 23 | 184 |
| August | 31 | 10 | 1 | 20 | 160 |
| September | 30 | 8 | 0 | 22 | 176 |
| October | 31 | 9 | 1 | 21 | 168 |
| November | 30 | 9 | 0 | 21 | 168 |
| December | 31 | 8 | 1 | 22 | 176 |
| 2026 | 365 | 104 | 10 | 251 | 2,008 |
What the numbers say about Ireland in 2026
The count uses Saturday and Sunday as the weekly rest days, the standard pattern in Ireland. Only holidays that apply across the whole country are deducted. Someone working in a region with its own extra days will have a little more time off than these figures show.
1 holiday lands on a rest day this year: St. Stephen's Day (26 Dec). On the calendar alone that means no extra time off. Some countries move the day off to the next working day; whether that applies here is set by national rules, so check before you plan around it.
July is the longest working month with 23 days, and February the shortest with 19. A gap of 4 days is enough to make a fixed monthly target noticeably harder in some months than in others. Across quarters, Q1 is the leanest at 61 working days (January, February, March).
Among the 204 countries we track for 2026, the median number of national holidays is 12. With 11, Ireland sits below the middle of the range, around the 37th percentile (the lowest count this year is 3, the highest 49).
Holidays create 7 stretches of three or more days off in a row. The longest lasts 4 days, from 3 April to 6 April (Good Friday, Easter Monday). There are also 2 bridge days: a single working day squeezed between a holiday and the weekend, where one day of leave turns into four or more days away. See every long weekend in 2026.
How holidays work in Ireland
Most public holidays in Ireland are placed on a Monday. That keeps the working year steady and means a long weekend is the usual result of a holiday, not a lucky accident.
St Brigid's Day was added in 2023, the first new Irish public holiday in decades. It falls on the first Monday in February, unless 1 February is a Friday, in which case that Friday is the holiday. Older references and calendars do not include it.