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10 public holidays
Ireland has 10 public holiday dates recorded for 2026. 10 of the listed dates are treated as non-working days and reduce the working-day count; 1 of those fall at a weekend. For the effect on working days see Ireland business days 2026.
| Date | Day | Holiday | Deducted from working days |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-01-01 | Thursday | Lá Caille | Yes |
| 2026-02-02 | Monday | Lá Fhéile Bríde | Yes |
| 2026-03-17 | Tuesday | Lá Fhéile Pádraig | Yes |
| 2026-04-06 | Monday | Luan Cásca | Yes |
| 2026-05-04 | Monday | Lá Bealtaine | Yes |
| 2026-06-01 | Monday | Lá Saoire i mí an Mheithimh | Yes |
| 2026-08-03 | Monday | Lá Saoire i mí Lúnasa | Yes |
| 2026-10-26 | Monday | Lá Saoire i mí Dheireadh Fómhair | Yes |
| 2026-12-25 | Friday | Lá Nollag | Yes |
| 2026-12-26 | Saturday | Lá Fhéile Stiofáin | Yes |
Ten public holidays are set by the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997: the fixed dates New Year, St Patrick's, Easter Monday, Christmas and St Stephen's; St Brigid's Day, added in 2023 as the first Monday of February (or 1 February when it falls on a Friday); and the first-Monday bank holidays of May, June and August plus the last Monday of October. That is fewer than Spain's 14 but more than England's 8, and the law adds a worker-protection mechanism: when a holiday lands on a day an employee doesn't normally work, the employer must still deliver the benefit — a paid day off within a month, an extra day's pay, or an extra day of annual leave — so the holiday's value is preserved even when the date is awkward.
The cultural architecture matters more than the list. The May, June, August and October holidays sit on Mondays by design — Schedule 2 of the Act places them there to manufacture long weekends for tourism (the "bridge" concept Ireland borrowed from its neighbours and then industrialised). October's last-Monday bank holiday turns the weekend around 31 October into the country's biggest party-and-travel block, with Dublin's Temple Bar and Galway's traditional quarter running on festival hours for a week. St Stephen's Day (26 December) survives as a distinctly Irish second Christmas day with its own wren-boy customs. Planning work with Irish teams: the holiday list understates the disruption of the week after any long weekend.
Deducted days are national public holidays (the days the dataset records as applying to the whole country). Holidays observed only in part of the country, or only in particular sectors, are listed with “Regional or sector-specific only” and are not deducted from the business-day counts.