Public holidays in Ireland 2026: the ten dates and what you are entitled to

Ireland has ten public holidays a year. For most employees they mean a paid day off, but the law behind them is more flexible than that, and it is the flexibility that produces the questions: whether part-timers qualify, what happens when a holiday falls on your day off, whether your employer can make you work it, and what a holiday on a Sunday or during sick leave means. This guide gives the 2026 dates, the rules under the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997, and the 2027 dates for planning.

The ten public holidays in 2026

Good Friday, Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve are not public holidays. Any day off on those dates is contractual.

St Brigid's Day is the newest, added in 2023. It falls on the first Monday in February unless 1 February is itself a Friday, in which case it is that Friday.

Who is entitled

Every employee is covered by the Act's public holiday provisions, with one qualifying test for part-time workers. If you are part-time, you are entitled to the public holiday if you worked at least 40 hours for the employer in the 5 weeks ending on the day before the holiday. Full-time employees are entitled without a test.

Two points follow:

• The 40 hours are hours worked, not hours contracted. Annual leave and paid sick leave count as hours worked for this purpose; unpaid absence generally does not.
• The 5 weeks are the 5 weeks immediately before the holiday, so a part-timer who has just started or has just come back from a long unpaid break may not qualify for the first holiday.

Agency workers are entitled through the agency as their employer. The part-time and agency workers guide covers the wider position.

The four options

The Act does not require a day off on the holiday itself. Your employer must give you one of four things, and the choice is the employer's:

1. A paid day off on the public holiday.
2. A paid day off within a month of the public holiday.
3. An additional day of annual leave.
4. An additional day's pay.

So an employer can roster you to work on St Patrick's Day and give you an extra day's pay, or a day off in the following month, or add a day to your leave. What it cannot do is roster you, pay you the normal day and give nothing else.

The Act lets you ask the employer, in advance, which option it intends to apply to a particular holiday. If you ask at least 21 days before the holiday and the employer has not told you by 14 days before, the default is a paid day off on the holiday itself. Putting the question in writing is the simplest way of settling the point before a disputed roster.

How the pay is worked out

The amount depends on whether the holiday is a day you would normally work.

The one-fifth rule is the one that catches people out. A part-timer who works Tuesday to Thursday and never works Mondays is still entitled to something for the eight Monday holidays in 2026. At 20 hours a week on the 2026 minimum wage of €14.15, the weekly pay is €283 and one fifth is €56.60 for each Monday holiday, whether taken as pay, as a day off, or as leave.

For employees whose pay varies, the "normal" day's or week's pay is averaged over a period before the holiday. Regular premiums that form part of normal pay are included; irregular overtime generally is not.

Public holidays and annual leave

A public holiday that falls while you are on annual leave is a public holiday, not a day of annual leave. If you book two weeks off that include Easter Monday, you use nine days of leave, not ten, and the employer owes you one of the four options for the Monday. Employers who deduct the full ten days are applying the wrong rule. The annual leave guide covers the leave itself.

Public holidays and sick leave

If you are on sick leave when a public holiday falls, you are generally still entitled to the holiday benefit, and the day is treated as a public holiday rather than a sick day. The Act removes the entitlement only where the absence immediately before the holiday has been a long one, and it sets the limits in weeks for ordinary illness and for occupational injury; the WRC's public holidays page carries the current wording. For a short illness around a bank holiday weekend, the holiday is still owed. Statutory sick pay has its own rules, in the statutory sick pay guide.

A public holiday at the start or end of a job

You do not need a minimum period of service to be entitled to a public holiday as a full-timer; a part-timer needs the 40 hours in the previous 5 weeks. At the other end, the Act also provides for a public holiday that falls within the week after you leave: where you have worked for the employer over the weeks before leaving, a day's pay for that holiday is owed in your final pay. The holiday pay on leaving guide sets out what else belongs in it.

Christmas, St Stephen's Day and the Sunday question

In 2026 Christmas Day is a Friday and St Stephen's Day a Saturday. In 2027 Christmas Day is a Saturday and St Stephen's Day a Sunday. When a public holiday falls on a weekend, the banks, schools and public offices usually close on the following Monday, which is where the phrase "bank holiday" comes from. For employment law the public holiday stays on its own date. If you do not normally work Saturdays, St Stephen's Day 2026 is a holiday on a day you do not work, and the one-fifth rule applies: a fifth of a week's pay, or a day off, or a day's leave, at the employer's choice. If you do work Saturdays, it is a normal public holiday on a working day.

The same applies to a holiday on a Sunday. Sunday working also carries a separate entitlement to a premium under the same Act, and a Sunday that is a public holiday brings both; the overtime and Sunday premium guide covers the premium.

Nothing in the Act moves the holiday to the Monday for employees. An employer that gives everyone the Monday off instead is choosing option two, a paid day off within a month, which is lawful.

Can your employer make you work a public holiday

Yes, if your contract allows work on that day or your roster normally includes it. The Act does not give a right to refuse; it gives a right to be compensated by one of the four options. Hospitality, retail, healthcare and security staff routinely work public holidays. What you are owed for it is the normal day's pay plus the option the employer chooses, and a sector order or contract may add a premium on top. Nothing stops you from asking for the day off, and many employers rotate it.

The 2027 public holidays

Any new public holiday would need an order under the Act, and none has been announced for 2027 at 13 October 2026. The changes tracker records anything that is proposed.

If you are not getting your public holidays

Raise it in writing: name the holiday, the hours you worked in the 5 weeks before it if you are part-time, and the option you believe you are owed. If the employer does not correct it, a complaint under the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 goes to the WRC within 6 months of the holiday, extendable to 12 months for reasonable cause. Each missed holiday is a separate contravention, so a complaint can cover every holiday in the last 6 months. The WRC can order the benefit to be given and award compensation it considers just and equitable; the awards page shows the range. There is no fee and no costs either way. The WRC deadline checker gives the date for the earliest holiday you want to include.

Where this leaves you

Ten public holidays in 2026, ten in 2027, and for each one you are owed a paid day off, a paid day off within a month, an extra day's leave or an extra day's pay, at the employer's choice. Part-timers qualify after 40 hours in the previous 5 weeks and are owed one fifth of a week's pay for a holiday on a day they do not work. A holiday during annual leave is not a leave day, a holiday on a weekend does not move, and a holiday worked is paid plus an option. Use the annual leave calculator to put the public holidays alongside your leave for the year, and if a holiday has been missed, the 6 months run from that date.