St Brigid’s Day - the Irish public holiday added in 2023 and fixed to a Monday

St Brigid's Day is an Irish public holiday on the first Monday in February, created by statute in 2023. It gives an official footing to a start-of-spring festival that was already widely kept, and carries one quirk in its date rule that only comes into play in certain years.

The one-line summary

Irish public holiday created in 2023, observed on the first Monday in February - or on Friday 1 February when 1 February is itself a Friday. Secular-memorial category, standard tier. The tenth Irish public holiday, and the only Celtic-season observance to enter Irish statute.

Origin

St Brigid, or Brighde, is one of the three patron saints of Ireland, alongside St Patrick and St Columba, and her feast on 1 February was already one of the most widely kept dates in the traditional Irish calendar long before it had any legal standing. The festival is closely bound up withImbolc, the Gaelic seasonal marker of the first signs of spring, which also falls around 1 February.

What changed in 2023 was the legal footing. The Public Holidays (Amendment) Act inserted St Brigid's Day into the list of Irish public holidays, giving Ireland a statutory holiday marking the start of spring for the first time. The naming is deliberate: Brigid is both a Christian saint and a figure from older Irish mythology, associated with fire, wells, healing and poetry, and the public holiday allows both readings.

When it falls

The base rule is the first Monday in February. But the legislation includes a specific exception: where 1 February falls on a Friday, the holiday is observed on Friday 1 February instead. This means the date actually observed depends on the calendar.

In the coming years, the dates are 1 February 2027, 7 February 2028, 5 February 2029 and Friday 1 February 2030. That last one is the exception in action - 1 February 2030 is a Friday, so the holiday stays on Friday the 1st rather than sliding forward to Monday the 4th. The design intent is that Brigid's Day always adjoins a weekend, so it consistently produces a four-day break.

How it is observed

St Brigid's Day is a modest public holiday rather than a major festival. There are no large national ceremonies on the Irish calendar comparable to the Saint Patrick's Day parades. What there is, largely, is the modern revival of the older customs: weaving and hanging a St Brigid's cross - a simple cross of rushes or straw hung on the door - and the holding of community events marking the beginning of spring. The cross tradition was revived during the twentieth-century revival of Irish cultural practice and has continued to gain ground alongside the new statutory holiday.

Public status

St Brigid's Day is the tenth Irish public holiday, added from February 2023. As with the other bank holidays, there is no statutory substitute day when it falls on a weekend. It is a bank holiday as well as a public holiday, so banks are closed. Its introduction made Ireland one of the few European states to legislate a start-of-spring holiday alongside its traditional Christmas and Easter days.

Related holidays

St Brigid's Day sits alongside the other Gaelic seasonal festivals, most directlyImbolc at the same time of year, and it is the first of the eight-day Celtic cycle that runs throughOstara, Beltane and Litha to the solstices. Among the other Irish public holidays, St Patrick's Day is the other saint's day and the one with the larger modern public profile.

Sources

• Irish Statute Book (the Public Holidays (Amendment) Act 2023 and the current consolidated Public Holidays Acts).
• gov.ie - Department of Social Protection (the official list of Irish public holidays and the bank holiday distinction).
• Citizens Information (public holiday entitlements and the treatment of bank holidays).
• Encyclopaedia Britannica - Saint Brigid (the saint, her association with 1 February, and the cross tradition).