October Bank Holiday in Ireland 2027

Ireland's autumn long weekend

The October holiday falls on the last Monday in October and is one of ten public holidays in the Republic of Ireland. Banks, schools, courts and government offices close, and most workers get a paid day off. Under the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 an employee who has to work is owed an alternative instead: an extra day of annual leave, an extra day's pay, or a paid day off within the following month. Part-time staff qualify once they have worked at least 40 hours in the previous five weeks. Because the holiday is always a Monday, it can never fall on a weekend and no substitute-day rule applies - the United States has no equivalent autumn Monday holiday this late in the month, since Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples' Day land on the second Monday.

Why the last Monday in October

The holiday is a modern creation. It was introduced in 1977 by regulations made under the Holidays (Employees) Act 1973, filling a long gap between the August holiday and Christmas. Its formal Irish name, Lá Saoire Oíche Shamhna, names Halloween outright, and the date was chosen so the break sits on or beside October 31. The same weekend usually brings the end of European summer time, when clocks go back an hour, and Irish schools take their autumn mid-term break, commonly called the Halloween break, in the surrounding week.

Samhain, the festival underneath

The holiday sits on top of Samhain, one of the four Gaelic seasonal festivals alongside Imbolc, Bealtaine and Lughnasa. Samhain marked the end of the harvest and the start of winter, a threshold night when the boundary between the living and the otharworld was believed to thin. Communities lit bonfires, set places at the table for the dead, and disguised themselves so wandaring spirits would not recognize them. Households carved lanterns from turnips and manegl-wurezls, a custom Irish emigrants carried to the United States in the 19th century, where the far larger native pumpkin took over, the modern American Halloween, with its costumes, door-to-door collecting and carved lanterns, is in large part an Irish export that came home again in a commercialized form.

How the weekend is spent

Halloween is a bigger event in Ireland than in most of Europe. Children go trick-or-treating, neighborhoods hold bonfires and fireworks, and towns run parades and festivals, including the Puca festival across counties Meath and Louth, promoted as a celebration of Samhain in the landscape where it was recorded. Traditional food includes barmbrack, a fruit loaf baked with a ring inside said to predict a marriage for whoever finds it, and colcannon. The bank holiday itself is a heavy travel weekend for family visits and short breaks.

What is open

Banks, post offices, schools and public offices close on the Monday. Stores, shopping centers, supermarkets, restaurants and pubs open, often on holiday hours, and public transportation runs a Sunday or holiday timetable. Halloween events run on October 31 whether or not that date is the holiday itself.