Bank Holidays 2027 Northern Ireland: All 10 Dates

Last verified 27 September 2026 against the official GOV.UK bank holidays dataset.

Northern Ireland has ten bank and public holidays in 2027 — more than anywhere else in the UK. Two are unique to it: St Patrick’s Day on Wednesday 17 March 2027 and the Battle of the Boyne (Orangemen’s Day) on Monday 12 July 2027. The Twelfth lands on a Monday, so it creates a long weekend; St Patrick’s Day falls midweek.

All ten Northern Ireland holidays in 2027

The dates come straight from GOV.UK’s Northern Ireland list; the day of the week is calculated, not typed. The last column shows what kind of holiday each one is in law (for the two substitute days we simply follow GOV.UK) — a point that matters more in Northern Ireland than elsewhere, and which we explain below.

Christmas Day 2027 is a Saturday and Boxing Day a Sunday, so GOV.UK lists substitute days on Monday 27 December 2027 and Tuesday 28 December 2027. The same substitutes apply in England, Wales and Scotland — see Christmas bank holidays 2027.

Bank holiday or public holiday: why Northern Ireland uses both terms

nidirect, the Northern Ireland government’s information service, draws the line simply: bank holidays are “holidays when banks and many other businesses are closed”, while public holidays “have been observed through custom and practice, such as Christmas Day”. That is why official Northern Ireland sources talk about “bank and public holidays” and count ten of them.

The legal sources split the ten three ways:

• Listed in the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971. Schedule 1 names the Northern Ireland bank holidays as 17 March (or 18 March if the 17th is a Sunday), Easter Monday, the last Monday in May, the last Monday in August and 26 December, with 27 December added when Christmas or Boxing Day is a Sunday.
• Added by royal proclamation. The House of Commons Library explains that bank holidays include days listed in the Act and days proclaimed by the King, with proclamations usually published each summer in The Gazette. It notes that Northern Ireland “has proclaimed a bank holiday to mark the Battle of Boyne, in addition to St Patrick’s Day”. New Year’s Day and the early May holiday, which are not in the Act’s schedule, also come into this group.
• Common-law holidays. According to the Commons Library, Christmas Day and Good Friday are common-law public holidays in England, Wales and Northern Ireland rather than bank holidays.

For an employee the label changes nothing. Neither a bank holiday nor a public holiday gives an automatic right to a day off: nidirect is clear that any right to time off, or to extra pay for working, depends on your contract of employment. Our bank holiday vs public holiday guide sets out the UK-wide picture.

The two Northern Ireland-only days in 2027

St Patrick’s Day — Wednesday 17 March 2027

A midweek St Patrick’s Day is awkward for a long weekend but useful for a short break: booking two days either side gives five days off. In 2027 it also sits just nine days before Good Friday, so it can be joined to Easter. Booking 6 days — Thu 18 March, Fri 19 March, Mon 22 March, Tue 23 March, Wed 24 March, Thu 25 March — gives 13 consecutive days off from Wednesday 17 March 2027 to Monday 29 March 2027. More on the day itself at St Patrick’s Day 2027 and St Patrick’s Day in Northern Ireland.

Battle of the Boyne (Orangemen’s Day) — Monday 12 July 2027

The Twelfth falls on a Monday in 2027, giving a three-day weekend from Saturday 10 July 2027. In 2026 it fell on a Sunday, so GOV.UK moved it to Monday 13 July 2026; in 2028 it lands on a Wednesday. Adding four days of leave — Tue 13 July, Wed 14 July, Thu 15 July, Fri 16 July — turns it into a nine-day break. See Battle of the Boyne 2027 and our background piece on the Battle of the Boyne holiday.

2026, 2027 and 2028 compared

An asterisk marks a substitute day. Note how the two Northern Ireland dates move through the week: St Patrick’s Day goes from a Tuesday in 2026 to a Wednesday in 2027 and a Friday in 2028.

Full lists for the neighbouring years are on bank holidays 2028 and Northern Ireland bank holidays.

Planning leave in Northern Ireland in 2027

The statutory minimum is the same as in Great Britain: nidirect puts it at 5.6 weeks’ paid annual leave, or 28 days for someone working five days a week, and confirms that bank and public holidays can be included in that minimum. With ten holidays in 2027, a contract that counts them inside the 28 leaves only 18 days to book — two fewer than a comparable contract in England, where there are eight.

The table shows, for each holiday cluster, how many days you need to book to reach each natural break. It is calculated from the 2027 Northern Ireland calendar.

Northern Ireland also gets every long weekend the rest of the UK has, plus the Twelfth. The full comparison across all four nations is on our long weekends 2027 page, and the Easter options are on Easter 2027.

For employers with staff in Northern Ireland

• Use the right calendar. A payroll or HR system set to the England and Wales list will miss Wednesday 17 March 2027 and Monday 12 July 2027. Compare with England bank holidays 2027.
• Working days. 2027 has 261 weekdays. After the ten holidays, Northern Ireland has 251 working days, against 253 in England and Wales. March alone has three holidays in Northern Ireland (St Patrick’s Day, Good Friday and Easter Monday), and July has one.
• Cross-border staff. The Republic of Ireland sets its own public holidays, and they differ from Northern Ireland’s. Staff who live on one side of the border and work on the other should check both calendars; our public holidays in Ireland guide covers the Republic.
• Entitlement wording. If a contract says “28 days including bank holidays”, the ten Northern Ireland holidays are inside it. See bank holiday entitlement.

For the four-nation list in one table, see UK bank holidays 2027; Scotland’s nine dates are on Scotland bank holidays 2027 and Wales’s on Wales bank holidays 2027.