Christmas is the week when the times in this directory are least reliable, because every parish in the country changes its schedule at once. This page is about how those schedules get published, so you can find the right one rather than arrive at a locked church.
We do not hold Christmas schedules
The times listed against each church here are the ordinary weekly schedule: Sunday, the Saturday vigil, and the weekday Masses, as each parish or diocese publishes them.
Christmas schedules are a different kind of thing. They are announced in the first half of December, they change from one year to the next, and a parish will move a Mass by an hour in the last week if the choir cannot make the earlier time. A directory carrying the previous year’s Christmas times, unmarked, would send people to churches at the wrong hour on the day it matters most. So this one carries none. What follows is the next best thing: where each parish will put its schedule, and when.
When each kind of parish publishes
Cathedrals and city-centre parishes publish earliest, from late November into the first week of December. They have the largest visiting congregations, and the schedule usually goes up as a page or a PDF on the diocesan website.
Suburban and town parishes follow in the first two weeks of December, in the parish newsletter and on the parish website or Facebook page.
Smaller rural parishes often wait until the newsletter of the third or fourth Sunday of Advent, and sometimes the church noticeboard is the only place it appears.
Every church page in this directory carries the parish phone number, website and email where we hold them. In early December the website is usually the fastest answer. In the last week, the phone.
What the different Christmas Masses are
The names are used loosely, and knowing what each one is makes a schedule much easier to read.
Vigil Mass of Christmas
An evening Mass on 24 December, usually between five and eight. In many parishes this is the family Mass, with the children’s choir and the blessing of the crib, and it is by some distance the busiest of the three.
Midnight Mass
The Mass during the night. A great many parishes now celebrate it at eight, nine or ten in the evening and still call it Midnight Mass, so do not take the time from the name.
Mass of Christmas Day
The morning of 25 December, often two or three times in a larger parish.
Christmas Day is a holy day of obligation in its own right. A vigil on the evening of the 24th satisfies it, under the same rule that makes a Saturday evening Mass count for the Sunday.
Protestant churches at Christmas
Church of Ireland, Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist congregations publish on the same timetable and in the same places. The pattern is much the same; the service names are different.
Nine Lessons and Carols is normally held on a Sunday evening in Advent or on Christmas Eve. Cathedrals and larger parish churches almost all hold one, and these are often the first services of the season to be advertised. Christingle is a children’s service, most often on Christmas Eve afternoon. A watchnight service falls late on Christmas Eve, particularly in the Methodist and Presbyterian traditions. Christmas Day worship is usually a single morning service, shorter than the ordinary Sunday one.
The Church of Ireland cathedrals publish full choral schedules for the season. Presbyterian and Methodist congregations publish through the individual congregation. Where we hold those times they are on the county times pages, which can be filtered to one denomination.
Watching from home
Christmas is the week when people are most likely to be unable to get to a church, between illness, distance and family in other countries. A great many Irish parishes stream their Masses.
Every church in this directory known to have a webcam is listed on the church webcams page, county by county, with a link through to each church’s own page for its times.
Two practical notes. Christmas streams are the most watched of the year and the smaller parish systems do sometimes fail under the load. And a parish that streams its ordinary Sunday Mass will normally stream Christmas Day, but does not always stream the vigil. The parish page will say.
Times by county
- Antrim 279 of 463 with times
- Armagh 123 of 182 with times
- Carlow 32 of 55 with times
- Cavan 85 of 129 with times
- Clare 142 of 159 with times
- Cork 271 of 359 with times
- Derry 138 of 206 with times
- Donegal 139 of 199 with times
- Down 307 of 459 with times
- Dublin 270 of 366 with times
- Fermanagh 68 of 113 with times
- Galway 157 of 194 with times
- Kerry 102 of 121 with times
- Kildare 60 of 103 with times
- Kilkenny 79 of 100 with times
- Laois 52 of 90 with times
- Leitrim 51 of 75 with times
- Limerick 123 of 143 with times
- Longford 38 of 57 with times
- Louth 61 of 78 with times
- Mayo 128 of 147 with times
- Meath 70 of 118 with times
- Monaghan 67 of 93 with times
- Offaly 56 of 79 with times
- Roscommon 50 of 83 with times
- Sligo 53 of 85 with times
- Tipperary 130 of 169 with times
- Tyrone 163 of 241 with times
- Waterford 72 of 98 with times
- Westmeath 47 of 81 with times
- Wexford 99 of 149 with times
- Wicklow 67 of 105 with times
Questions
- When are Christmas Mass times published in Ireland?
- Most parishes publish in the first half of December, in the parish newsletter and on the parish website. Some city parishes and cathedrals publish in late November. Smaller rural parishes often wait until the Sunday before Christmas.
- Does Christmas Eve Mass fulfil the Christmas obligation?
- Yes. Canon 1248 provides that the obligation is satisfied by attending Mass on the day itself or on the evening of the day before, so a Christmas Eve vigil counts. Christmas Day carries its own obligation, separate from the Sunday it may or may not fall on.
- Is there still a Mass at midnight?
- In some parishes, and fewer than there once were. Many now hold the principal night Mass at eight or nine in the evening and still call it Midnight Mass, so the time has to be read off the parish notice rather than assumed.