Holy Week and Easter Mass Times in Ireland

Holy Week is when Irish parishes change their schedule most completely, and when the difference between the denominations is most visible. This page explains what each service is, so that a parish notice makes sense, and gives the dates.

The dates move, so they are calculated

Easter is the first Sunday after the first ecclesiastical full moon on or after 21 March. Everything else in the season is an offset from it: Ash Wednesday forty-six days before, Palm Sunday the Sunday before, Good Friday two days before, Pentecost forty-nine days after.

The table below is calculated from that rule each time this page is built. It is not a copied table, so it cannot fall a year behind.

These are the Western dates. The Orthodox parishes in this directory keep the Julian computus and celebrate Pascha on a different Sunday in most years.

What each liturgy is

Palm Sunday

The Sunday before Easter. Palms or branches are blessed and distributed, often outside the church, and the Passion is read. Catholic parishes usually keep their ordinary Sunday times; the difference is in the liturgy rather than the schedule.

The Chrism Mass

Usually on the Tuesday or Wednesday of Holy Week, in the cathedral of each diocese. The bishop blesses the oils that will be used across the diocese for the coming year, and the priests of the diocese renew their promises. There is one per diocese, it is in the cathedral, and anyone may attend.

Holy Thursday, the Mass of the Lord’s Supper

In the evening, and the start of the Triduum. Ordinary weekday Masses are not celebrated that morning, so in most parishes this is the only Mass of the day.

Good Friday, the Celebration of the Lord’s Passion

Normally at three in the afternoon. It is not a Mass; there is none anywhere in the Latin Church on Good Friday. Many parishes also hold the Stations of the Cross, often at noon, and some hold an outdoor Way of the Cross through the town.

Holy Saturday, the Easter Vigil

After nightfall, which in Ireland in late March or April means from about eight at the earliest and later towards the end of April. This is not an ordinary vigil Mass moved earlier. The rubrics require that it begin after dark, so a parish with a six o’clock Saturday Mass will not have one on Holy Saturday.

Easter Sunday

Usually the ordinary Sunday schedule, sometimes with an extra morning Mass.

In the Protestant churches

Church of Ireland parishes keep the same shape of week in the vocabulary of the Book of Common Prayer: Holy Communion on Maundy Thursday evening, a Good Friday liturgy in the afternoon, and often a service of Tenebrae earlier in the week. Cathedral choirs sing through the Triduum, and the cathedral schedules are published earliest.

Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist congregations more commonly mark Good Friday with a single service, and Easter Sunday with a morning service that is sometimes preceded by a sunrise service. Where we hold those times they are on the county times pages, which can be filtered to one denomination.

When the schedules appear

Holy Week schedules are published later than Christmas ones, usually in the parish newsletter of the Sunday before Palm Sunday and on the parish website in the same week. Diocesan websites publish the Chrism Mass earlier, often a month ahead, because it draws from the whole diocese.

As with Christmas, the times listed against each church in this directory are the ordinary weekly ones and do not change for Holy Week. The parish phone number and website on each church page are the reliable answer for the week itself.

Watching from home

The Triduum liturgies are among the most widely streamed of the year, and the Easter Vigil most of all, since it is long, it is late, and many people watch it rather than attend. 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.