20 Irish Christmas Blessings (and Merry Christmas in Irish)

Merry Christmas in Irish is Nollaig Shona Dhuit (NULL-ig HUN-a ghitch). The best-loved Irish Christmas blessing goes: “May peace and plenty be the first to lift the latch at your door, and happiness be guided to your home by the candle of Christmas.” Below are 20 Irish Christmas blessings, sorted into the traditional ones for reading aloud and the short ones for cards and texts, plus six Irish phrases with how to pronounce them.

Every Christmas for years I have sent an Irish blessing out in my Friday email, and every year people write back to say they read it at the dinner table. So here they are in one place. Some are old, some I have collected from readers over the years.

Want to say it in Irish too? Here’s how to say Merry Christmas in Irish, with 35 Christmas words.

How to say Merry Christmas in Irish

You will hear a few of these on Christmas cards and at Mass in Ireland. The pronunciations are rough guides; every county says them a bit differently.

Irish	How to say it	Meaning
Nollaig Shona Dhuit	NULL-ig HUN-a ghitch	Merry Christmas (to one person)
Nollaig Shona Daoibh	NULL-ig HUN-a deev	Merry Christmas (to more than one)
Beannachtaí na Nollag duit	BAN-ock-tee na NULL-ug ghitch	The blessings of Christmas to you
Nollaig faoi shéan is faoi shonas duit	NULL-ig fwee HAYN iss fwee HUN-as ghitch	A happy and prosperous Christmas to you
Go mbeire muid beo ar an am seo arís	guh MER-uh mwidj byoh er un am shuh ar-EESH	May we be alive at this time next year
Athbhliain faoi mhaise duit	AH-vleen fwee WASH-uh ghitch	A prosperous New Year to you

The reply to Nollaig Shona Dhuit is Nollaig Shona Dhuit fhéin, “and a merry Christmas to you too.” For the toast on the day, see how to say cheers in Irish.

Traditional Irish Christmas blessings

These are the ones to read out before dinner or write inside a card for someone far from home. The first is the one most people know.

May peace and plenty be the first to lift the latch at your door, and happiness be guided to your home by the candle of Christmas.
May the good saints protect you and bless you today, and may trouble ignore you each step of the way. Christmas joy to you!
May the blessings of Christmas be with you, may the Christ Child light your way, may God’s holy angels guide you, and keep you safe each day.
May the light of the Christmas star to you, the warmth of a home and hearth to you, the cheer and goodwill of friends to you, the hope of a childlike heart to you, the joy of a thousand angels to you, the love of the Son, and God’s peace to you.
May you have warm words on a cold evening, a full moon on a dark night, and the road downhill all the way to your door.
Bless the bowl, bless Irish land, and bless God this wonderful Christmas morning. As the sun rises gold over the Emerald Isle, may your oats’ hot steam nourish your Irish smile. And may you be thankful to Him who fills your bowl, warms your heart, and soothes your soul.
May the songs of the season rise to greet you. May the winter wind be always at your back. May the frost shimmer soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, may the love of God shine warm upon your home.
May you have the gladness of Christmas, which is hope; the spirit of Christmas, which is peace; and the heart of Christmas, which is love.

Nollaig Shona on your tree

Our 2026 ceramic Christmas ornaments have Irish words and how to say them: Nollaig Shona, Oíche Nollag and Daidí na Nollag.

See the Nollaig Shona ornament

From our own little Etsy shop. Or see all the Christmas ornaments.

Short Irish Christmas blessings for cards and texts

Shorter ones that fit in a card, a WhatsApp to the family group, or the bottom of the Christmas email.

May Christmas bring a joyful end to the year and lead you into a fresh and bright new beginning.
May the sound of laughter and the light of love fill your home this Christmas season.
May your hearth be warm, your holiday merry, and your heart light this Christmas.
May the blessings of Christmas bring you peace, joy, and contentment to last through the coming year.
May your days be filled with magic, your nights with peace, and your year with happiness.
May the glow of Christmas shine brightly in your home and warm your heart throughout the year.
May your troubles be less, your blessings be more, and nothing but happiness come through your door.
May this Christmas bring you comfort, joy, and a deep sense of peace in the company of loved ones.
May the spirit of Christmas bring you love, the gladness of Christmas bring you joy, and the warmth of Christmas bring you hope.
May you be surrounded by the love of family, the warmth of a fire, and the blessings of Christmas cheer.
Nollaig faoi shéan is faoi shonas duit. A happy and prosperous Christmas to you.
Beannachtaí na Nollag duit. The blessings of Christmas be with you.

An Irish Christmas toast

If you are the one standing up with the glass, keep it short: “May your troubles be less, your blessings be more, and nothing but happiness come through your door. Sláinte, and Nollaig Shona Dhaoibh.” There are plenty more in my top 10 Irish toasts.

Or raise a glass with this old favourite, which works just as well inside a card: “May you have walls for the wind, a roof for the rain, and drinks beside the fire. Laughter to cheer you, those you love near you, and all that your heart may desire.”

The Wexford Carol

Not a blessing, but no Irish Christmas is complete without it. The Wexford Carol dates from the 12th century and is one of the oldest carols still sung in Europe. Put on this traditional Irish Christmas playlist while the dinner is in the oven.

Why do the Irish say a blessing at Christmas?

Christmas in Ireland was always as much about who is missing as who is at the table. A blessing before dinner was the moment to remember the ones abroad and the ones gone, and to wish the rest of us into the new year. The candle in the window on Christmas Eve, lit to guide Mary and Joseph, comes from the same instinct. Read more about that and the other Irish Christmas traditions.

Funny Irish Christmas blessings and sayings

Not every Christmas card has to make the granny cry. These funny Irish Christmas blessings and toasts are for cards, texts and the last glass of the night.

First, to be honest about them: most of the funny “Irish blessings” doing the rounds are modern, and a good few were first printed in America. None of the lines below is ancient. The first four are popular ones that get passed around. The rest are my own, written new for this page. I trace more of the old favourites in my Irish toasts guide.

Popular funny Irish blessings and toasts

“May your glass be ever full. May the roof over your head be always strong. And may you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you’re dead.” The famous one. Some version of it has been in print since 1869.
“May those who love us, love us. And those that don’t love us, may God turn their hearts. And if He doesn’t turn their hearts, may He turn their ankles, so we’ll know them by their limping.” The oldest printing I have seen is from 1990, in a Minneapolis paper that called it “An Irish Prayer”.
“May the Lord keep you in His hand, and never close His fist too tight.”
“May you live as long as you want, and never want as long as you live.”

The devil toast is older than most, but it isn’t ancient. The earliest printings found by Barry Popik, an American word historian, are two from Massachusetts in 1869, and one of them calls it “a benediction from your Emerald Isle”. Back then the soul got “a fortnight” or “three weeks” in heaven. The half hour is newer. The earliest I have seen is in a San Francisco Chronicle list of Irish toasts from a Dublin man at Irish Distillers, on St Patrick’s Day 1986. Popik’s notes have the rest of the trail.

Funny Christmas blessings for cards

These are my own, so blame me if they fall flat.

May your turkey be moist, your sprouts be few and your roast potatoes plenty.
May you get a seat at the big table this year, and not the wobbly chair from the kitchen.
May the tin of sweets reach you before the cousins do.
May Santy find your house, Granda find the remote, and the mammy finally sit down.
May your Christmas jumper be warm, and the photos never leave the family WhatsApp.
May the house be full on Christmas Day, and lovely and quiet on the 27th.
May the turkey sandwiches run out before the good humour does.

For the cracker moment, there are plenty more in my Irish Christmas jokes.

An Irish Christmas prayer

One of the loveliest Irish Christmas prayers is really a poem, spoken straight to the Child in the manger. It is Dia do bheatha, a naoidhe naoimh, “Welcome, holy Child”, and choirs still sing it as a carol.

It is usually credited to Aodh Mac Aingil, a Franciscan friar born in 1571 at Saul, near Downpatrick in Co. Down. He was born Aodh Mac Cathmhaoil. Mac Aingil, “son of an angel”, was a name his students gave him. He helped found St Anthony’s, the Irish Franciscan college at Louvain, now Leuven in Belgium, in 1606. In 1626 he was made Archbishop of Armagh, but he died in Rome that September, before he could come home. Near the end of the poem, the poet asks that “a poor little friar from Down”, bráithrín bocht ó Dhún, be taken into God’s cave that night, as lowly as a worm.

Here are the first and last verses, in the Irish of the An Duanaire text that University College Cork shared for Christmas 2017, with my own plain English.

Dia do bheatha, a naoidhe naoimh,
Isin mainséar cé taoi bocht,
Meadhrach saidhbhir atá tú
‘s glórmhar id dhún féin a-nocht.

Welcome, holy Child,
poor though You are in the manger.
You are joyful and rich,
and glorious in Your own fortress tonight.

Míle fáilte a-nocht i gclí
Le mo chroidhe dom rígh fial;
In dá nádúir ó do-chuaidh,
póg is fáilte uaim do Dhia.

A thousand welcomes tonight, in the flesh,
from my heart to my generous King.
Since He has come into two natures,
a kiss and a welcome from me to God.

The poem is in An Duanaire, edited by Seán Ó Tuama with English by Thomas Kinsella (Dolmen Press, 1981). University College Cork put the Irish and Kinsella’s English online for Christmas 2017, and you can still read that page in the web archive.

Douglas Hyde, later Ireland’s first President, found a shorter, four-verse version of the poem in an old manuscript lent to him by his friend Mr Blake, near Navan. The manuscript had been written somewhere in the northern half of Ireland about two hundred years before. Hyde said he had never seen the poem in any other manuscript, and he named no author. He printed it in Religious Songs of Connacht in 1906 with his own rhyming English, which is now out of copyright. His first two verses:

Hail to thee, thou holy Babe,
In the manger now so poor,
Yet so rich Thou art, I ween,
High within the highest door.

Little Babe who art so great,
Child so young who art so old,
In the manger small His room
Whom not heaven itself could hold.

A Celtic Christmas hymn from Scotland

Gaelic Scotland has Christmas hymns of its own. Alexander Carmichael collected prayers, hymns and blessings from Gaelic speakers in Scotland and printed them in Carmina Gadelica in 1900. He wrote that bands of young men once went from house to house on Christmas Eve, chanting Christmas songs. He took this carol down from Angus Gunn of Ness, on the Isle of Lewis, who was then over eighty-four. Here is Carmichael’s English for the first verse after the chorus, and the prayer the carol ends with:

This night is the eve of the great Nativity,
Born is the Son of Mary the Virgin,
The soles of His feet have reached the earth,
The Son of glory down from on high,
Heaven and earth glowed to Him,
All hail! let there be joy!

Son of Mary Virgin, hasten Thou to help me,
Thou Christ of hope, Thou Door of joy,
Golden Sun of hill and mountain,
All hail! let there be joy!

One honest note: scholars have since found that Carmichael tidied and polished many of the texts he collected, so read it as his telling of what he heard.

A short modern Christmas prayer

This one is modern. I wrote it for anyone who wants something simple to say before the Christmas dinner.

God bless this table and all of us around it.
Bless the ones who travelled home to be here,
and the ones who couldn’t make it this year.
Keep close the ones we have lost,
and give us the grace to be kind to each other
until the washing up is done.
Amen.

For more to say before the meal, see my Irish grace before meals. And for the candle that goes in the window on Christmas Eve, see the Irish Christmas candle.