St Patrick’s Day Blessings: 39 Irish Blessings, Prayers and Toasts

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I love St Patrick’s Day. The parade is grand and the pint is welcome, but the blessings are the best part.

Here are 39 of them, sorted so you can find the right one fast.

I’ve also said where each one comes from. The genuinely old tradition is short spoken blessings like “God bless the work”. Many rhyming “old Irish blessings” first turn up in American newspapers and cards, some as late as the 1980s. That doesn’t make them bad. It just makes them younger than the label says.

Jump to: Classic | Short | Friends and family | Home | Travellers | Prayers | Funny | In Irish | FAQ | More reading

Classic Irish blessings

1. May the road rise to meet you

May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and the rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
may God hold you in the hollow of His hand.

The first line echoes a real Irish phrase: a wish that your journey goes well. Its oldest printed form, from 1946, has only the road, the wind and the hand of God. The sun and rain lines came later.

The word historian Barry Popik found it in Harry Schlacht’s St Patrick’s Day column in the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, 17 March 1946. Schlacht called it “an old-fashioned Irish prayer”.

The Irish phrase is Go n-éirí do bhóthar leat. Éirigh le means “succeed”, so “rise” is a very literal translation. Popik notes nobody knows whether an Irish original of the whole verse exists. More on what it means in what “May the road rise up to meet you” means.

2. May your neighbours respect you

“May your neighbours respect you, trouble neglect you, the angels protect you.” It finishes with heaven accepting you.

A greeting-card favourite that bounces like a nursery rhyme. I can’t find who wrote it, or when.

3. May the Irish hills caress you

“May the Irish hills caress you. May her lakes and rivers bless you.” The rest rhymes its way to St Patrick.

Popik found it first in print in 1982, in the Miami Herald, author unknown. So it’s younger than most of the people reading it out.

4. May you be in heaven half an hour

May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you’re dead.

This one has real age. Popik found versions in print in 1869, in J. B. Gough’s autobiography and a Boston newspaper. Back then the head start was a fortnight, or three weeks. Time has shaved it to half an hour.

5. May you have enough

A longer verse begins: “May you have enough happiness to keep you sweet, enough trials to keep you strong”. It’s everywhere each March. I can find no Irish source for it, so treat it as a verse by an unknown author.

Short Irish blessings for cards and texts

For a card, a text or a caption under the family photo, a short Irish blessing is best.

6. “May your troubles be less and your blessings be more.” It doubles as a toast, and it’s in my top 10 Irish toasts too.

7. “May your blessings outweigh the number of shamrocks that grow.” That’s the card above. It rhymes “grow” with “go” in the next line. Author unknown.

8. “For each petal on the shamrock, this brings a wish your way.” The wishes are health, luck and happiness. No known writer either. More like it are in my Irish sayings and blessings.

9. God mark you with His Holy Grace.

Short, old and made for a text to your mother. Maureen Walker, a pupil at Gallow school in Co. Meath, wrote it down in 1938, marked simply “A blessing”.

Irish blessings for friends and family

10. “May your heart be warm and happy with the lilt of Irish laughter.” Origin unknown, but it reads well aloud at a family table.

11. May you live as long as you want, and never want as long as you live. A clever twist on “want”. Nobody knows who first said it.

12. May the roof above us never fall in, and may we friends below never fall out. A toast for a room full of friends, origin unknown.

13. God raise a friend for you.

Now this one is the real thing. Maureen Walker wrote it down in Gallow on 13 June 1938. She noted it was said to a person in trouble. Her page is on dúchas.ie.

It’s part of the Schools’ Collection, folklore written down by Irish schoolchildren in the 1930s. UCD’s National Folklore Collection has put it online, free to read.

14. God break hard fortune before every creature’s rearing.

From the same Gallow page, where it’s marked “very old prayer” and said of children. Rearing means growing up. It suits a christening card or a new grandchild.

Irish blessings for a home

15. “May you always have walls for the winds, a roof for the rain.” Tea beside the fire comes next, and it’s the most Irish part. A card blessing, origin unknown.

16. God save all.

Said going in the door of a house, according to the Gallow page.

17. God bless all in here.

Florence Kavanagh of Walterstown got it from Michael Byrd, a road-worker, on 22 March 1938. Her page records the replies: “God bless you kindly”, or “God and Mary bless you”.

18. God bless the work.

Said when passing anyone at work, as the Gallow page has it. In Walterstown it was “God bless your work”, answered with “God bless you kindly”. In Irish it’s Bail ó Dhia ar an obair (BAL oh YEE-uh er un OH-bir). It still works on anyone painting a fence.

Irish blessings for travellers

19. God be with you.

Said leaving a house, from the Gallow page. It suits anyone heading off to the airport.

20. Go n-éirí do bhóthar leat (guh NAY-ree duh WOH-hur lat). May your journey go well.

This is the dictionary form, printed in de Bhaldraithe’s English-Irish Dictionary (1959). Ó Dónaill (1977) uses the same idiom: d’éirigh a bhóthar leis, he prospered on his way. The version on mugs, Go n-éirí an bóthar leat, is widely used but isn’t in either dictionary.

21. Go dté tú slán (guh JAY too SLAWN). Safe journey, as focloir.ie gives it.

22. Beannacht Dé leat (BAN-ukht JAY lat). God speed you, from Ó Dónaill’s dictionary.

St Patrick’s Day prayers and the Breastplate

If you want a St Patrick’s Day prayer, this is the one. St Patrick’s Breastplate is also called the Lorica, or the Deer’s Cry.

Legend says Patrick sang it when King Lóegaire set an ambush to stop him reaching Tara. The ambushers saw only wild deer and a fawn. Scholars date its language to the early 8th century, though. Patrick lived in the 5th.

It survives in the Liber Hymnorum, an 11th-century hymn collection kept in two Dublin manuscripts, one at Trinity College. These lines are Kuno Meyer’s translation, from Selections from Ancient Irish Poetry (1911). Meyer died in 1919.

23. I arise to-day
Through the strength of heaven:
Light of sun,
Radiance of moon,
Splendour of fire,
Speed of lightning…

The “strength of heaven” verse is my favourite. It reads like a weather forecast for the west of Ireland.

24. Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise…

25. I bind unto myself today
the strong Name of the Trinity,
by invocation of the same,
the Three in One, and One in Three.

The hymn version, written in 1889 by Cecil Frances Alexander at the request of H. H. Dickinson. She also wrote “All Things Bright and Beautiful”, and died in 1895. Charles Villiers Stanford set it in 1902 to two Irish tunes, St Patrick and Gartan. Many hymnbooks also use a tune called Deirdre.

26. Deep peace of the running wave to you,
deep peace of the flowing air to you,
deep peace of the quiet earth to you,
deep peace of the sleeping stones to you.

Often sold as an ancient Gaelic blessing. It’s actually by the Scottish writer William Sharp, writing as Fiona Macleod, in The Dominion of Dreams (1899). Sharp died in 1905. John Rutter set a reworked version to music in 1978.

27. The blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son and Holy Ghost descend upon us now and remain with us forever. From the same 1938 Gallow page. It would do nicely before the dinner.

Funny blessings and curses

Irish blessings have a sharp side. Some of the best are curses in a good suit.

28. The one on the card above starts kindly. Those who love us, love us, and God turns the hearts of those who don’t. Failing that: “may He turn their ankles, so we’ll know them by their limping.”

Ronald Reagan called it “an old Irish curse or blessing” at a St Patrick’s Day lunch in the US Capitol, 17 March 1987. He used it again in 1988. I can’t find it in print before then.

29. As you slide down the banister of life, may the splinters never point the wrong way.

It’s American. Popik traced it to the Norwich Herald in Kansas, 23 July 1915, as a toast to a bride and groom. The original wished you’d “never strike a splinter”. It was being passed off as Irish by 1981, in a St Patrick’s Day newspaper piece.

30. Here’s to a long life and a merry one,
a quick death and an easy one,
a cold pint and another one!

Also American. Popik found it in the Logansport Daily Journal, an Indiana paper, on 30 November 1890. It was the toast of the Clover Club, an American dining club. The original had “a happy one” and “a cold bottle”.

31. May the cat eat you, and may the devil eat the cat.

Widely quoted as an old curse, though I can’t find it in the dictionaries. The Irish usually given is Go n-ithe an cat thú is go n-ithe an diabhal an cat.

32. “When we drink, we get drunk… so let’s all get drunk and go to heaven!” In between, sleep keeps you from sin. It was first found online in 1994, author unknown. The theology is shaky, but the logic is airtight.

33. Leave the table hungry, the bed sleepy and the bar thirsty. Sold as an old Irish recipe, with no source I can find. Good advice for 18 March, though.

St Patrick’s Day blessings in Irish

These pronunciations are plain-English guides, and they shift from county to county. For the real sound, teanglann.ie has audio in Connacht, Munster and Ulster Irish.

34. Lá Fhéile Pádraig sona duit (law AY-leh PAW-drig SUN-uh ditch). Happy St Patrick’s Day.

35. Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh (BAN-ukh-tee nuh FAY-leh PAW-drig OR-iv). The blessings of St Patrick’s feast on you all. For one person, swap oraibh for ort (urt).

36. Beannacht Dé ort (BAN-ukht JAY urt). God bless you.

37. Sláinte mhaith (SLAWN-cha WAH). Good health, for raising a glass. On the day, the last glass is for drowning the shamrock. That means dropping the sprig from your lapel into it.

38. Go bhfága Dia do shláinte agat (guh WAW-guh DEE-uh duh LAWN-cha AH-gut). God keep you in good health. Ó Dónaill gives it as a way of saying thanks. Try it on whoever buys the round.

39. Go mbeirimid beo ar an am seo arís (guh MER-ih-mid byoh er un OWM shuh uh-REESH). May we live to see this time next year. Say it as the last glass goes down.

St Patrick’s Day blessings FAQ

What is the most famous Irish blessing?

“May the road rise to meet you” is the best known by a mile. Its first lines appear in an American newspaper on St Patrick’s Day 1946.

What is St Patrick’s prayer?

Usually it means St Patrick’s Breastplate, also called the Lorica or the Deer’s Cry. Its language dates from the early 8th century, three centuries after Patrick.

How do you say Happy St Patrick’s Day in Irish?

Say Lá Fhéile Pádraig sona duit (law AY-leh PAW-drig SUN-uh ditch). For a blessing, say Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh. More in my Happy St Patrick’s Day messages.

What is a short Irish blessing for a card?

Try “May your troubles be less and your blessings be more”. For something genuinely old, use “God mark you with His Holy Grace”.

Are traditional Irish blessings really old?

Some are. Short spoken blessings like “God bless the work” were written down from everyday Irish speech in the 1930s. Many rhyming verses sold as old Irish blessings first appear in American papers and cards, some as late as the 1980s.

More St Patrick’s Day reading

• Irish Sayings, Blessings and Proverbs
• Top 10 Irish Toasts
• May the Road Rise Up to Meet You, Explained
• The Real Story Behind St Patrick’s Day
• Why the Shamrock Means St Patrick’s Day
• Happy St Patrick’s Day Messages
• St Patrick’s Day Poems and Prayers

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