Ireland's President, Michael D. Higgins and his wife, Sabina, release their Christmas Card for 2024

This year’s Christmas Card - which will be sent to international Heads of State, members of the diplomatic corps and members of the public both in Ireland and abroad - features a message of ‘Peace & Love on Earth, Goodwill to All’ on a design of doves and a rainbow creating a heart around the world. Each dove carries an olive branch.

The inside of the card carries excerpts from a number of President Higgins’ addresses calling for peace and highlighting record global expenditures on armaments, as well as quotations from Pope Francis and United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. The back of the card features the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the 17 goals agreed in 2015 to build peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future.

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President Michael D Higgins Christmas 2024 card.

This year’s card was designed by artist Michael O’Dwyer, who also designed last year’s card, which likewise carried a message of peace at this time of the many global conflicts causing so much unnecessary loss of life across the world.

The design and contents of the annual Christmas Card has been coordinated for each of the last 14 years by Sabina Higgins.

Reflecting the globally recognized importance of breastfeeding, six of the 14 cards have featured a breastfeeding image of the Madonna and Child. In recognition of the global plight of refugees, a further three cards have carried images of the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt.

Across each of the cards, Sabina and President Higgins have sought to apply the message of Christmas and the birth of Jesus to the troubles of our current world.

This year marks the President and Sabina’s final Christmas at Áras an Uachtaráin, with President Higgins’ term of office to end in November 2025.

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Sabina and President Michael D Higgins.

Speaking on the release of this year’s Christmas Card, Sabina Higgins said: “The sending of an annual Christmas card is such an important tradition, bringing each of us across the world closer to our loved ones and to our global family, no matter who or where they may be.

"The sending of the right Christmas image that best carried the message of love we needed to send to our national and global family has been a very important and exciting undertaking for me." 

She added, "May I wish everyone across Ireland and the world a very happy Christmas and send my best wishes to them for the year ahead.”