Preliminary figures from the Central Statistics Office for August show that seasonally adjusted exports increased by 23% to €7.975 billion from the previous month.
The CSO said that along with a small increase of 1% to €4.631 billion in seasonally adjusted imports, the seasonally adjusted trade surplus jumped by 75% to €3.344 billion.
This marks the largest surplus so far this year and comes after the low surplus figure of €1.908 billion in July.
On a yearly basis, the value of exports increased by 6% to €7.390 billion, with the increase mainly due to a 31% in the exports of organic chemicals. Food and live animal exports also rose slightly.
The CSO said that the EU accounted for 52% of total exports in August, while the US was the main non-EU destination and accounted for 20% of total exports in August 2014.
Today's figures also show that the value of imports increased by 4% to €4.124 billion in the 12 months from August 2013 and August 2014.
The CSO said that imports of machinery specialised for particular industries raced 266% ahead on a yearly basis.
The EU accounted for 62% of the value of imports in August, with 30% coming from the UK. The US at 12% and China at 7% were the main non-EU sources of imports.
Commenting on today's figures, Merrion economist Alan McQuaid said that the trade figures for July had suggested that merchandise export performance in the third quarter would be a lot weaker than in the first half of 2014, but the August data would tend to knock that view on the head.
Mr McQuaid said that the weak euro will clearly be beneficial for a huge exporting country like Ireland, as will the close trading ties with both the US and UK, two of the better performers on the global economic stage in 2014.
Davy economist David McNamara said that the big picture from today's CSO figures is that pharmaceutical exports have regained much of the ground lost due to the patent cliff.
He pointed out that they are now down just 0.3% on the year, while other exports are up 1.3% on the year.
"Today's data point to another solid quarter of growth for exports in Q3, barring any sharp declines in September," the economist added.
