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TOURISM IRELAND SAYS it expects up to 400 famous sites around the world to go green on St. Patrick’s Day as part of the tenth year of the Global Greening initiative.
The now annual project started at the Sydney Opera House in 2010 but has expanded hugely since then to include other global landmarks in all corners of the world.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Tourism Ireland CEO Niall Gibbons said the agency currently has 288 global sites already going green this year but that he expects 400 to sign up by the day itself.
Last year, 300 landmark sites across 50 countries were involved in the initiative.
Some of the new sites included this year are Victoria Falls, the Nations Tower in Abu Dhabi and the Shizuoka Stadium in Japan, where Ireland will play the host nation in this year’s Rugby World Cup.
Last year, some of the sites that were included for the first time were the Space Needle in Seattle, the fountains in London’s Trafalgar Square and the San Mamés stadium in Bilbao.
Gibbons said today that there had been a somewhat “tongue-in-cheek” request to see Buckingham Palace go green but that this was politely declined.
The tourism chief added that the project cost is less than €30,000 and is thanks in large part to Irish people living abroad and the Department of Foreign Affairs.
“The Irish diaspora have played a key role in relation to this, there are 70 million people abroad but the Irish societies in places like Philadelphia and Chicago and Sydney, Singapore play a huge role in driving this project forward as well as the local tourism Ireland teams and our ambassadors and consuls general,” he said.
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Considering the size and population of Ireland we really do a magnificent job promoting ourselves, well done to all involved. Priceless for our lovely little country
Piece of marketing genius right there.
Article is up twenty minutes and no one is moaning??
@Patrick Nolan: how about we light up that big hole near James’s Hospital. There ya go!
@Patrick Nolan: are you moaning about nobody moaning?
@Patrick Nolan: Shinners not up yet!
There – I said it. I did!
@Patrick Nolan: They’ll be on soon giving out about the politicians “paddy’s day jaunts” around the world. Failing to see that literally every other country in the world would kill for that kind of access
@Patrick Nolan: Donald Trump. How’s that for a moan, Pat.
Genuinely surprised at how little it costs with the amount of participants. Marketing genius is correct.
Make Buckingham Palace green
@Colm Lyons: Big Ben while there at it
@Seamus Ó Conchúir: Belfast City Hall.
Everyone loves the irish!
@Michael: Brexiteers don’t :)
Twould be a great little country if we could only roof it.
@Seriously stunned: ha…a roof….yeah although to be fair building infrastructure in Ireland kinda isn’t really our thing though ;-)
How about us all decorating our homes with green lights, perhaps the powers that be could reduce the cost of electricity for 1 night ☘️☘️☘️
San Memes, Athletic Club Bilbaos stadium will be lit up green. Beautiful stadium
+ St Patricks Festivals in Tokyo , Yokohama and 12 other Cities in Japan attended by well over 100,000 people . All locally organised. ( Check ” INJ Japan ” ) for details )
Anything orange booked yet for July
Does our department of tourism pay for this?
have your say