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Updated: 13.42, 17 March
WHETHER IN IRELAND or abroad you may have seen some famous city landmarks being turned green in honour of St Patrick’s Day.
Tourism Ireland spent about €65,000 on greening more than 120 buildings and monuments worldwide, according to the Irish Times.
Sydney Opera House charged €8,000 to be lit up in 2014 – the most by any single venue.
The Times reports that the London Eye charged €6,500 to be illuminated. Other fees charged included €3,000 for the Sphinx and Pyramids in Egypt, €2,570 for South Africa’s Table Mountain, and €2,379 for the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy.
Meanwhile, the Office of Public Works paid €30,000 to turn Irish buildings green.
Some places taking part for the first time ever include the Colosseum in Rome, the Sacré Cœur basilica in Paris, and Nelson’s Column in London, as well as several buildings in Iceland:
Here’s a taster:
Paris
St. John’s, Newfoundland
Madrid
Whistler, British Columbia
Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne
Penang, Malaysia
Colosseum, Rome
The Great Wall of China
Reykjavik
Edinburgh
Stockholm
Denver
Malin Head
Ali Farren / Twitter
Ali Farren / Twitter / Twitter
Rio
London
Even Disney got involved:
Hopefully all of these great pics have given Kermit some solace today:
Additional reporting by Órla Ryan
Originally published: 18.51, 16 March
It really is amazing, the turning green of these icons of the world is done on a ‘shoestring’ budget.
Hats off to the diplomatic skills of the people involved in making this happen……even ‘TheGreat Wall of China’ goes green this year!
Damn… I thought they all did it for free because they love the Irish.
Make you proud to be Irish.
And great value for money.
Stormont Buildings are also going green, as is Belfast City Hall…times, they are a’changing ;)
And orange in July, a fair compromise I think.
Other countries must be green with envy!!!enjoy!!!
The greening of the Coliseum is brilliant! I hope it becomes an annual event.
Hope the gladiators can do Riverdance!
Dont be fooled they use green lights I have seen them do it. I am shocked and outraged.
Kinda makes you feel guilty for not doing anything back for every country that recognises Ireland on St Patrick’s Day. Cheers World on behalf of the Indian/Irish contingent.
How
How brother
Chief, we still owe the the Chocktaw Indians a debt of gratitude for this gesture:
Yep, amazing story that Lao. I actually have a friend who went over to america and spent some time with some Choctaws because of that.
As a direct descendent of St Patrick I can speak for all my family when I say enjoy your day tomorrow.
Here’s my small effort.
Mr Collins’s classroom in Stockholm: http://imgur.com/lYE7Jdc
Also started the day with snacks, juice and cakes iced with shamrocks for the kids (5th class), with TG Lurgan music playing in the background.
Thought about it a lot today – for me, St Patrick’s Day is the hardest day to be away from home. Christmas and Easter, I’ve been in Sweden for both, and it’s not the same, but it’s manageable because those holidays exist here. But it’s kind of hard today thinking of home, but for everyone here, it’s just a normal day.
Lá ‘le Pádraig Shona do gach duine.
Everyone is also thinking of the Irish abroad today, hope you & your class have a great St Patrick’s Day :)
Dennis , happy St Patrick’s day to you and your students !
La Feile Padraig Shone, duit, freisin. A friend of mine lives in the North and she’s working today. I feel for her.
Did you make it to the parade on Sunday? Great turn out, lots of colour and very festive. The best it’s been. But I know what you mean. I had taken the day off but had to go in all the same.
Really impressed over the Great Wall! That must have taken some effort. I wonder is it the whole wall or just a section?
The entire wall is over 20,000 kilometres long, so I’d imaf it’s just a section of it ;-)
*imagine
Not too sure Ali…..but I was listening to a guy on the radio who helps organise the ‘Greening’ and he said it’s not too hard to get countries to agree as they see their own ‘Iconic’ buildings getting press coverage across the world in return…so it’s a win/win. But what was stunning was the amount of money it costs……he said it cost less than €40,000!, that is very little money indeed, some do ask for help with lighting(very few) but most just ask for green filters which we ship to them and they fit them themselves. It really is a shoestring budget!
Congratz to the people involved!
Duffman you’re a bundle of information tonight.
Thanks al! It’s a great idea.
Can anyone tell me if there is any other nations holiday that unites the world the way St Patricks Day does these days? I can’t think of any myself.
@Al Ca
Totally agree, it’s done for absolutely nothing -it would be very cheap at €4 million -let alone €40 grand! The morons red-thumbing this are completely brainless and have no comprehension of the value that the global marketing of ‘brand Ireland’ brings to the country in Tourism, Business & Goodwill. It is absolutely priceless, other Countries would kill for it and it is part of the machine that allows Ireland “box above her weight”.
Great work by all concerned, even the Burge Al Arab in Dubai only makes an effort to light up once a year and that’s for Paddys Day.
I’m after turning green also after the weekend of sessioning I’ve done.
The spire is looking good with its Screen and light display.
fantastic work by the government
Do you think the government had anything to do with this, they had in one way by causing immigration and with the Irish American pull it might be one way to answering why?
Give it a rest for one day would ya.
SO EVERYTHING POSITIVE must be the governments doing, this government can’t even fix the HSE… WHAT CHANCE HAVE THEY OF DOING ANY OF THIS??? None.
Pity about Simon Coveney ‘ s spelling error! Don’t think the Italians will be too impressed with a green “coliseum”
He might get it right next year. Maybe…
That’s actually the correct spelling. Well, in the original Italian, anyway. As an aside ( and riding my hobbyhorse, Roman history) it wasn’t actually called the Coliseum when it was built. It was known as the Flavian amphitheatre (after Vespasian who built it as a celebration of the First Jewish War). Incidentally the slaves who built it were initially the Jewish prisoners of war from that First Jewish War in AD66.
Dá mbeadh muid in ann dath glas a chur ar ár dteanga anois agus ár nGaeilge álainn a labhairt! : (-)
Yes being Irish fills me with pride. But living in the Ireland of today I am ashamed of our so called leaders. They had shafted the irish people so badly. So I urge everybody who is out and about tomorrow to tell the tourists that Ireland is a beautiful place and the people are great. But our government is a disgrace. They try and take credit for the irish on paddys day. All they have done is heaped misery on its people
Give it a rest will you
Shut up for one article you bloody gobshjte.
get a violin out there for yourself david :D
Times Like this I feel very proud to be Irish….
C’mon IRELAND
Óle Óle Óle….
How is such an event not worth two bank holidays?
So cool! Actually a bit overwhelming.
They are just a few green lights Mary.
Try not to get too overwhelmed.
@Tom: Idiotic comment. Totally missing the point. What’s happening here is effectively plastering Ireland’s logo over the World’s most important monuments and buildings and reminding a sizeable chunk of the World’s 7 Billion people about an island of 6 million in the North Atlantic. That, Tom, is what is “overwhelming”.
If any commercial brand i.e. Coca Cola could pull that off they’d pay hundreds of millions for it. Really!
Not too overwhelmed, Tom, just amazed that as Greg says, a tiny island with less than half the population of London can turn practically the whole world green for our special day. There’s something special about that! In fact I got a bit of dust in my eye looking at those photos and I’m not ashamed to say it.
The whole length of The Cliffs of Moher have gone green this year as part of #GlobalGreening. Clare Co. Council released funds for the paint job to celebrate the Cliffs position as the most visited “Natural Attraction” in Ireland.
The Team that painted the Cliffs offered to do “The Burren” as well but this was turned down as being a bit OTT. Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone. http://i.imgur.com/NdWmOvz.jpg
Waterproof paint hopefully
It’s amazing seeing iconic landmarks around the world turn green for St. Patrick’s day..
Dublin needs a good steam cleaning.the streets are green mouldy shame on Dublin corpo.shower of shovel leaners.
Gosh FORK…if only they spent the LPT on what they said they would.
Nelson’s Column going green is the icing on the cake for me! And there was a great St Patrick’s Day Parade in London on Sunday.
we have lots to celebrate. thanks enda it truly was a memorable year of recovery, keep up the fantastic work?
My question is: Why is green the colour for Ireland?
Is it simply because our green grass and countryside.
Isn’t it because of our shamrock? I think.
So why the shamrock?
I got asked the question and I didn’t have a very good answer
My guess is because we are known as the “Emerald Isle.” Were called this because our fields are so green etc. From space were extremely green.
Saint Patrick used the shamrock to illustrate the Trinity. The father, son and Holy Spirit as in God is three in one.
We’ve hapes of it. Plus our green is greener than out countries green. Go to Oz and unless you’re in a rainforest or around south Australia their green is closer to brown
A green flag featuring a harp was an older symbol of the nation of Ireland, dating back at least to Confederate Ireland and the pursuits of Owen Roe O’Neill from 1642. It was subsequently widely adopted by the Irish Volunteers and especially the United Irishmen.
The most prominent use of green emerged during the wave of Irish nationalism and republican feeling in the 19th century, when the colour was adopted as a more striking way of separating Ireland from the various reds or blues that were now associated with England, Scotland and Wales.
Cheers Duffman
I always thought it was because of our wonderful, Irish peas.
Cheers lads, found this article and it sorted it all for me too
http://www.thejournal.ie/ireland-national-colour-blue-828597-Mar2013/
Now all we need is to see the Northern Lights and we can saw the whole world lit up for us
It used to be blue.
A blue flag with a gold harp was the former flag of Ireland. Known as St Patrick ‘s blue as that was the colour associated with the Saint.
Mrs Shalakalananaka………I hardly recognised you in the red hat!
Its brilliant. Now if we only had real irish ambassadors travelling the world to promote ireland!
We have to much to moan about at times, given the incompetence of our politicians. But we are still a great nation, and it is fantastic to see our culture celebrated the world over.
No it doesn’t. A perfectly reasonable comment of mine has been removed from a Paul Hosford thread because it was critical of our teasock. In the wake of all the “je suis Charlie ” nonsense on this forum I find this doubly outrageous. If I think our current teasock is a horrible gobdaw, and he annoys me, I should be free to say so. Those who disagree are at liberty to post defamatory and libellous remarks (on a daily basis) without let or hindrance. I see these posts every single day. Wozza story?
I’m happy to be Irish but I’m not proud to be Irish. Why should I be? Isn’t pride one of the 7 deadly sins?
Pride in a nationality has connotations of superiority.
Be happy in your nationality. Celebrate it, embrace it. But don’t be proud.
Think about it.
Bhuel, táim bródúil as an teanga ársa s’againne – an teanga leis an litríocht is sine taobh amuigh de Laidin agus Ghréigis :)
What?
English please.
The language of Ireland.
Gabh suas mó thóinín breá Gaelach! ; )
Here in Toronto the CN Tower went green. I was bursting with pride and smiling from ear to ear when I saw it tonight lighting up the night sky. I’m feeling very homesick tonight, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.
At least pink gets a break for a day.
Well played by tourism Ireland to be fair, especially the use of the globalgreening hashtag.
Im more impressed that the icons were lit up as a result of our own actions rather than the countries themselves.
Sez who?
CHASING THE GREEN DRAGON, Absinthe lol.
Biggest waste of a day and money
I was at the lion king in london last night and towards the end timon and pumba put on drag and started doing riverdance. It was bizarre and brilliant at the same time…certainly won’t forget it!
Waste of money
I’m liking Whistler.
Now, I bet that makes everyone glad that they paid the banksters and bondholders now lol.
have your say