Hand planting shamrocks with text saying 'Happy St Patrick's Day from the island that goes beyond'

St Patrick’s Day 2026 programme

St Patrick’s Day is a vital time for tourism, when we welcome approximately 100,000 overseas visitors, while media coverage around the world leads St Patrick’s Week to be the peak period of the year for people to research ‘holidays in Ireland’, per online search data, teeing up bookings for the year ahead. 

Tourism Ireland undertook a major programme of media, travel trade and consumer promotions, to capitalise on Ireland’s heightened global profile once again around 17th March 2026. Our programme spanned Great Britain, Mainland Europe, North America, Australia and nascent markets. The saturation coverage about the island of Ireland across the global airwaves, in newspapers and digital media is an invaluable boost for our overall 2026 tourism promotional drive.

Highlights of Tourism Ireland’s St Patrick’s Day 2026 programme of activity

  • Tourism Ireland supported Global Greenings once again in 2026 – working with selected iconic landmarks in key tourism markets, including the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Empire State Building, Niagara Falls, the CN Tower in Canada, The National Wallace Monument in Scotland, Heidecksburg Castle in Germany, the Cibeles Fountain in Madrid, La Croisette in Cannes, the Grand Place in Brussels and the Sky Tower in Auckland.  Two quirky additions joined this year – Jelling Stones, two Viking Age rune stones from the 10th-century in Denmark, and the Bergisel ski jump in Austria.
  • Tourism Ireland invited 25 international media and content creators to Ireland to stream, broadcast and share reasons to visit our island. Our message reached an audience of around 350 million via 2,500 pieces of coverage. 
  • ITV’s ‘This Morning’ broadcast live from Cork, Limerick and Kerry in the run-up to St Patrick’s Day, with multiple segments fronted by celebrity chef Donal Skehan reaching around 13 million viewers.
  • Tourism Ireland also had renowned US travel broadcaster Gabe Saglie on the ground with us in Dublin, livestreaming from the parade to TV stations across the United States, reaching 46 million across CBS, FOX, ABC and NBC networks.  
  • Tourism Ireland brought a taste of the action around the world – including our Ireland Week activities in Paris, Madrid and Milan (which included 100+ different events) and our support for St Patrick’s Day parades and festivals in cities around the world. Celebrations in Madrid showcased Ireland to around 200,000 people and coverage of the New York parade aired to around 8 million viewers. The live NBC broadcast of the New York parade featured pre-recorded segments highlighting Ireland’s culture, heritage and scenery, with a special focus on America 250 celebrations and the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann taking place in Belfast in August.  
  • Tourism Ireland’s new global advertising campaign – ‘Ireland Goes Beyond’ – was live in 15+ markets on TV, cinema, video streaming and digital channels. The campaign celebrates how the island of Ireland goes beyond people’s expectations of a holiday experience, by creating memorable connections with the people and the place.
  • Our St Patrick’s Day video marked the moment and wished the world a Happy St Patrick’s Day using a cover of ‘Breathless’ by The Corrs, performed by Irish band Lemoncello, reaching 30 million viewers. It included stunning footage of Ireland and captured the excitement of festivities happening around the island on 17th March.
  • There were 492,000 engaged sessions – potential visitors researching things to see and do here – on our international website, Ireland.com, in the week leading up to St Patrick’s Day, up +2.5% year on year.
  • Tourism Ireland’s busy programme of consumer marketing activity ran across social media, email, website and publicity, in the run-up to and on St Patrick’s Day. The organisation reached an audience of 2.9 million around the world on social channels alone.

    Click through our media gallery below.