News

#IRLday - 23 May 2011
Make Ireland Top Twitter Trending Topic to coincide with President Obama visit

Dublin City University and Irish software company, PocketNative, have set up a Twitter initiative, #IRLday, which will take place during President Obama's 24-hour visit on 23 May 2011.

They are inviting everyone worldwide to write positive and interesting tweets about Ireland using the #IRLday hashtag on 23 May 2011, in the hope that that Ireland will become the top Twitter Trending Topic worldwide.

#IRLday is a chance for anyone interested in increasing Irish tourism to have a coordinated, international voice and to let the world know about Ireland as a great holiday destination. #IRLday will:

• allow communities to tell people why they should come visit, what's special about their area and why they live there
• allows tourism and hospitality providers to promote what's great and special about their businesses, their community and their interpretation of the world-famous Irish hospitality
• shows how resilient, vibrant, enthusiastic and fun Ireland can be
• gets American and other tourists excited about visiting Ireland

An Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, has committed his support and will tweet on the day through the official @MerrionStreet Twitter account.

From the tourism sector, Tourism Ireland, Failte Ireland, Bord Bia, Good Food Ireland, Irish Hotels Federation, and Bed & Breakfast Ireland have pledged their support.

Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland, The Science Foundation, KPMG, The American Chamber of Commerce, Avvio, Carzone, Ovation amongst others from the business sector will also support the day.

Dublin City University's research centre, Techspectations, has played a pivotal role in setting up the initiative. They will manage the #IRLDay website, the Twitter account, and will also archive and market the initiative, along with support from postgraduate students of the Dublin City University Business School.

Dr Theo Lynn, Director of DCU's Techspectations, said, "This is such an exciting and worthwhile event for us to be involved in. #IRLDay represents next generation marketing for Ireland - open, crowd-sourced, and a non-competitive activity around a unified cause. We are delighted that our researchers, faculty and students can be associated and learn from participating in the project."

Andrew Townley, MD of PocketNative, said, "We were looking for a unique way to promote Ireland during President Obama's Visit, and Twitter seemed to be the logical Social Media channel to use. We started by putting the idea out on Twitter and got an immediate positive response. At this stage, it has grown into an all-Ireland effort-including Northern Ireland," added Townley. "I've never seen something like this done before - organising a whole country - for something this positive," he said.

"At 2pm Irish time on May 23rd (9am in New York), people are invited to start tweeting, and to include the #IRLday hashtag as part of their tweets. In this way, we can focus attention on Ireland around the hashtag. Tweet anything you love about Ireland and that you think anyone else will love too; anything of interest to visitors; and anything for anyone who's interested in Ireland. Tweet anything at all that will be entertaining, conversational or engaging. Be creative!", he said.

Additional information is available at http://www.irlday.org or http://twitter.com/#!/irlday