St Patrick’s Festival CEO: ‘We will have a billion eyeballs on us’

Podcast Ep 240: The CEO of the St Patrick’s Festival in Dublin Richard Tierney says that Ireland’s national day will be all about restoring the city’s pride and presenting Ireland’s brand on the global stage.

There’s no business like show business, or so the saying goes. For the CEO of the St Patrick’s Festival Richard Tierney, as soon as this year’s national day is complete, planning for the event in 2026 will begin almost immediately.

The pressure must be manifold – you are presenting Ireland on the world stage and you also need to put a damn good show on for the many, many thousands who will attend and take part, and the millions who will watching from abroad.

You can tell it’s precisely the kind of pressure that Tierney enjoys. “I have the steering wheel, which in real terms means I just get out of the way and let everybody else produce what is the biggest festival of the year.”

He is not exaggerating. The St Patrick’s Festival is the biggest celebration of Irish arts, culture and creativity worldwide and its impact is astonishing.

In 2024, it delivered an overall media reach of 400m+, publicity worth €522m, a digital and social media reach of 22m, a live audience in excess of 600,000, a TV audience of 386,000 with a market share of 51%. There were over 4,200 artists who worked on it and it generated 11,000 days of employment.

It rolls with craic agus ceoil

Tierney’s past experience spans marketing agencies, music promoters and 21 years working for himself in commercial consultancy, where he brokered huge deals for the likes of 3Arena and Bord Gáis Energy Theatre.

In 2023 he joined St Patrick’s Festival as CEO, with his focus ranging from increasing the commercial ability of the festival, to improving its sustainability efforts all while highlighting the values of community and diversity.

Tierney says the importance of the event is that it resonates beyond Ireland’s national day. “It’s effectively the kickoff of the tourism season. It signals the major influx of outbound but it’s also dearly supported and loved by a massive domestic audience. We will have a billion eyeballs on us on the day between the streaming services, the American and global TV cameras and the billion people connecting with us.”

Image: Clare Keogh

He says that for the Irish abroad and the millions around the world who have Irish heritage, it’s their day.

“There are about 400 St Patrick’s Day celebrations happening around Ireland. We’re not the only one, but we are the one that is probably the centre of focus in terms of the big event where 500,000 people come and line the streets along the parade’s route and watch.

“With that comes a lot of responsibility but it’s also a real opportunity for us to show the best we have culturally and artistically. There’s the craic but also we’re unique people who love to be Irish. There are 100,000-plus Americans who come and it’s real bucket-list stuff for them.

“As an organisation we are all-year-round. We are a not-for-profit vehicle with multiple stakeholders to manage the national day.”

The Festival has eight full-time employees and their ranks can swell up to 50 as the event approaches.

Tierney says that the Festival itself will run for three days with the parade itself as the centrepiece.

The demands can be exacting and in some cases ridiculous. “We had one artist who wanted to take part ask if we could move the date. There is just one rule, the parade has to happen on 17 March and it starts at 12 noon.

“This year there will be 3,500 participants so it’s gigantic in terms of the creation of the pageantry, the floats and there is a very inclusive artistic commitment over seven months from artistic organisations all over the country.”

In 2025 the celebrated Macnas theatre group will be making a much-anticipated return to the parade in Dublin after a few years’ hiatus.

A city-wide programme of hundreds of events will take place all over the city over the St Patrick’s weekend.

The community of citizens, visitors, stakeholders, the taxpayer and the creators are the key to the Festival’s, Tierney says, and it’s all about listening to them and managing expectations.

“We’ve a lot of pillars that we need to support. We need to work with communities, we need to foster diversity, we need to be inclusive. The world is changing hourly and the St Patricks’ Festival needs to adapt to that and represent itself in that regard.”

Image: Clare Keogh

It’s hard not to think about how the Festival presents Dublin on the world stage. I put it to Tierney that following the riots in the city over a year ago, it is a city that is still healing.

The answer, he says, is to bring people together. “It’s one of the reasons we will have a lot of pop-up events all over the city. We’re bringing back old concepts like the Treasure Hunt. We are bringing in a lot of food and literary trails and we’re going to try and get people to feel out the city; the Southsiders who never walk to the Northside and the Northsiders who don’t often come to the Southside.

“Despite the horrendous events of last year, our brief never really changed. Our brief is to bring joy and really highlight what wonderful creativity artistically we have here and what a great offering we have in Dublin but also in Ireland.

“We want to make sure we are bringing people together, showing the same Dublin city centre on St Patrick’s Day in its best possible light, wearing its best suit.

“I think some really good things can come out of unfortunately horrendous bad things. And we’re part of that.

“Last year we probably didn’t have enough events within the city. I think this year it’s going to be very interactive in terms of showing the expanse of the city, hopefully.”