17Mar
For many years, Liverpool Irish Festival has coordinated Merseyside’s contribution to #GlobalGreening for St Patrick’s Day. 2025 was no different.
“We are thrilled that, once again, Liverpool and the region’s civic structures will come out to show support for our Irish diaspora communities. #GlobalGreening was originally the brainchild of Tourism Ireland and we were very pleased to pick up the mantle. As a city with a unique connection to the island of Ireland, being emerald for the night is a flattering colour on us. It is also a symbol of environmentalism and what we can each do to make the world a greener, healthier, happier place”, Dr Ann Hoskins, Liverpool Irish Festival Chair.
Greening regional locations is an act of care; showing Irish diaspora communities that they are seen, recognised and cherished. Green is also the colour of environmentalism, so another depiction of how we love our world and those in it.
Use these hashtags to learn more on social media: #GlobalGreening #StPatricksDay and #FeilePadraig. Share your pics with us on social media by adding our handle @LivIrishFest or tagging us with #LIF2025. Happy St Patrick’s Day! See a short film of the images taken on 17 March 2025 here:
In 2025, the following buildings and structures lit for St Patrick’s night:
- Mersey Gateway Bridge, St Helens
- Steve Prescott Bridge, Saint Helens
- M62/Greystone Road Bridge, Knowsley
- The Yoko Ono Lennon Centre, home of The Tung Auditorium, University of Liverpool, Liverpool
- The Campanile, Liverpool
- The Black-E, Liverpool
- M&S Arena, Liverpool
- ACC Liverpool, Liverpool
- Liverpool Town Hall, Liverpool
- Liverpool ONE’s John Lewis bridge, Liverpool
- Liverpool ONE’s zig-zag steps, Liverpool
- Cunard Building, Liverpool
- The Three Graces, Liverpool
- George’s Dock Building, Liverpool
- Liver Building, Liverpool
- Liverpool Parish Church, Liverpool
- St George’s Hall, Liverpool
- Central Library, Liverpool
- World Museum, Liverpool
- Seacombe Ferry Terminal, Wallasey
- Woodside Ventilation Building, Birkenhead.
There is also a photo archive, on Googledrive, here. We are extremely grateful to each of the teams that enables this to happen and especially to Tourism Ireland, whose initial idea it was.
Environmentalism
In 2025, we’d like to give a significant focus on environmentalism. As a carbon literate organisation it is important to us that we are not wasting energy. Lighting cultural buildings green, rather than their standard colour, takes no more energy that in any other colour, but will symbolise both Ireland and the environment. Lighting anything with LEDs costs between 50-70% less that old lighting systems. Can you swap out your old lightbulbs (when they blow) for LED ones?
This year, onlookers are asked to consider their carbon outputs. Can you make one change to your life that would help the planet?
Due to the carbon footprint of milk, our Artistic Director lowered her cow’s milk intake by seven/eighths and cheese intake to less than half of her previous consumption! She also has meat free days and takes all her soft plastic to the recycling drop offs at the local superstore. What can you do? The Festival commits to ensuring all our print — newspapers, posters, printer paper, envelopes, books, postage packaging etc — are as responsibly sourced as possible.
Internationalism
#GlobalGreening was originally founded by Tourism Ireland in 2010. It gained international partners, with sites in Sydney, Venice, Milan, Hong Kong and Washington DC and many more. Each celebrates Irish communities across the world. Turning emerald honours the influence, assimilation and impact Ireland has had. It reminds us of the time, effort and labour Irish people have invested in their ‘found homes’ and the friendships made within their host communities. At a time when parts of the world are at war, being able to show our affection for a community — post-conflict — seems all the more pertinent. We hope for a time beyond war and for a time when peace and reconciliation can truly be found.
Below is a gallery of last year’s supporters. For previous years, you can visit our Googledriveof archive images.
Get involved
We invite you to visit as many locations as you can. Add your images to social media, using our handle @LivIrishFest and hashtag #GlobalGreening. We’ll photograph each participating building/structure and share them on Mon 18 March 2024, accessible from our news page. Keep an eye out on Facebookand Twitter, too, where we’ll try and post some of the images! We hope you will enjoy seeing these buildings and structures light up in honour of Ireland and its people.
2023 poem
For anyone interested, please see Cristina-Steliana Mihailovici’s 2023 St Patrick’s Day poem, here.
2023’s film
2022’s film
2021’s film
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