PIC 1+1a SHOW: Javier Iñigo, Metro de Madrid; U2 tribute artists Steve Richards and Pavel Sfera; and Susan Bolger, Tourism Ireland, launching Tourism Ireland’s ‘Semana de Irlanda’ (Ireland Week) in Madrid.
~ U2 tribute band a hit on the streets of the Spanish capital ~
Tourism Ireland’s ‘Semana de Irlanda’ (Ireland Week) is in full swing in Madrid, marking its third year as a key part of the organisation’s extensive programme of St Patrick’s Day promotional activity, which is underway in Spain and elsewhere around the world this week.
This year’s ‘Semana de Irlanda’ programme involves 30 different events – including music and dance performances by the talented UCD Dance Society at the Gran Vía metro station, appropriately located on the Green Line in the heart of the capital. The Gran Vía metro station is illuminated in green all week, to celebrate our national day. Tourism Ireland’s new St Patrick’s Day video is also running all of this week on a big screen in the Gran Vía station, which has an estimated weekly footfall of 250,000 commuters passing through the station. To view the English version of the video, click here, which has over 6 million views to date on Tourism Ireland’s English YouTube channel alone.
10/03/2025, Madrid, Spain – Tourism Ireland engaged U2 tribute artists Pavel Sfera and Steve Richards to launch this year’s ‘Semana de Irlanda’ programme on Monday (10th March), with a performance at the Plaza de Espaňa metro station.
To launch the celebrations in Madrid, Tourism Ireland enlisted U2 tribute artists Pavel Sfera and Steve Richards for a special performance at the Plaza de Espaňa metro station earlier in the week. They also surprised commuters at the Gran Vía metro station with another performance and then played in the James Joyce pub. Footage captured of the tribute artists has been viewed around 1 million times on Tourism Ireland’s social channels, including Instagram, Facebook, X and TikTok (DescubreIrlanda).
Susan Bolger, Tourism Ireland’s Manager in Spain, said: “We kicked off our ‘Semana de Irlanda’ St Patrick’s Day 2025 programme in Madrid with some fun performances by two U2 tribute artists. Our aim is to bring a smile to the faces of people in the Spanish capital and to spread the message that Ireland offers the warmest of welcomes and great fun – and to showcase our rich music and culture. St Patrick’s Day provides a unique opportunity to showcase the very best of Ireland to the world and at Tourism Ireland we are taking every opportunity to capitalise on Ireland’s heightened profile this week. Promotion of all we offer visitors at this time of year leads to the highest level of online research for ‘holidays to Ireland’ annually, so the spotlight for Ireland created during St Patrick’s Week tees up spring and summer travel ahead. We look forward to inspiring even more Spanish holidaymakers to visit our island and experience its magic for themselves.”
In addition to Madrid, Tourism Ireland is also hosting ‘Ireland Week’ celebrations in Milan, Paris and Switzerland, bringing a taste of Ireland to our key tourism markets across Europe.
