Global Greening to Be Replaced by Ukrainian Blue and Yellow This St. Patrick’s Day

The annual Global Greening campaign is being paused this St. Patrick's Day to highlight the conflict in Ukraine.

All Irish embassies have received communications from Taoiseach Micheál Martin asking for any buildings, monuments or other sites that would previously have been lit green for St. Patrick's Day to now be lit with the Ukrainian colours of blue and yellow.

Some sites have already been lit in blue and yellow and had planned to switch to green on March 17th, but have now been asked to stick with the Ukrainian colours.

It's said that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Tourism Ireland felt it would not be appropriate to go ahead with the campaign this year.

Landmarks and sites in over 50 countries were set to turn green on St. Patrick's Day.

"The global greening programme, in partnership with Tourism Ireland, has been an enormous success over the years," Martin said. "We’re re-examining that for St. Patrick’s Day in terms of how we can interweave this Ukrainian theme as well. We will use St. Patrick’s Day, the week basically, to highlight our solidarity with Ukraine and the values that Ukrainian people are standing for."

Individual embassies will have the choice whether to incorporate green or to solely highlight the Ukrainian colours.