Piaras Kelly PR - Public Relations in Ireland

The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives - Robert Maynard Hutchins
I have written an Introduction to Blogs for Irish PR practitioners (PDF). The document is going to be made available to all PR students in Ireland thanks to Carmel Doyle, my lecturer when I was in [...]

Advertising is the art of making whole lies out of half truths - Edgar A. Shoaff
I heard that Eddie Hobbs had launched a blog, but a quick trip over to his site shows that he has duly been misinformed. For those unfamiliar with Hobbs, he is immensely popular in Ireland for his Rip-off Republic [...]

War grows out of the desire of the individual to gain advantage at the expense of his fellow man - Napoleon Hill
The figures are out and Herald AM has drawn first blood. Independent Newspapers’ freesheet distributed 66,047 copies, while Metro Ireland only gave out 55,196 copies. While Herald AM may be claiming a [...]

I love using quotes. I don’t know about you, but using a line or two to encapsulate a bigger idea always resonates with me. It’s also a good way of connecting with your audience.
The budget speeches at Dail Eireann, Ireland’s parliment, offered a perfect example of this in action. Richard Bruton, the [...]

A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman thinks of the next generation - James Freeman Clarke
I was rather excited to read that Fingal County Council have started to offer webcasts of their meetings, especially because it’s my local county council.
In my opinion it’s a fantastic way to learn about politics. Politicians are [...]

The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery - Anais Nin
I forgot to mention that I signed up to James Corbett’s OPML directory and became the node manager for Public Relations. Over the weekend I compiled a list of Irish Public Relations Consultancies, representative [...]

Anybody remotely interesting is mad, in some way or another
The ‘In fact ah‘ website has posted a video clip of Eamonn Dunphy’s rant on RTE about the Roy Keane saga. It’s a riveting watch as one of Ireland’s leading broadcast journalists loses the plot over the course of fifteen minutes.
Instant Punditry also points out [...]

Publicity is the life of this culture - in so far as without publicity capitalism could not survive - and at the same time publicity is its dream - John Berger
The Limerick Leader, an Irish regional paper, pulled off a publicity masterstroke yesterday when the publication paid €31,000 for a winners’ medal from the first [...]

Find a job you like and you add five days to every week - H. Jackson Browne
Four positions have become available at work. The firm I work for, Drury Communications, are hiring two client executives and two junior executives. The client executives are for our Corporate and Public Affairs teams respectively.
Please note that [...]

Love at first sight is easy to understand; it’s when two people have been looking at each other for a lifetime that it becomes a miracle - Amy Bloom
TG4 is an anomaly in Irish media terms. If you ask the dog on the street whether they watch TG4, nine times out of ten they’ll [...]

The times they are a-changin’ - Bob Dylan
The results of a recent Ireland Offline survey make for interesting reading. The results highlight the digital lifestyle that has emerged in other parts of the world is also becoming a cornerstone in Irish culture. Some survey results which indicate this include:

84% of respondents own a [...]

The future has a way of arriving unannounced - George Will
Unfortunately I ended up missing out on the Darklight Symposium on Friday. Dr Anne O’Connor, special advisor to the Director General of RTE, was at hand to discuss perspectives for public broadcasting in Ireland and online policies for RTE. Thankfully I got to [...]

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy - Martin Luther King
There’s been plenty of debate recently about a decline in the standards of Irish journalism. The coverage of Liam Lawlor’s death has been the [...]

She looks really well…I wonder whether she’s going out with someone or seeing someone…But I don’t ask because I wouldn’t give her, like, the satisfaction of letting her think I give a s*** one way or the other - Ross O’Carroll-Kelly
The fact that most Sunday Tribune readers buy it because of the Ross O’Carroll-Kelly column [...]

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy - Martin Luther King
RTE, Ireland’s national broadcaster, is a bit of a mixed bag these days. It’s come a long way in a short space of time [...]

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence
John O’Sullivan, a Journalism lecturer at Dublin City University, told the audience at the PRII talk on the changing face of print journalism that PR practitioners should stop reusing the same photocall scenarios with models in bikinis.
Obviously John isn’t a picture editor because pictures [...]

This is boring! Now I know what people went through when…my Bronco was going up the freeway - O. J. Simpson on the televised journey of the Ryder truck taking presidential election ballots to Tallahassee
I went to the PRII talk on ‘The changing face of print journalism’ last night. For all the talk [...]

Accomplishments have no colour - Leontyne Price
Richard Edelman has posted a good article called ‘The On-Going Challenge of Diversity‘ where he points out that PR consultancies’ “recruiting and promotion policies are not keeping up with an increasingly diverse world“. This is a problem that is being felt the world over and one that is [...]

History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap - Ronald Reagan
The first round in the battle of the freesheets in Dublin is in full swing. Every morning copies of the Metro and Herald AM are distributed across County Dublin. It has struck me though that the Metro [...]

It’s hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse - Adlai Stevenson
I’ve either gone blind or the Sunday Tribune’s blogosphere column has gone up in smoke. I’ve flicked through the various sections and it seems to have disappeared. If they’ve made the decision to can the [...]

You have to be in it to win it!
One that makes NewsTalk 106 stand out for company’s looking to run a radio promotion is their Text Back service. When the listener texts in to enter the competition, they get a text message back saying thanks for entering the competition and a message from the [...]

It’s so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and say the opposite - Sam Levenson
I’m happily sitting down in front of my laptop, actually not going out drinking in the first Friday night in God knows how long and guess what happens - I get an unsolicited text message from [...]

When it’s a question of money, everybody is of the same religion - Voltaire
RTE report the the new Metro freesheet has won the legal battle over its name with Independent Newspapers, so it will be with us sooner rather than later.
There’s been plenty of rumours about the freesheet of late and I’d say most Dubliners [...]

RTE reported on a deal that 3, a mobile phone company in Ireland, have struck with them that will see 3’s users able to receive video highlights of their television news bulletins. It’s a good move for 3 and it’s also a great sign that RTE are moving forwards albeit one step at a [...]

There’s no business like show business, but there’s several businesses like accounting - David Letterman
One sure fire way to make it into the Irish Press is to make a jobs, investment figures or survey results announcement. Surveys get people into the press across the globe, but announcements about jobs and investment take on special [...]