Wexford’s Bui Bolg leading the way for St. Patrick’s Day in association with KIA


Kia will return as the Official Electrified Vehicle Partner of St. Patrick's Festival for 2023. Building on last years success, this year Kia are collaborating with Wexford based pageant specialists Bui Bolg, who will produce three dedicated parade pageants on their behalf. These pageants have been commissioned in line with Kia’s brand strategy and will convey the brand’s ambition to become a sustainable mobility solutions provider. Buí Bolg Youth Arts based in Wexford Town, transform and re-imagines spaces, through spectacular installations, large scale community events and street art performances which turn the ordinary into the extraordinary.

Kia will also support this year’s festival with a fleet of electrified vehicles which will assist the celebrations of arts, culture, and heritage around Dublin City from March 16 th – 19th. This association will also feature a vehicle display area at the Festival Quarter in Collins Barracks, National Museum of Decorative Arts, which will remain in place for the duration of the festival.

As part of Kia’s brand vision to provide sustainable mobility solutions along with a commitment to be carbon neutral by 2045, this three-part pageant will explore the balance between nature and humans and how both can work together for harmony and balance on our planet. This commissioned project is entitled ‘A Future That Moves Us’ and will be 100 metres in length, consisting of three themed floats entitled A Future with Creativity, A Future with Nature, and A Future with Oceans. Each pageant will be created by Bui Bolg through artistic sculptures and displays.Speaking today, Richard Tierney CEO of St. Patrick’s Festival said: “We are delighted to continue our collaboration with Kia for this year’s festival. The theme of this year’s festival is ‘ONE’, where we invite people from across the world to come to Dublin to share, connect, participate, and celebrate together as 'ONE.' Having a partner like Kia not only brings a fantastic fleet of electrified vehicles to our streets but it also brings a partner with huge ambition, and everyone is very excited to see how Bui Bolg will bring these ambitions to life as pageants on March 17th.”

Kia have established themselves as an innovator in the field of technology and connectivity in recent years and the first parade pageant entitled ‘A Future with Creativity’ will examine how human and electronic minds meet to harness technology through experimentation and creativity. The second pageant, ‘A Future with Nature’ will explore Kia’s sustainability strategy. As one of Ireland bestselling EV brands, the Korean company has a clear brand vision to power all its production facilities by renewable power sources by 2040 and have also made a commitment to be carbon neutral by 2045.

This final pageant is named ‘A Future with Oceans’ and recognises the Kia global partnership with the Ocean Clean-up project. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), only 9% of worldwide plastic waste is recycled and the rest is either incinerated or ends up in our oceans and environment. As a result, there are over 50 trillion pieces of plastic in our oceans which is currently the biggest threat to marine life existence. The Ocean Clean-up is a non-profit organisation setup reduce and remove this threat. As global partners, Kia are finding innovative uses for this ocean plastic and are currently integrating such materials into their vehicle production. The brand has also made a commitment to have 20% of all vehicle plastic requirements sourced from recycled ocean plastic by 2030. This pageant will demonstrate how human innovation is creating solutions to save our oceans.

Commenting on the partnership, Ronan Flood MD of Kia Ireland commented “We are very happy to be associated with the festival again this year. St. Patrick’s Day is an integral part of Irish culture and has huge reach both here in Ireland and abroad and we too are very excited to see how the creative team in Bui Bolgwill bring our Brand Vision to life on the streets of Dublin “ Commenting on the electrified fleet of vehicles that will assist the parade, Flood added “In Ireland, we have consistently been a top 3 brand in terms of EV sales and during the parade we will showcase some of the electrified models that have made this possible. The three models on display will be our flagship EV6 model, our recently launched Niro EV and our stunning new Sportage PHEV “

Mark Carey, Sales Director of Bui Bolg also added “This has been a very exciting project for us to work on. Bringing Kia’s corporate strategy to life in these three pagents has pushed our creative thought processes and we couldn’t be happier with the end product which we are putting the finishing touches to this week. Although the final designs are under wraps until March 17th I would encourage as many people as possible to attend the parade itself or alternatively to tune in on television to see our work brought to life on the day.

The St. Patrick’s Festival is made possible through the continued support of the Government of Ireland, the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Fáilte Ireland, Dublin City Council, and many generous partners and funders.

For festival details see stpatricksfestival.ie. For more on this partnership see Kia.com.