Guinness Gates Go Rainbow for Union Cup

Guinness broke with over 200 years of tradition yesterday when unveiling a repainting of one of the iconic Guinness Gates to support its partnership with the Union Cup, Europe’s biggest LGBT+ inclusive rugby tournament which takes place in Dublin for the first time next week.

Throughout their history, the gates have only ever been black or ‘Guinness Blue’ and have never before had any branding other than the iconic Harp, Guinness lettering and St James’s Gate Brewery address.

The Guinness Gates at Rainsford Street are passed by two million tourists each year and were attracting plenty of interest yesterday in their new colour scheme.

This is the gate that features in the iconic Christmas and running for 15 years now and also featured as a backdrop to the announcement of the Guinness sponsorship of the Six Nations earlier this year.

On Friday Sport for Business will carry an exclusive interview with Rory Sheridan of Guinness on the background to the partnership with the Union Cup, the logistics of the makeover and the reasons why the partnership is being given a high level of support.

The Union Cup takes places at Dublin City University over two days on January 8th and 9thand will feature 45 teams from 15 countries. It is hosted by the Emerald Warriors team and is being backed by the IRFU as well as commercially by Guinness, Vodafone and Bank of Ireland.

“We are proud to support Union Cup Dublin as it celebrates the power of rugby to unite people, and we hope the Guinness Gates initiative will encourage people to support the teams playing next week,” said Rory Sheridan, Head of partnerships – Europe at Diageo.

“The team at Guinness have championed inclusivity and diversity in rugby, values that are integral to Guinness as a brand, through a number of rugby partnerships. We collaborated with Gareth Thomas to tell his story in 2015, and we recently became the first commercial partner for the Women’s Six Nations. Union Cup Dublin will also spotlight inclusivity in the women’s game by hosting the first dedicated women’s tournament in Dublin, and we are delighted to continue to support women’s rugby.”

“We are honoured to have a global brand such as Guinness stand in support of inclusive rugby, and to see the iconic gates painted in celebration of ‘Union Cup Dublin’ is epic, added Emerald Warriors President and Chair of Union Cup Richie Fagan.

It is so important for us that our partners like Guinness make this tournament possible, and we’re incredibly proud to showcase how Ireland does it to our 45 visiting teams. We invite Irish people, not just rugby fans, to do the same and come out to support and enjoy the Union Cup at DCU over the weekend.”

The Guinness Union Cup Gates will remain painted in the rainbow colours until 10th June 2019. The Gates will then be repainted black.