The international team from the World Harmony Run, the largest relay run for peace on the planet, arrives in Dublin on Friday 2 May for a vibrant welcoming ceremony featuring Minister for the Environment, John Gormley TD, Lord Mayor of Dublin, Cllr Paddy Bourke, and over 300 schoolchildren from the local area.

The Dublin event is the culmination of a four day tour of Ireland that begins in Belfast on April 29 and passes through Armagh, Monaghan and Navan on its way down to Dublin. The Run is visiting Ireland on a seven month journey covering all forty-nine European countries. In total, the runners will visit over 100 countries this year. Every year, over one million people participate in the Run, passing along our Olympic-style peace torch from hand to hand and adding their hopes for a better world.

The Harmony Run has visited Ireland many times over the last 20 years, always receiving a tremendous céad mile fáilte from the Irish public. The Run has been enthusiastically received as it passed through Ireland on previous occasions – receptions were held in Arás an Uachtarain for the runners by Mary Robinson in 1997 and Mary McAleese in 1999, also by Ministers of Sport and Education and Mayors of various cities and towns. On the international scene, the run is actively supported by Carl Lewis, 9-time Olympic Gold Medalist (US), Tegla Loroupe (Kenya), marathon world record-holder in 1999, and Tatyana Lebedeva (Russia), Long Jump Gold Medalist Athens 2004 and many others.

The organisers of the welcoming ceremony aim to capture the energy and vibrancy of the Harmony Run in action, with dynamic music and theatre pieces and a relay run involving children from over 40 countries around the world.

Harmonemail:
You can send a message to the runners or read the messages.