London landlord steps up his Cliffs’ campaign

PATRONS of one London bar will get unrivalled views of the Cliffs of Moher after a publican there decided to row in behind the Cliffs’ bid to become one of the New 7 Wonders of Nature.
Gerry O’Brien, publican at the Churchill Arms in Kensington, has begun his own publicity campaign to encourage people to vote for the Cliff’s in the competition. Instead of just telling people about the iconic tourist attraction, Mr O’Brien has begun showing footage of the Cliffs on televisions in his popular pub.
The Cliffs of Moher are currently in the last 28 of the global online competition with the final seven due to be announced on November 11.
“I was home last September and I hadn’t seen the visitor centre until then and I think that is the icing on the cake up there. It is beautiful. I saw the Clare and Galway hurlers holding up the posters supporting the Cliffs of Moher for the New 7 Wonders in The Clare Champion a few weeks ago. I said to myself, I am going to do something to support this. I rang the Cliffs of Moher and spoke to Geraldine Enright and I told her I wanted to support the campaign. We meet so many people from all over, here in the pub and I know I will get hundreds and thousands of votes,” Mr O’Brien said.
“Geraldine sent me out some posters. I enlarged them 10 times over and put them on the walls. Then I decided that I wanted something more to back this up. I rang back and asked for DVDs this time. I bought a load of things in the shop last year but I had nothing with me. Now I have DVDs of the Cliffs and I’m showing it every hour or every couple of hours,” Mr O’Brien continued.
The Ogonnelloe man has already gone to work on getting the Cliffs into the New 7 Wonders. He managed to coax staff in his local Barclay’s Bank to put up one of the posters, has received assurances from his Thai staff and their friends that they will vote for the Clare attraction and managed to get his brewery, Fullers, to agree to emailing its 3,000 staff and clients encouraging them to vote for the Cliffs. He even has the staff in his local laundrette voting for the Cliffs.
“I hope to hold a big Clare and Cliffs of Moher night here in the pub. In my 26 years in this pub, I have never done anything like this before. We have a big event for St Patrick’s Day each year but we are not in an Irish area. We get a lot of people in from Ireland, of course, but we also get a lot of people from all over the world. I am so excited about holding this event, about supporting this campaign and about the idea that the Cliffs might be named one of the New 7 Wonders of Nature. It means a lot to me and maybe I am getting a little carried away but it will be great for Clare and the county. I gave a friend who was here visiting from the United States posters and he put them up in an Irish bar over there. I gave some posters to a Swedish woman and she has brought them home with her too. I have tiny little posters as well and I am just giving them out to everyone who comes in so they won’t forget the number to text,” Mr O’Brien outlined.
The Cliffs of Moher is the only attraction in Ireland or the UK to be shortlisted in the New 7 Wonders of Nature competition. The third and final phase of voting is now underway with people again able to vote for the Cliffs from the selection of 28 official finalist candidates. All votes from phase one and two are not counted in the final phase, everyone can vote again. The new seven wonders will be chosen by an estimated one billion votes and announced on November 11, 2011.