{"id":24046,"date":"2025-08-26T10:00:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T10:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/24046\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T10:00:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T10:00:07","slug":"taoiseachs-trip-to-sxsw-festival-planned-after-controversial-sponsors-dropped-department-says-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/24046\/","title":{"rendered":"Taoiseach\u2019s trip to SXSW festival planned after controversial sponsors dropped, department says \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Department of Foreign Affairs<\/a> was told this year\u2019s high-profile US music festival South by Southwest (SXSW) would not have a relationship with the US army or weapons manufacturers, ahead of the Taoiseach<\/a> attending the festival in March.<\/p>\n

More than 60 artists boycotted the festival in Austin, Texas, in 2024 due to its ties to defence groups that supply weapons to Israel in its war on Gaza.<\/p>\n

The department has said it only started actively planning to attend in 2025 after it was made clear that the controversial sponsorship deals were dropped. <\/p>\n

But the Government did maintain its presence at the festival in 2024, during a boycott of the cultural festival by Irish bands such as Kneecap and Soda Blonde over SXSW\u2019s links to the arms industry.<\/p>\n

SXSW showcases film, tech, music and media.<\/p>\n

In 2024, the festival came under pressure after the US Army became a \u201csuper sponsor\u201d that was expected to back nine events. <\/p>\n

The festival was also criticised for a sponsorship deal with Collins Aerospace, a subsidiary of the weapons manufacturer RTX Corporation. RTX Corporation has supplied air and missile defences to the Israeli government. <\/p>\n

The then arts minister Catherine Martin attended the 2024 festival as a representative for the Irish government. The Department of Foreign Affairs ran an Ireland House exhibit, which included a screening of Kneecap\u2019s film and a discussion of U2\u2019s residency at The Sphere in Las Vegas. <\/p>\n

On June 26th, 2024, SXSW announced that it would end its sponsorship arrangements with the US army and weapons manufacturers. <\/p>\n

The same day that the announcement was made, SXSW contacted officials at the Consul General of Ireland in Texas to share a \u201csponsorship update\u201d for SXSW 2025. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m pleased to share that I received good news from Peter Lewis, the chief partnerships officer, about the SXSW Executive Board\u2019s decision on the US Army sponsorship,\u201d said the email, released under the Freedom of Information Act. <\/p>\n

It said Mr Lewis had said \u201cafter careful consideration of our offerings, we are revising our sponsorship model. As a result, the US Army, and companies who engage in weapons manufacturing, will not be sponsors of SXSW 2025.\u201d <\/p>\n

In its response to the Freedom of Information request, the decision maker told The Irish Times: \u201cThe Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, along with Team Ireland partners, began planning in September 2024 for the SXSW 2025 festival. <\/p>\n

\u201cAt this point it was well established and known that the US Army and companies who engage in weapons manufacturing would not be sponsoring SXSW 2025.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin attended Ireland House at SXSW earlier this year, as part of his St Patrick\u2019s Day visit to the United States. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Department of Foreign Affairs was told this year\u2019s high-profile US music festival South by Southwest (SXSW) would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24047,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,7335,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-24046","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-irish-politics","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}