A new video, "St Patrick's Day 2014 #IrelandInspires" highlighting the qualities that make Ireland such a special place is rapidly gaining a big global audience with 200,000 views in the last 24 hours.
The video was developed by Fáilte Ireland in coordination with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and other state agencies as a means of promoting Ireland overseas during the St Patrick's period.
Meanwhile, St Patrick’s Day weather is set to defy the tradition of rain with sunny spells and dry conditions throughout the celebrations.
Met Éireann forecasters have predicted there would be good weather for the parades on Monday.
Dublin's St Patrick's festival chief executive Susan Kirby said organisers had been keeping a close eye on the weather following the string of severe storms that have hit the country in recent weeks.
“We’re delighted. The weather reports are really good with pleasant spring weather and no bad weather in store at all,” she said.
Ms Kirby said the settled weather would attract a lot more people to come out and take part in the events at the festival, with more than 500,000 revellers expected come into the city for the parades.
“We had huge crowds last year and it was really bad and cold with some snow,” she said.
“This year it’s ideal St Patrick’s Day weather with all the outdoor events we have going on.”
The parade, which is following the theme of “Past, present and future”, will start on Parnell Square at 12pm and travel through the city centre.
Ms Kirby said other big outdoor events, which included a huge céilí on Friday, the treasure hunt on Saturday, Big Day Out and a large floating cinema on the Grand Canal Dock on the Sunday, would all benefit from the mild conditions.
Former Riverdance star Dearbhla Lennon will lead the Irish dancing event, which more than 7000 attended in last year, from 4.30pm at St Stephen's Green.
“With the céilí everyone tends to get it a go. It sets up a great atmosphere for the days ahead,” Ms Kirby said.
The forecast Friday and Saturday is mostly dry with a mixture of sunshine and cloud. There will be westerly breezes and highest temperatures of 11 to 12 degrees Celsius.
Sunday will stay dry for most of the day with occasional showers over the northern counties.
Fresh spring conditions will continue into St Patrick’s Day with mild westerly breezes and temperatures up to 12 degrees.
The day will be cloudy, however the south and east of the country will have sunny breaks and dry and bright.
The west and north of Ireland may get some showers but it will be mostly dry.
Head of forecasting Gerald Fleming said this was the first week of settled weather following a succession of storms that have battered the country since November.
Mr Fleming said although it is too early to be certain, it looked like the weather would be a “big improvement” on last year’s bitterly cold day- with temperatures of up to 12 degrees.
“It looks to be quite a reasonable and mild day,” he said.
“It’s not going to be as sunny as we’ve had it the last couple of days but in the standards of St Patrick’s Day historically of being windy and showery, it’ll be much better.”
