BlueSky Thinking with Stevie Haughey of Ireland Before You Die

A Stevie Haughey is Founder of Ireland Before You Die – a travel website that promotes Ireland as a tourist destination and encourages travellers from all over the world to visit.

We completed an interview interview with Stevie about his experience of building a folllwing of 400,000 people on Facebook – and you can watch that on The Future of Marketing YouTube channel.

This shorter interview allowed Stevie to let off some steam about the public transport infrastructure in Belfast – he also touches on licensing laws as part of the discussion.

A transcription of Stevie’s interview is below:

Peter Craven:

For BlueSky Thinking Stevie then, we’re just given you an opportunity to have a moan, a rant. Tell us about something that gets on your nerves. So the floor is yours. What would you like to talk to us about?

Stevie Haughey:

I think something that does get on my nerves and anyone in Belfast will understand this is trying to get a taxi after a night out. All the bars seem to shut at the exact same time and there’s a shortage of taxis. The licensing laws here need changed. A modern European city needs to have more relaxed laws. I’m not a politician, but it seems like common sense that if you let the bars open a bit later, people would gradually leave. And then everyone’s not trying to get the small amount of taxis there is at the same time. And then also try to encourage more taxis to get on the road, because it just seems like there’s been these reports there’s a shortage.

Stevie Haughey:

Them two things have turned Belfast into essentially rat race on a Saturday night. I’ve walked home many times. And there’s a funny side to it, but there’s also like… it’s a serious issue, especially in winter. As a city, which I love, it’s not a good reflection of us. There’s not even any buses. Where’s all the buses? You know what I mean? There’s thousands of people in this city, they need to go somewhere and there doesn’t seem to be a bus or a taxi. What’s going on here?

Peter Craven:

All joking aside, from a serious point, you’re doing a lot of great work with the Ireland Before You Die website selling Ireland as this great tourist destination and then people’s experience when they come here

Stevie Haughey:

Exactly. It’s a bad reflection. You come here, like we try and get people to come here. It’s all great. And then how do I get home here? It’s a nightmare and people avoid going into town on certain days. I wouldn’t go to Belfast on New Year’s Eve because that’s probably the worst night to try and get a taxi. So, if anyone’s listening who has any influence, please sort out those laws.