More than 100,000 New Zealand residents will see the landscape of Northern Ireland in a popular online TV programme this summer. A TV crew from New Zealand is visiting Northern Ireland this week to follow and film the New Zealand national butchery team, known as the ‘Sharp Blacks’.
The team is here to compete in the World Butchers’ Challenge, taking place at the Titanic Exhibition Centre in Belfast. As well as taking part in the competition, the team is also investigating some of Northern Ireland’s artisan food producers top tourist attractions, with the TV crew there to capture all the action.
With assistance from Tourism Ireland in New Zealand and Tourism NI, filming has been taking place in Enniskillen, where the team partook in a Lough Erne food tour and visits to various food producers and restaurants in Fermanagh. They also met with Pat O’Doherty at his butchery business in Enniskillen and visited his herd of rare breed black pigs on Inishcorkish Island.
The team also went on a Game of Thrones tour along the Causeway Coastal route, stopping at Ballygally Castle Hotel, Ballintoy and the Dark Hedges at Stranocum, before visiting the Giant’s Causeway and Bushmills Distillery. The scenes filmed in Northern Ireland will air to an estimated 100,000 viewers on TVNZ OnDemand during a seven-part series called "Knives Out – The Road to the World Butcher’s Cup", scheduled for June.
Darragh Walshe of Tourism Ireland New Zealand said, “We are delighted to facilitate the making of this TV programme, which will help showcase Northern Ireland to a large audience of potential holidaymakers here in New Zealand. Visits like this are an invaluable part of our overall promotional programme. They are a really effective way for us to raise awareness through the media in New Zealand of the many things to see and do on a holiday in Northern Ireland.”
