Charlie's Bar in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, launched a new Christmas commercial on November 24, which tenderly showed how "Christmas can be such a joyful time for some and painfully hard for others."
The Irish Christmas ad, filmed and edited by Aoife Teague, shows an elderly man walking alone through the town after laying flowers at the grave of a loved one.
Bearing a sad expression, the man is largely ignored by people in the town despite attempting to engage with them.
He makes his way to Charlie's Bar and orders a pint of Guinness before a young couple's dog sits up on the seat beside him.
A young woman notices and approaches his table to apologize.
Seeing that the man is on his own, she asks if it's okay for her and her partner to join him.
The man's expression immediately changes from one of sadness to one of pure joy as the couple join him for a drink and a chat, highlighting the community spirit found in many pubs across the island of Ireland.
"One things for sure - you’ll always receive a warm welcome when you walk through our doors," Charlie's Bar said in its social media posts alongside the video.
"We will be open on Christmas Day, so if you are alone this festive season, drop in for a chat."
Since being posted on November 26, Charlie's Bar's Christmas ad has been viewed more than 1.5 million times on Facebook and has drawn nearly 36 thousand likes on Instagram.
View this post on Instagram
Una Burns, the manager of Charlie's Bar, told Breakingnews.ie that it is "so lovely" to see the commercial going viral on social media.
Burns said she has been "completely overwhelmed" by the response to the video, adding that the pub was attempting to create a commercial that would "resonate" with people.
"We’re just a small, local pub and we just wanted to provide a Christmas advert that hopefully resonated with people and for us, it became apparent over the years that Christmas can be a really lonely, tough time for some people," Burns said.
"We see that more than others as on Christmas morning – when we’re open – there are some people coming in with maybe nowhere else to be and need people to speak to."
Burns said people have compared the commercial to those made by John Lewis, a British retailer famous for its Christmas advertisements.
"People have been comparing it to the John Lewis advert, which we could have never expected – that’s brilliant."
Comments