A campaign to promote Northern Ireland to Game of Thrones fans isn’t settling for guided tours and tacky souvenirs. Tourism Ireland has debuted its latest Game of Thrones tribute: A giant woven tapestry that highlights every episode in the series in meticulous detail. And with every new episode, the tapestry will grow… reaching 77m in length by the end of the show.
All Images: Tourism Ireland
The medieval tapestry was created over three months to commemorate Game of Thrones first six seasons; each key scene and character from the show has been recreated and designed by artists and illustrators, then hand-woven and hand-embroidered into the design using linen from one of Northern Ireland’s last surviving linen mills. Here are few sections of the tapestry, which you can view in full here:
The plan is for the tapestry to be expanded with each new episode, debuting each section online as they move through the series. They’re currently working on the first episode of season seven, “Dragonstone”.
The work bears striking resemblance to the Bayeux Tapestry, which was created in the 1070s to commemorate the Norman conquest of England. Only instead of the Duke of Normandy fighting the Battle of Hastings, we have Jon Snow in the Battle of the Bastards — one of the many scenes that was filmed in Northern Ireland, hence why the Irish government is so eager to encourage fans to come and see it.
The Game of Thrones tapestry will hang in the Ulster Museum in Belfast beginning July 22. However, Tourism Ireland already has an interactive display on their website, where fans can browse the entire tapestry with highlights for different characters, locations and scenes. It’s pretty great.