FleishmanHillard Ireland is to close its Dublin office, the trade magazine PR Week online reported. In recent years, the Omnicom-owned PR agency has worked for the National Lottery, Musgrave’s SuperValu, Allianz Partners, Brown Thomas Arnotts, Sky Ireland, Danone, Philips, Procter & Gamble, Lloyds Pharmacy, Mondelez and Woodie’s.
The business was first established as an independent agency in 1990 as Fleishman Hillard Saunders (FHS) by RTÉ sports department colleagues John Saunders and Julian Davis, who were joined by Rhona Blake. One of the agency’s first accounts was Budweiser, which helped form a relationship with the St Louis-based FleishmanHillard (FH).
In 2023, FH was named top agency for the year for businesses with 11 or more employees at the Excellence in PR awards jointly organised by the Public Relations Institute of Ireland (PRII) and the Public Relations Consultants Association (PRCA). FH was judged to have “impressive client and staff retention and strong business management”.
The judges also noted that the agency was committed to employee well-being and diversity.
Saunders became FH’s fourth CEO and led the firm to record-setting success, including winning the 2021 PRovoke media global agency of the year and PR Week’s outstanding extra-large agency of the year and agency of the year awards for two years in a row. FH recently sold its office in Ringsend and moved in with Omnicom’s other local agencies in Ballsbridge.
Rhona Blake was recently inducted into the Public Relations Consultants Association (PRCA) Hall of Fame 2026, in recognition of her “outstanding contribution” to the PR profession in Ireland. The PRCA said that her embrace of innovation and relationship building helped drive lasting change across the industry.
“Few individuals have left such an indelible mark on the development of modern public relations in Ireland,” the PRCA statement noted. The Hall of Fame is designed to recognise individuals who have made “an exceptional and lasting contribution to the public relations and communications profession in Ireland”.
Pictured above Rhona Blake and John Saunders, FleishmanHillard
