How TikTok brought Northern Ireland's biggest Mary Brown's fan to the Rock

When Whitney McCullough heard a Canadian fried chicken chain was opening a location in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, she likely couldn't have imagined it would bring her across the Atlantic Ocean to the shores of Newfoundland.

McCullough, who has more than 180,000 followers on Tiktok, was intrigued by the opening in February of the first Mary Brown's outside Canada, about 20 minutes from her home, since the chain opened a location in Turkey in 2013.

She was invited to a launch party for the restaurant, and posted a video trying to find out more about the chain.

"I happened to ask TikTok like the day or two before, 'Has anybody heard of Mary Browns?' she told CBC News in a recent interview. "That started the opening up of people from Newfoundland just commenting and telling me about Mary Brown's."

McCullough said something especially stuck out when she read comments from Newfoundlanders — they were using the same dialect and phrases that she used an ocean away.

"The slang terms was exactly the same as what we use here," she said. "I would sit for half an hour and just go through the [Newfoundland] dictionary to see what words are the same. And I couldn't believe it."

She ended up posting more videos about the connections between Newfoundland and Northern Ireland — which made their way to Mary Brown's, who got in touch and wound up flying her across the Atlantic to St. John's this week.

"She has a really great interest in Newfoundland and Labrador, so we decided, 'What other better way to get her to see it? Let's bring her over,'" Darren Durdle, the restaurant's director of operations in Newfoundland and Labrador, said Thursday.

"Absolutely unbelievable," McCullough added. "I have a full-time job and I do the videos for a bit of fun. So for somebody like me, it's crazy but it's brilliant, and I'm super-grateful."

Her days are packed with sightseeing in Cape Spear, Petty Harbour and Signal Hill, as well as a meet and greet at the Mary Brown's on Empire Avenue.

In St. John's, there was one item she knew she wanted to tick off her list: getting screeched in.

"It was great," she said. "The guy that was doing it, he was saying the different expressions that you would use, but sure it's the same stuff as home.… It's such an experience, everyone needs to give it a go."

And in case you were wondering, Mary Brown's does observe Big Mary Monday in Northern Ireland. The sandwiches cost £4, or about $7.

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