Award Ceremony 2008

"Communities in Ireland are defined by their people not their geography. These awards are in recognition of the people and businesses who have collaborated as a community to work to improve their environment, foster civic pride and make their town a better place to live, work and visit".
John Gormely, Minister for the environment. 2008

Members of the Tidy Towns committee were invited to a special mid-western award ceremony held in the Radisson hotel in Limerick recently (November 3rd 2008) The occasion was to present all category winners and medal winners in the region with their awards. Ballynacally moved a big step closer to the top award when they were presented with a SILVER MEDAL for their work during the year.

The function was well attended by committee members from all mid west winning groups and speeches were made by John O'Callaghan, director of super value Irl., Jimmy O'Loughlin, Tourism manager with Shannon development and Tom Kitt, minister of state, Dept of environment, heritage and local government.

Minister kitt praised the work of the committees for their selfless work. His speech will be available for download here shortly.

Mrs Mary Meaney from Roscliff Ballynacally Village also celebrating 50 years in the tidy Towns competition, accepted the silver medal and a cheque for €800 on behalf of the committee from the minister and directors. Martin Kelly from Tiermaclane accepted the county award with a cheque for €500. The money will be put back into next years competition when the committe hope to achieve GOLD medal status, the overall award of tidiest village is the committees aim for 2009, please help us.

After the speeches the entire group were treated to a very nice meal and each member recieved an oak tree to sow in reminder of the event. Adjacent are some picture taken on the night.

Minister presents the mid west awards for the National Tidy Towns competition

Mr. Michael Kitt, T.D., Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, today (3rd November) presented the winners of the national TidyTowns competition, from the Mid West Region, with their prizes, at a ceremony held in the Radisson Hotel, Limerick. He was joined on stage by Mr. John O'Callaghan, Director of Supervalu and Mr. Vincent Cunnane CEO of Shannon Development.
In congratulating everyone involved, the Minister stated that there had been unprecedented interest in Tidy Towns in this the 50th Anniversary of the competition. The Minister congratulated Birdhill, Co. Tipperary on winning Ireland's Tidiest Village and Ennis, Co. Clare on winning Ireland's Tidiest Large Urban Centre.

As well as winning two of the main national awards, the Mid West Region also secured three Gold Medals in 2008 - Kilrush, Ennis and Birdhill. The Minister made special mention of Ennis saying, "I would like to single ennis out tonight - in total they received eight awards this year. I think you'll all agree that this is a remarkable achievement by any standards."
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The Tidy Towns competition is organised by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and sponsored by SuperValu. SuperValu have sponsored the National TidyTowns competition since 1992.

"2007 Tidy Towns presentations awards click here

The above pictures were taken by Mike McMahon and
the bottom two pictures are from the adjoudicator who
judged our village during the summer of 2008. The pictures
by the adjoudicator were taken from powerpoint presentations
shown on the night.