Volunteer Appreciation Night 2025

We had a very pleasant evening in the excellently appointed St Joseph’s Clubrooms on Friday 28th February to acknowledge the sterling efforts of a raft of volunteers during the course of a very successful year for Dromiskin Tidy Towns. The Chairperson thanked roughly forty people who, during the past twelve months, have contributed in some shape or form to our community group. Activities ranged from weekly litter picks, seasonal work sessions, national spring clean, beach clean ups, social media, website, bespoke installations, accounting, consultancy and untold hours filling in forms and applications.

The fruits of these labours were on display with our National Tidy Towns medals, our Louth Looking Good award and an array of plaques and certificates gained over the years. The Chairperson also acknowledged the success of local estate, Church View, winner of the best overall estate in the 2024 Louth Looking Good Awards. He also welcomed members of the Foroige Youth Club who are currently involved in an exciting collaborative project with Dromiskin Tidy Towns. Guest of honour was John Murtagh who had flown all the way from Australia and delighted to meet old friends and neighbours.

An evening of chat and craic with excellent food prepared by parishioner Mark Dorian and catering by wife Áine and family. A great way to prepare for the 2025 season!!

Dromiskin goes green!

Following on from its Gold Medal success in the National Tidy Towns

Competition the village of Dromiskin was once again in celebratory mode this

time as a result of the award of the fourth Community Green Flag for

Dromiskin Heritage Park and a first Community Green Flag for Ginnety’s Pond

Nature Park. This international award acknowledges excellence in the

management of green spaces which are freely open to the public and is the

benchmark for the presentation of public spaces using eight key criteria with

an emphasis on environmental management. The Community Green Flag is

awarded for public spaces managed solely by volunteers, with 25 such

awards in Ireland this year and Dromiskin being the only community in the

country to be awarded this prestigious symbol for its two public spaces.

The flag raising ceremony was held on Sunday 10th November where

Chairman of Dromiskin Tidy Towns Pat Mulligan welcomed local politicians,

Green School Committee members from St. Peter’s N.S., School Principal

AoibheannLynch and local residents to join with committee members and

volunteers to celebrate this great achievement. Pat paid particular tribute to

the Hand family, also present, without whose generosity this success simply

wouldn’t be possible. The committee was delighted that the Chairman of

Louth County Council Cllr. Kevin Callan took time out from his busy schedule

to attend the event and officially raise the two flags. Cllr. Callan made

reference to the fact that public representatives are very rarely invited back to

a community in a short space of time for such a positive news story having

visited Ginnety’s Pond Nature Park in August for its official opening. He

stressed that to achieve two flags is unique and that what happened in

Dromiskin is an example that the rest of the country can and should follow.

Volunteering his skills and expertise with Dromiskin Tidy Towns, both Parks

now flying the Community Green flag, were designed and managed by

Landscape Architect and local resident Kevin Halpenny. In his address at the

event Kevin stressed that this was a very special occasion as the Green Flag

is a recognised symbol of excellence across the globe and is not awarded

lightly. Kevin expressed the view that the Community Green Flag is all the

more special because it recognises communities that, of their own volition,

provide and manage very high quality infrastructure and expressed the view

that it is unprecedented for one small community to achieve the award for two

public spaces.

Green School Committee member Caolán Corr recited a poem written

specially for the event and highlighting the huge success achieved by

Dromiskin Tidy Towns this year. The celebration ended with a cuppa, cake

and a chat in St. Peter’s N.S. The members of Dromiskin Tidy Towns

sincerely appreciate the support they get from the local community, local

businesses, Louth County Council and our elected representatives.

Louth Looking Good Awards 2024

The Louth Looking Good awards 2024 were held in the Fairways Hotel on Thursday 14th

November. Once again the standard was very high with the adjudicators admiring the efforts

made by many communities throughout the county. MC on the night, Mary Murtagh, announced

the winners in the various categories including Chairman’s Award, Special Merit Awards,

Housing Estates and the Graveyard Category. Dromiskin was delighted to emerge victorious in a

number of sectors, winning the Best Waste Minimisation Project, Biodiversity Award, Youth

Award and Climate Action Award. In addition they were runners up in the Best Seasonal Display

section. Best Overall Housing Estate for the second year in a row was Church View, a

tremendous accolade for Eileen Mulligan and her team of volunteers. Herity’s Bar was also a

winner in the Shop Front Awards along with Centra. Pat Mulligan was chosen as

Environmentalist of the year following in the footsteps of such as Antoinette Murtagh, Seamus

Mc Ardle, Henry Murtagh, John Hanneffy and Kevin Halpenny.

However, the highlight of a very successful evening was when it was announced that Dromiskin,

repeating its achievement in 2023, was crowned overall winner in the Town’s and Villages

section. Once again we pipped our neighbours Blackrock with Tallanstown finishing in third

place. A delighted Tidy Towns committee received the Tommy Reilly memorial trophy from

Chairperson Louth County Council, Mr Kevin Callan. This is a lovely reward for a year of hard

work and commitment from many volunteers.

Many thanks to all in Louth Tidy Towns Together for once again organising a very successful

awards ceremony. We, in Dromiskin, look forward to 2025 and once again putting our best foot

forward in both the National Tidy Towns and Louth Looking Good competitions.