THE Co Dublin seaside town of Skerries has won a gold award in the European Entente Florale competition. It is the first time Ireland has won gold after 16 years of competing. Rathvilly, Co Carlow, won a silver award in the villages category.
The competition encourages improvement of the environment through the use of flowers in towns and villages.
Two other European towns also received gold awards this year - Barnstaple in Devon and the Belgian town of Malmedy.
It was a double victory for the Irish, since Skerries and Rathvilly were county and regional winners last week in the annual Tidy Towns competition.
The winning entrants received their awards on Saturday night in the Hungarian town of Eger, a former winner. The winners of the gold awards were presented with bronze plates decorated with golden flowers. Four members of the Skerries Tidy Towns Committee went to Hungary for the ceremony and the award was accepted by the committee's chairwoman, Ms Anne Doyle.
Eleven international judges spent a day in August in both, Skerries and Rathvilly and were understood to have been "extremely impressed" at the level of voluntary effort.
Ireland has been unique among the European entries for the extent of voluntary commitment, although the local authorities have bad some involvement. In Skerries, for example, Fingal County Council - workers planted 25,000 bedding plants in the run up to the competition.
In the case of most European towns entered in the competition the local authority is responsible for all public gardens, parks and floral amenities.
The Minister for the Environment, Mr Howlin, congratulated the two Irish winners. "The gold award for Skerries and the silver for Rathvilly demonstrate the high standards which both centres presented to the international panel of adjudicators. The huge efforts led by the two Tidy Towns committees, with the support of their county councils and An Bord Glas, have paid huge dividends, and deservedly so."
