Westport was celebrating again this week after being named as Ireland's Tidiest Large Town at the SuperValu Tidy Towns awards. It was the third year in a row that Westport won the award for the largest town and they just missed out on scooping the overall prize.
There were celebrations all over Mayo with seven towns taking 13 different awards at the ceremony, which took place in the Helix in Dublin on Monday afternoon.
The county winners were Westport - taking the overall Mayo prize, Mulranny - being highly commended, Castlebar - commended and Lecanvey - winning the endeavour award. Both Castlebar and Westport were gold medal winners, with Mulranny, Belmullet and Ballina being awarded bronze medals.
Louisburgh won the Leave No Trace Award, Belmullet Tidy were the Local Authority Pollinator Award winners in the Small Town Category (North-West and West Region ) and Belmullet were the Highly Commended Winner in the Gaeltacht Award.
Speaking at the awards ceremony, Minister Michael Ring said: "Mayo has outdone itself in the 2019 SuperValu Tidy Towns Competition. It gave me great pride to present the 13 awards to the seven successful communities from the county.
"It’s fantastic that so many communities in Mayo are competing and achieving success in this competition. It reflects a deep pride of place that communities in Mayo have in their local areas and was achieved with hard work and no small amount of community spirit.
"Ultimately, all of the communities that compete in the competition are winners because their communities look better and people get great satisfaction and sense of camaraderie from taking part.”
Speaking in relation to Westport’s award as Ireland’s Tidiest Large Town, Minister Ring said: "This is a magnificent achievement for Westport, which beat some superb competition. Westport has a particularly proud tradition in the competition, having won the overall award for Tidiest Town in Ireland three times, most recently in 2008. Today’s victory is based on hard work and endless commitment by the Committee, the local community and local businesses."
