CELEBRATING OUR FRONTLINE STARS

FOR over 60 years, this newspaper has honoured Ireland’s finest sportsmen and women with our ‘Sportstar of the Week’ awards, currently run in conjunction with our partner, The Croke Park Hotel.

Today we are launching the Irish Independent ‘Frontline Star of the Week’ award scheme, which has the backing of some of Ireland’s biggest sports stars.

Three-time golf major winner Pádraig Harrington welcomed the initiative, one – as he put it – that will recognise “people who are going above and beyond” in the nation’s fight against Covid-19.

Harrington has himself been a frequent recipient of the ‘Sportstar of the Week’ award. But sporting fields are silent right now, our world wrestling with the extraordinary challenge of a lethal pandemic.

In Ireland, that challenge has been met magnificently by the selflessness and courage of frontline workers, be they doctors, nurses, drivers, shop workers, postmen and women or simply civicminded neighbours looking out for others in this time of extraordinary uncertainty.

Those efforts have drawn widespread acclaim and, to recognise these heroes of our changed world, we are now asking readers to help us by making nominations for ‘Frontline Star of the Week’ by emailing submissions each week (100 words maximum) to frontlinestar@independent.ie along with a photo of somebody within their own community they consider worthy of the accolade.

Lauding what he called “a tremendous idea”, Harrington suggested: “In these times, we now all realise what’s truly important and recognise the frontline heroes.”

Our hope is that the scheme will not just provide such recognition but also serve as a story-telling service that will, in time, provide a precious archive of human experiences throughout this extraordinary time for our country.