DROGHEDA - YOU ARE LOOKING GORGEOUS!
SPECIAL AWARDS FOR OLD ABBEY WORKS AND MONEYMORE ESTATE AT ANNUAL CELEBRATION
DROGHEDA and its residents were certainly looking good as the annual celebration of dedication and community spirit among residents’ groups, volunteers and the business community in Drogheda, now known as the “Drogheda Looking Good” Awards.
Prizes were given out to many categories including housing estates, best garden, hospitality, business premises as well as two special awards.
Harmony Heights were the overall winners in the category of housing developments with 50 units or less, followed closely by Longwood in second and Castlewood in third place.
Forest Grange was once again in the prizes as they took first place in the 51 to 125 unit’s category, while Five Oaks Village & The View took second place and Georgian Close took third.
The top prize for housing estates with over 125 dwellings was the Stameen Estate on the Dublin Road who were delighted to collect their award. Second place went to their neighbours in Five Oaks while third place went to Moneymore.
Excitement was palpable at ‘ the d Hotel’ when Sean McKeown won first place in the Best Front Garden category for his beautiful garden in Five Oaks. Michael Black was a very close second for his colourful garden at Forest Grange while Mary Eaton followed closely in third for well maintained garden in the mature estate of Georgian Close.
This year’s Best Presented Hospitality Award went to Scholars Hotel in King Street. Scholars were once again delighted to receive this award, having won this category previously. The beautiful grounds to the hotel are admired by both local visitors and tourist alike and add a great dash of colour to the town centre.
A new addition to the prizewinners list this year is Esquires Coffee Shop whose beautifully maintained premises are on West Street in what was once a fine bank. Their beautiful hanging baskets add a great deal of colour to West Street which is showing very positive signs of rejuvenation.
Drogheda Looking Good included two special awards this year. The first was an award for Outstanding Contribution to Drogheda’s Heritage which was deservedly awarded to John Bannon and Eugene Brannigan for their work at the Old Abbey. The award was made by Cllr. Kevin Callan on behalf of the Drogheda Tidy Towns Committee who included this project as part of their National Tidy Towns application which recently won a Gold Medal.
John and Eugene have spent hundreds of hours working tirelessly to ensure that the Old Abbey is once again a welcoming place for both locals and tourists alike. It is hoped that the Old Abbey can be used as a venue during next year’s Fleadh.
The final award of the night was a Special Award for Exceptional Community Involvement and went to Moneymore for their outstanding entry recently in the “Pride of Place” All Ireland competition.
From the moment of their nomination, each and every one of the groups in Moneymore came together to showcase all this is good in their community. Local residents played their part by ensuring their estate looked its very best and there was a tangible sense of community pride on the day of judging.
The presentation was made by Cllr. Pio Smith, Mayor of the Borough District of Drogheda on behalf of Louth County Council. He praised the residents Moneymore who he felt “gave an extremely warm welcome to the Pride of Place judges and represented both their community and the town of Drogheda with great pride”.