Ireland

Two Irish Times journalists win travel writing awards

Rosita Boland secures award in adventure travel journalism category while Gemma Tipton wins in the long haul category

Irish Times journalist Rosita Boland, winner of the adventure category, with Eoghan Corry of Travel Extra and Martin Skelly of UWalk at the Travel Extra Travel Journalist of the Year Awards 2023. Photograph: Arthur Carron
Irish Times journalist Rosita Boland, winner of the adventure category, with Eoghan Corry of Travel Extra and Martin Skelly of UWalk at the Travel Extra Travel Journalist of the Year Awards 2023. Photograph: Arthur Carron
Shauna Bowers
Sat Jan 27 2024 - 17:12

Two Irish Times journalists won awards at the 2023 Travel Extra Travel Journalism Awards.

Rosita Boland was named the winner in the adventure travel journalism category, while Gemma Tipton won in the long haul category.

Boland’s winning entry was about conversations she had while travelling Greece, Cambodia and an island between Palawan and Coron, the Philippines.

[ Rosita Boland: I wanted to be dispossessed of the grief that had consumed me for too long ]

[ Gemma Tipton: A blissful, 12-day phone-free sailing trip around the Spice Islands ]

Tipton’s entry was a feature detailing her 12-day, phone-free sailing trip around the Spice Islands in Indonesia.

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Irish Times journalist Gemma Tipton, winner of the long haul category, with Eoghan Corry of Travel Extra and John Spollen of Cassidy Travel at the Travel Extra Travel Journalist of the Year Awards 2023. Photograph: Arthur Carron
Irish Times journalist Gemma Tipton, winner of the long haul category, with Eoghan Corry of Travel Extra and John Spollen of Cassidy Travel at the Travel Extra Travel Journalist of the Year Awards 2023. Photograph: Arthur Carron

The overall Travel Extra Journalist of the Year Award for 2023 went to Domhnall O’Donoghue, for a body of work published in the Sunday Times, Ireland of the Welcomes, the Belfast Telegraph, Woman’s Way and familytraveller.com.

It was a unanimous decision to select him as the winner, with the judges commending his engagement and power to draw his audience in.

O’Donoghue also won the “best sustainable” category for his feature on Panama City Beach, which was published in the Belfast Telegraph.

The 2023 winners were announced at a ceremony in the Clayton Hotel in Ballsbridge, Dublin, on Friday night, in an event sponsored by the Spanish Tourism Office and Visit Valencia.

The award winners were chosen by a distinguished panel of senior Irish journalists, who said the submissions displayed the creativity and innovation of travel and tourism journalism in Ireland.

The awards were held to coincide with the annual Holiday World Show, which sees more than 1,000 travel professionals from 50 countries gathering at the RDS Simmonscourt in Dublin over the weekend.

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Shauna Bowers

Shauna Bowers

Shauna Bowers is Health Correspondent of The Irish Times