The stunning beauty of the Irish coastline is a photographer’s dream and was the subject of An Taisce’s annual Clean Coasts Photography Awards last night.
A total prize fund of €4,000 attracted great interest from amateur photographers who highlighted coastal, wildlife and heritage scenes from the wild waters of the Atlantic to the Irish Sea.
The Clean Coasts programme encourages local community groups to become "guardians of their local coastal environment", according to An Taisce. The theme of this year's event was Treasure Our Coast.
Valuable resource
Presenting the awards at the National Maritime Museum in Dún Laoghaire, Minister of State for the Environment Fergus O'Dowd said that the outstanding photographs served "to remind us how fortunate we are in having such a valuable coastal resource to enjoy, but we must also be aware that where we have opportunity we also have responsibility".
Patricia Oliver, the director of An Taisce's environmental education unit, said: "There is something for everyone in this exhibition, from the beauty of Inishtrahull, the most northerly island off the coast of Ireland, to Hook Head lighthouse in the southeast on New Year's Day, surfing on the west coast and our heritage-rich Martello towers on the east coast."
The exhibition will travel throughout Ireland over the coming year. A gallery of the images can be found at cleancoasts.org, with a selection also published on irishtimes.com