VOLUNTEERS FROM almost 700 Tidy Towns committees across Ireland will be at the Burlington Hotel in Dublin tonight for the announcement of the winners of the 50th annual Tidy Towns Competition.
Tight secrecy surrounds the names of the winners which are to be announced by Minister for the Environment John Gormley. The national winner is due to be named at 8pm, at the end of an hour-long, live broadcast by RTÉ.
There will also be a special 50th anniversary award to mark a special contribution to Tidy Towns.
This year the organisers are emphasising the development of the competition from the original litter patrols in 1958, to the current influence of Tidy Towns committees in local development plans, the publication of biodiversity information and the creation of no less than 14 special awards.
The 14 "special category" awards include architectural preservation, shopfront awards, the use of Irish, heritage and environmental awards.
This evening attention will be on Killarney, Co Kerry which won its category - Ireland's Tidiest Large Town - last year, but was beaten to the national title by Aughrim, Co Wicklow, by just one point. Aughrim, which won the category Ireland's Tidiest Small Town, had in turn been defeated by Westport in 2006, again by just one point.
Also in contention this year is the original winner of the competition, Glenties in Co Donegal, which took the national award for the first three years of the competition. Glenties also came in one point behind Aughrim last year.
Other towns and villages which have been increasing in points in recent years include Letterkenny, Co Donegal and Tallanstown in Co Louth, which represented Ireland in the international competition Entente Florale.
Kenmare, Co Kerry has already won this year's 32-county Best Kept Town competition - which incidentally was won by Killarney in 2007. Ballymun in north Dublin has also been identified as a potential winner in the special awards category for the way in which the organisation Global Action Plan adopted the Tidy Towns model to bring a number of community programmes together.
The number of entries in this year's competition is slightly down on last year's, when competition sponsor Supervalu apologised for entering 130 towns and villages without the knowledge of locals. The supermarket chain later admitted it should never have published the results for communities that were not consulted about their inclusion.
The issue sparked controversy after such places received some of the lowest marks in the country.
Supervalu has committed several million euro in resources and prizemoney and is to sponsor the competition until 2011 at least.
