merrion street

The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Mr. Phil Hogan, T.D. today congratulated Abbeyshrule, Co. Longford who won a Gold Medal Award and Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, who won a Silver Medal Award at the European Entente Florale Competition.

The Minister said that both the village of Abbeyshrule and the town of Clonmel should be immensely proud of their achievement. The results of the European Entente Florale competition were announced at a special awards ceremony in Venlo, The Netherlands on Friday 14th September. Much to the delight of both the Abbeyshrule and Clonmel contingents present at the ceremony, they were awarded the prestigious gold and silver medals respectively. This is the second major award in under a week for Abbeyshrule as on Monday they won the overall SuperValu National TidyTowns competition.

Eleven European countries participated in the competition. One town and one village represent each country. The candidates are generally chosen from among the top performers in the relevant categories in national competitions. The competition is judged on all aspects of the towns and villages under inspection, from the quality of road surfaces to the colour schemes of houses and from the planting of open spaces to the standard of public amenities.

Entente Florale, with its special emphasis on the improvement of the quality of life for urban and rural communities in an environmentally sensitive way, echoes the philosophy in Ireland’s own SuperValu Tidy Towns Competition.