REACTION:IT WAS more than a quarter of a century in the making but Tallanstown, Co Louth, finally came away with the plaudits when it was awarded the title of Ireland's Tidiest Town yesterday.
The announcement that the Louth village, which has a population of just 600, had scooped the Tidiest Village award and the overall prize of Ireland’s Tidiest Town, having first entered 26 years ago, was met by whoops of delight by the Tallanstown committee.
Members of what the judging panel described as a “voluntary army” jumped and whooped when the award was announced. Some threw their hands in the air while others shed a tear or two or scrambled for mobile phones, shouts of “we did it” punctuating the celebrations as images of the postcard-perfect village were displayed on the big screen.
However, committee chairman Richard Barry was the epitome of calm as he accepted the award from Minister for the Environment John Gormley.
"It's not been an overnight success," he admitted to Nationwide's Michael Ryan who again hosted this year's awards.
“I think the first year we went in was 1984 and I think we were 730th that particular time, in other words there were 730 places better than us . . . it’s been a long, long climb.”
Afterwards as the champagne glasses clinked and the cameras clicked, Mr Barry paid tribute to the 35 committee members and other volunteers who all did their part in ensuring Tallanstown’s eventual success.
“We keep working at it all year round but certainly from May to probably a week ago we were certainly working three, four, five nights a week.
“It will mean an awful lot to the community because we were a very run-of-the-mill, probably not very nice village at all and we set to making it a better village,” he said. “Winning the TidyTowns is a wonderful thing, it’s a wonderful bonus . . . but at the same time making Tallanstown a nice place to live and a nice place to work in and a nice place to visit is the most important thing of all.”
Mr Gormley paid tribute to Tallanstown as “a relatively small place with that enthusiasm, with that sense that community can do something very special”.
There was tension in the Helix in DCU before the awards ceremony, replaced by the palpable pride of the chosen communities as they went up on stage to collect the awards which glittered on stage, reflecting the glittering mayoral chains which dotted the anxious audience.
Mr Gormley likened the event to the All-Ireland, and there were similarities as the trophies were passed around from one committee member to another to hold up, admire and weigh.
Susan Cronin, chairwoman of the TidyTowns committee from Lismore, Co Waterford, was obviously emotional as she went up to claim the prize for Ireland’s Tidiest Small Town.
“Oh my God, tis indescribable, it really is,” she said afterwards, with the breathless tone of an actor thanking their co-stars on Oscar night. “They all worked very hard and it was a great credit due to them.”
“TidyTowns is not the small group going out on its own to do the work,” secretary Mary O’Brien added. “It has to be about community, they have to be behind you.”