Five Louth parks winners at 2023 Green Flag Awards

The 2023 Green Flag Awards were announced today by An Taisce Environmental Education, recognizing Ireland’s best managed public parks and green spaces, with four parks in Louth receiving Green Flags.

The Green Flag Award for Parks was awarded to 101 parks, gardens, grounds and wildlife sanctuaries around the country. The award benchmarks excellence in the management of green spaces which are open free the public. 150 parks were awarded flags today around Europe, with Ireland leading the way.

The parks in Louth that secured Green Flag Awards are: Blackrock Community Park; Ice House Hill Park; St Helena Park; and Saint Dominic’s Park.

A Green Flag Community Award was also secured by Dromiskin Heritage Park which is managed by Dromiskin Tidy Towns. 

The Green Flag Community Award brings the award to community initiatives such as Community Gardens, Community Parks, and Tidy Towns Projects. By acknowledging the work done by local groups this Community Award helps empower community groups to improve their local area and environment. 

In Ireland the Green Flag Community Award Scheme is supported by the Department of Rural and Community Development. The Minister of State for Community Development and Charities; Joe O’Brien stated that:

“The Department of Rural and Community Development has supported An Taisce with the expansion of the Green Flag since 2018 into community run spaces. By doing this we have been able to leverage the Green Flag Award values and standards for the benefit of our communities and their voluntary work. 

"I want to thank all community volunteers, across the country for all the work they have done by maintaining the many parks, gardens, and greens across the country. It is a great credit that they have helped deliver this this Green Flag accreditation across Ireland.”

Emlyn Cullen – Programme Manager for An Taisce Environmental Education Unit, who run the Awards in Ireland said: “The continued success of the Green Flag Award is due to the love staff members have for their green spaces and the hard work they put in to maintaining them.

"They do a phenomenal job every day making their parks and gardens beautiful, safe spaces for the public to enjoy.”

Once again more Green Flag Awards have been secured by Irish Parks and Gardens than by any country, other than the UK where the scheme originated in 1996. Out of 150 awarded in Europe today, 101 were in Ireland.

This year participating European countries include Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Turkey.