50 reasons to Love Your Coast 

Clean Coasts’ Love Your Coast photography competition winners have been announced, showcasing all the beauty of the Irish coastal landscape, heritage, wildlife and more in 50 beautiful images. 

03 November 2022 | Tonight, Clean Coasts were thrilled to announce the winners of the 13th edition of their Love Your Coast photography competition during an in-person award ceremony in the Smock Alley Theatre, in Dublin. 

After a two-year break, when the awards were held in a virtual ceremony, Clean Coasts and the photographers who were shortlisted, were happy to be back celebrating the beauty of the Irish coast in person. 

For the past 13 years, the Love Your Coast photography competition has been inviting photographers to capture the uniqueness of our coastal landscape, heritage, wildlife, communities and more, and to submit their best shot across five categories – Coastal Heritage, Coastal Landscape, People & the Coast, Wildlife & the Coast and Creativity and the Coast – for a chance to win prizes from a €5,000 prize fund and plenty of exposure opportunities.  

This year, we receive over 1,100 entries and the 50 best images were shortlisted and displayed at our event at Smock Alley.  

Darragh Gorman with his “Splash”, captured in Mullaghmore Co. Sligo has been awarded the title of Image of the Year, who also won first place in the Coastal Landscape category. Moreover, these photographers were awarded the first place for the remaining categories: 

  • Brian Campbell with “In the shadow of a giant!” taken in Classiebawn Castle, Mullaghmore, Co. Sligo for Coastal Heritage; 
  • Adrian Hendroff  with “Labyrinth” taken in Dunmore Head, Co. Kerry  for Creativity and the Coast; 
  • Gary McCall with “Conor Maguire surfs the largest wave ever ridden in Ireland”taken at Mullaghmore, Co. Sligo for People and the Coast; and  
  • Aoife Hester with “Compass Jelly” taken in Sandycove, Co. Dublin for the Wildlife and Underwater Category 

A list of all shortlisted images for each category can be found in the editor’s notes.  

Working with communities on the ground, Clean Coasts’ mission is to help foster pride in our coastline, supporting Clean Coasts communities, groups, and volunteers to tackle issues affecting their local area. This competition provides an opportunity to view the coast and our waterways that the Clean Coasts programme works to protect from a completely different perspective and see the beauty captured therein.    

Coastal Communities Manager Sinead McCoy said: “We were delighted to be able to celebrate in person again both the beauty of the Irish coast and the talent of the photographers who entered our competition, after a two-year break.  

Over the last 13 years, the competition has been very successful and very well received. For Clean Coasts, this is more than just a photography competition: we are an island nation, and our coast and marine environment are incredibly important to us. Clean Coasts has over 1,800 volunteer groups who are doing amazing work when it comes to managing and protecting our marine environment, so these photographs are a way for everybody to appreciate and celebrate our coast and be inspired to get involved too.”