THIS VALENTINE’S DAY, DECLARE YOUR UNDYING LOVE FOR IRELAND’S COAST
ENTRIES FOR THE 2026 CLEAN COASTS LOVE YOUR COAST PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITION OPEN FEBRUARY 14TH 2026.
JUST IN TIME TO FALL IN LOVE WITH THE COAST FOR VALENTINE’S DAY!
Take a look at the finalists’ photos from 2025 below, for inspiration on ways you can show your love for the coast!
This Valentine’s Day and beyond, Clean Coasts is inviting photography enthusiasts to showcase their love for the Irish coast and enter the Love Your Coast Photography Competition 2026.
From stormy waves to tall cliff faces, or golden sand dunes to underwater dwellers, Ireland’s coastline displays a unique power that has a profound impact on those who take the time to bask in its beauty. And with the 2026 theme of Impact in mind, Clean Coasts is encouraging photographers and coastal enthusiasts to contemplate not only their own impact on their coastal environment, but also its’ impact on them – both the positive and the negative!
Offering a total prize fund this year of €5000, the Love Your Coast Photography Competition offers the opportunity to showcase your unique viewpoint of this Impact across five specific categories.
Take time to fall in Love with Your Coast this year and capture those special moments with Ireland’s coastal communities and wildlife, showcase our breathtaking landscapes and built heritage, and capture the Impact of Irelands coast.
And remember, by entering the competition, you’re not simply showcasing your skill and creativity; you’re helping raise awareness of the need to safeguard Ireland’s waterways for future generations, the way Clean Coasts groups do every day.
Join us in celebrating the love we share for our coast and become part of the movement to care for and protect them.
Love Your Coast Competition Categories
This year we have five different categories for photographers to enter, please read the descriptions below to make sure you are entering the correct one:
Coastal Landscape
People and the Coast
Source to Sea
Wildlife and the Coast
Underwater
These categories invite photographers to contemplate the theme of impact and capture the diverse elements of Ireland’s coastline, in celebration of its natural wonders and the vital connection between people and water. Photos must be taken within the last 24 months.
Do you have a question about any of these categories? Get in touch with us at loveyourcoast@eeu.antaisce.org.
- Coastal Landscape
Ireland’s coastline is a place of breathtaking beauty and constant transformation. From towering cliffs and wild Atlantic waves to tranquil sandy coves and ever-shifting dunes, our shores tell a story of both resilience and change.
Spanning 486 kilometres, our coastline is shaped by the powerful forces of nature – the roaring Atlantic on the West and the dynamic Irish Sea on the East. But alongside this natural splendour, our shores are also on the frontline of the impacts of climate change. Rising sea levels, erosion, and extreme weather events are reshaping the landscapes we cherish, while coastal communities and ecosystems adapt in remarkable ways.
This category invites you to capture the Irish coast in all its moods – its raw beauty, its fragile moments, and its ongoing evolution. Whether it’s the dramatic cliffs of Malin Head, the windswept beaches of Wexford, or the resilience of salt marshes and dunes rebuilding after storms, every image should reflect the story of a coastline shaped and impacted by both nature and time.
- People and the Coast
The coast is more than a backdrop – it is a place of powerful impact, shaping how we live, feel, and connect. For generations, people have been drawn to the shoreline for work, leisure, and tradition, building communities and cultures around the rhythm of the tides.
This category explores the many ways in which people interact with the coast, and the lasting impacts of those interactions. Human activities can negatively impact fragile shorelines through pollution, overuse of resources, and placing pressure on coastal habitats, while they can also positively impact our coastlines through conservation efforts, clean-ups, and stewardship driven by care and connection.
Our coastal environment can also impact us – with time spent by the sea positively lifting our mood, supporting our wellbeing, and offering a space for movement, reflection, and renewal, while rising sea levels and increasingly severe storms linked to climate change are having negative impacts on coastal communities around our shores.
Whether capturing surfers catching waves at sunrise or fishermen casting their nets, beachgoers taking a quiet moment to reflect by the water or communities in action working to protect their coastline, this category invites you to document the powerful relationship and connections between people and our coasts – and the impact we have on them, just as they have on us.
- Source to Sea
Every drop of water has a journey. From mountain streams and winding rivers to urban canals and vast estuaries, all waterways are connected, ultimately flowing to the coast where they can shape and impact coastal environments and the communities that depend on them.
This category explores the intricate network of catchments, rivers, lakes, and wetlands that carve our landscapes and feed the sea. Capture water in all its forms: rushing rivers, tranquil lakes, tidal estuaries, urban canals, or even raindrops just beginning their path to the ocean.
Whether highlighting the beauty of these waterways, the life they sustain along their path, the various ways in which humans can impact them, or in turn, how these waterways can impact our communities, this category reminds us that every waterway is part of a greater journey – one that always leads to the sea.
- Wildlife and the Coast
This is your opportunity to reveal the remarkable wildlife that calls our island home. Though small in size, Ireland supports an extraordinary richness of life, with over 4,000 plant species, more than 450 recorded bird species (resident, migrant, and vagrant), and more than 50 terrestrial and marine mammal species.
Along our picturesque coastlines, we share the seas with a wealth of marine life. From majestic whales and playful dolphins to graceful seabirds and elusive sharks. Inland, estuaries, rivers, lakes, hedgerows, and towpaths host intricate ecosystems where plants, insects, birds, and fish coexist harmoniously, each playing a vital role in our country’s delicate habitats along our waterways.
This category is an opportunity to responsibly and respectively capture not only the beauty of these species but also highlight the pressures they face from human impacts and climate change, to showcase the resilience, wonder and the importance of safeguarding Ireland’s wildlife and portray a shared message – that we are not apart from nature, we are a part of nature.
- Underwater
This category invites photographers to explore the wonders of wildlife and biodiversity through a different lens – beneath the surface. Largely unseen and experienced by only a few, the underwater realm is a vibrant, fragile world that can leave a lasting impact and impression on those who encounter it.
Ireland is home to a remarkably rich marine ecosystem, with 26 cetacean species (whale, dolphin, and porpoise), over 580 marine fish species, 39 species of sharks, and more than 500 types of marine plants and seaweeds. This category aims to reveal the hidden beauty of our oceans and the splendour of our underwater world, while encouraging a deeper reflection on the growing impacts facing marine life, from human activity, plastic seas, and a changing climate.
From the dramatic kelp forests and biodiversity networks on the seabed, to mysterious rockpools and the grace of the basking shark, we want to immerse ourselves in the full spectrum of underwater marvels through your lens – the beauty, diversity, and impact it has, and the need to protect it.
Love Your Coast Photography Guide 2025
Love Your Coast Photography Guide 2026 – Available Soon!
The 2025 Love Your Coast Photography guide was created in conjunction with BirdWatch Ireland, Seal Rescue Ireland (SRI) and the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG) and aims to equip photographers with the correct information on how to capture the beauty of wildlife without causing any harm.
Downloading the guide is essential for entering the competition, informing you all about Clean Coasts, Love Your Coasts, terms and conditions, guidelines for photographing birds, marine mammals pinnipeds and other essential wildlife, and the five categories for 2025!
Whether you’re a beginner looking to learn the basics or a seasoned photographer aiming to refine your techniques, this guide equips you with the knowledge to capture compelling and ethically-responsible images.
Download the guide today, not only improve your chances of creating striking photographs but also contribute to the conservation efforts by highlighting the importance of coastal wildlife preservation through your lens.
* Please note: If you make a submission to the Love Your Coast Photography competition the guidelines outlined within this guide must be followed. If the judging panel feels that entries have failed to comply with the following guidelines they will automatically be disqualified from the competition.
Things to know before entering
Before entering this year’s competition, remember to read our Checklist and the Love Your Coast Terms and Conditions 2026 before submitting your entry.
If you are unsure about any of the items in our Terms and Conditions or have any other questions, please contact us at loveyourcoast@eeu.antaisce.org.
The team at Clean Coasts would like to wish all photographers the best of luck with your submission(s)!
Submit your images to THE LOVE YOUR COAST competition 2026 below from 14th February 2026 until May 15th 2026.