Ireland leads Europe with record 120 Green Flag Awards
The awards celebrate the recognition of Ireland’s best parks and green spaces
Print12 November 2024
The 2024 Green Flag Awards were announced recently by An Taisce Environmental Education, after a record-breaking year.
The international Green Flag Award was awarded to 120 parks, gardens, greenways and wildlife sanctuaries around the country. The award acknowledges excellence in the management of those green spaces which are freely open to the public. Ireland clearly leads the way for other EU countries, with the largest quota out of a total of 174 EU Green Flag Award sites being located here in 2024.
The Green Flag Award is the international quality benchmark for the public green space sector – now operating in 19 countries around the world. Running for over 25 years, the programme uses eight key criteria, with an emphasis on environmental management, for its assessment. All sites implement a management framework, and then undergo an annual inspection conducted by qualified judges.
Once again Ireland has secured its lead in high quality park amenities with more Green Flag Awards being secured by Irish parks and public gardens than by any country, other than the UK where the scheme originated in 1996.
This year participating European countries include Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, as well as the UK which released their results earlier this year.
Speaking of his park’s award, Ciaran Conneely, Green Flag Award project coordinator, Santry Community Garden, said: “The Green Flag Award is important to us as it keeps us grounded. In addition to gardening, it encourages us to focus on our other core values of peace, learning, community, sustainability and biodiversity. We are absolutely thrilled to receive our 4th Green Flag Award. We see it as recognition and validation of all the hard work our members put in throughout the year.”
Emlyn Cullen, programme manager for An Taisce Environmental Education Unit, running the Award 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.”
Green Heritage Site Accreditation is an additional certification given only to Green Flag Award winning sites that conserve and showcase unique landscapes and built heritage of historic significance.
It was launched in Ireland in 2021, with the support of The National Parks and Wildlife Service and the Department of Housing, Local Government, and Heritage. This year, 13 Irish Green Flag Award sites were accredited to Green Heritage Site Accreditation standard. To date, this heritage award only operates in Ireland, Portugal, and the UK.
Minister of State with responsibility for Heritage, Malcolm Noonan T.D. said: “The Green Heritage Site Accreditation enables a larger pool of sites to participate in the programme and highlights the multifaceted nature of our green spaces.
“The scheme brings together the human and natural aspect of a place. It celebrates best practice in engagement with multi-layered heritage and reminds us all of our responsibility to appreciate and preserve richness and diversity of the green spaces that surround us, now even more important than ever.”
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.
Additionally three of the 2024 applicants were given a special award for their work supporting pollinating insects. The Pollinator Plan Award is jointly run by An Taisce Environmental Education and the National Biodiversity Data Centre. This optional plan for Green Flag Award applicant sites works by assessing pollinator-friendly management of parks and community greenspaces.
These are scored against the recommendations of the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan, which is itself a National Biodiversity Data Centre initiative of national importance. This year’s Green Flag Pollinator Plan Award overall winner was Tralee Bay Wetlands Eco & Activity Park in Kerry.
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