Blue Flag<\/a> awards were announced on Friday and the beaches that can tick all the important boxes now get to fly the physical version for the coming season. <\/p>\nIn total, 85 beaches, nine marinas and, for the first time, an eco-tourism boat operator, were awarded blue flags. <\/p>\n
Green Coast awards were also awarded to 73 beaches, recognising stretches of coastline where conservation efforts are a high priority. <\/p>\n
Twelve beaches earned both awards: Balcarrick, Donabate in Fingal; Salthill, Silver Strand and An Tr\u00e1, Inis O\u00edrr in Galway; Inchydoney Beach East in Cork; Baile an Sceilg (Ballinskelligs) in Kerry; Bettystown in Meath; Enniscrone and Rosses Point in Sligo and Bunmahon, Tramore, and Clonea in Waterford. <\/p>\n
The schemes are a European Union initiative begun in the 1980s to try to encourage local authorities, in partnership with communities and local organisations, to make the best of their beaches. <\/p>\n
An Taisce runs the schemes in Ireland and oversaw a steady rise in the number of beaches and marinas making the grade although numbers have levelled off in recent years. <\/p>\n
Most of the awardees work hard to hold on to their flag year after year while those who have lost them strive to regain them. <\/p>\n
Duncannon, Co Wexford and Bunmahon in Co Waterford regained flags for the first time in 19 years and 14 years respectively after water quality issues improved. <\/p>\n
Skellig Bounty, operated by Aqua Terra Boat Tours on Valentia Island in Co Kerry, is the first tourism boat to be awarded a Blue Flag. <\/p>\n
All counties with a coastline, excluding Limerick and Leitrim, received at least one Blue Flag, as did landlocked Westmeath, which can fly a flag at Quigleys Marina, Killinure Point. <\/p>\n
Six beaches that were awarded the Blue Flag in 2025 have not been awarded it this year. <\/p>\n
These are: Lahinch in Co Clare; Fountainstown in Cork; Portsalon in Donegal; Ardmore Beach and Counsellors\u2019 Strand, Dunmore East in Waterford; and Ballymoney, North Beach in Wexford.<\/p>\n
They lost out after their previously \u201cexcellent\u201d rankings for water quality slipped to a \u201cgood\u201d ranking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The water\u2019s fine, the surroundings are clean, access is easy and the signs make sense \u2013 if that\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450771,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[86424,195721,46,5148,4500,42,7727,15949,43,14169,40,38,41,39,6513,9270],"class_list":["post-450770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-an-taisce","tag-blue-flag","tag-cork","tag-european-union","tag-galway","tag-headlines","tag-kerry","tag-meath","tag-news","tag-sligo","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-waterford","tag-wexford"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}