{"id":555834,"date":"2026-07-18T09:17:30","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T09:17:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/555834\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T09:17:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T09:17:30","slug":"wexford-photographs-shine-in-clean-coasts-love-your-coast-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/555834\/","title":{"rendered":"Wexford photographs shine in Clean Coasts Love Your Coast competition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aiir-c-news-figure__image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/6a5a0564a47cb359fd5.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>A photograph taken beneath the waters off Hook Head has secured first place in the Underwater category of the 2026 Clean Coasts Love Your Coast Photography Competition.<\/p>\n<p>The winning image, titled \u201cWorld\u2019s Best Dad\u201d, was captured by photographer \u00c9abha Hughes at the Girl Arlene shipwreck off Hook Head, County Wexford.<\/p>\n<p>The photograph shows a male butterfly blenny fish protecting its eggs inside a rusting pipe nearly 30 metres below the surface.<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9abha said the significance of the image only became clear when reviewing the photographs afterwards, discovering the fish was carefully guarding its eggs.<\/p>\n<p>The annual Love Your Coast competition celebrates Ireland\u2019s coastal environment and this year attracted more than 1,100 entries from amateur photographers across the country.<\/p>\n<p>The 2026 theme was \u201cImpact\u201d, highlighting the relationship between people and nature and the importance of protecting Ireland\u2019s coastal and marine environments.<\/p>\n<p>Wexford featured strongly in this year\u2019s competition, with three local photographs making the shortlist across two categories.<\/p>\n<p>As well as \u00c9abha Hughes\u2019 winning image, Ivan Donoghue placed third in the Underwater category with \u201cTrinity: Spidercrab, Diver and Shipwreck\u201d, taken off the coast of the Saltee Islands.<\/p>\n<p>The image captures a spider crab, diver and shipwreck coming together in an unusual underwater scene.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/6a5a04f88e0cc556fe6.jpg\" style=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Photographer Pat Somers was also a finalist in the Wildlife and the Coast category with \u201cCommon Green Shieldbug Caught Out in a Shower\u201d, taken at Ferrybank in Wexford town.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/6a5a04f87d5949030ce.jpg\" style=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A photograph taken beneath the waters off Hook Head has secured first place in the Underwater category of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,3279,319,308,93,61,60,2673,1529,8284,43,700,151809,9270],"class_list":["post-555834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-broadcast","tag-broadcasting","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irish-news","tag-local-news","tag-local-radio","tag-news","tag-radio","tag-south-east-radio","tag-wexford"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555834","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=555834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}