Ballinahown group heading to Hungary for awards ceremony
A group of locals will be flying the flag for Ballinahown at an awards ceremony in Hungary this weekend.
The picturesque local village is one of this year's participants in Entente Florale, a competition for towns and villages across Europe.
Entente Florale judges visited Ballinahown in July, to assess its entry, and later this week a contingent from the local area will be travelling to the Hungarian city of Székesfehérvár for the awards ceremony which is taking place this Saturday (September 7).
Among those travelling will be a Westmeath County Council deputation, including Cllr John Dolan, the current Mayor of Athlone, Cllr Frankie Keena, and the Cathaoirleach of Westmeath County Council, Cllr Liam McDaniel.
Director of Services Ambrose Clarke and the manager of the Athlone Moate Municipal District, Willie Ryan, will also be on the trip to represent the council, while a number of local residents from the Ballinahown area are also making the journey for the awards.
Cllr John Dolan, who was involved with the Ballinahown entry, said the competition entrants in the various categories are each expecting to be awarded a medal - the question is whether it will be gold, silver, or bronze.
He said he was keeping his fingers crossed that it would be gold for Ballinahown on Saturday.
"The feedback the judges gave us on the day of their visit was excellent. They said Ballinahown had a lot of things many towns and cities don't have," said Cllr Dolan.
"It was a very positive experience to be part of, and two of the judges indicated that they would like to come back to Ballinahown in the future.
"In fairness, Westmeath County Council fully came in behind (Ballinahown) and gave us great support. We got some projects (for the local area) that we probably wouldn't have got if we weren't in the competition."
He said he was optimistic that the local improvement initiatives undertaken for Entente Florale would have strengthened Ballinahown's entry for this year's Tidy Towns competition also.
A crew from RTE's Nationwide programme was filming in Ballinahown, in relation to its Tidy Towns entry, last weekend.
"Hopefully that's a good sign. You'd hope that they were coming to a place that's going to do fairly well in the competition," said Cllr Dolan.