4 minute read
Discover Duhallow 125
How quickly another year rolls around, and after the success of last year’s IRD Duhallow Annual Business Awards, we are looking forward to what is going to be a fantastic event, which will see the tenth business crowned as the Overall Winner of the Duhallow Business Awards. The Awards are a special event, as they allow us to feature and showcase the finest businesses in the region. You will see from the supplement on the following pages that each of these worthy finalists is outstanding in their own field. I want to congratulate each of the 19 participants for the wonderful achievement of being short-listed thus far. There were over 270 nominations for the awards this year, proving that ten years on it is evident how popular these coveted awards are.
I want to most sincerely thank all the sponsors who came back on board again this year: AIB, Duhallow Skillnet, Kanturk Mart, Kanturk Printers, McCarthy Insurance Group, and SE Systems. Without their support nights like this would just not be possible.
Since its inception, supporting local businesses and employment has been a key priority for IRD Duhallow, and we offer a suite of soft and capital supports for local employers through our many programmes. We are particularly delighted to be delivering the LEADER 23-27 programme which is currently open and accepting applications from businesses across a wide variety of measures.
We are delighted to have internet sensation and comedian Reggie from Blackrock as our Master of Ceremonies for this year’s event, and we are looking forward to a great night’s entertainment.
Best of luck to all the participants and I look forward to another successful awards night.
Welcome to our Discover Duhallow special feature supplement showcases 19 shortlisted finalists for this year’s IRD Duhallow Business Awards. I would like to sincerely thank our judging panel, Catherine Evans, Kathleen Linehan, Peter O’Donoghue, Kevin Sugrue and Fergus McAuliffe, for their care and diligence in meeting all our finalists and for concluding their deliberations to select this year’s award winners. We are fortunate to have such a high calibre panel of judges who volunteer their time.
I think it’s fair to say that the publicity that each participant receives is one of the real prizes and I want to thank our team of Caleb, Tadhg and Brendon who work on Discover Duhallow under the guidance of Helen O’Sullivan, for putting together this wonderful supplement. We are increasing the print run to ensure demand is met once again. I must also acknowledge the trojan work of our local photographer Sheila Fitzgerald for all the images within. Our own Monica Gilmore, Anna Cieslowska and Shane Lynes of Lyne Media have done a fantastic job of keeping the business awards at the top of everyone’s social media feed and I’m looking forward to seeing their videos, featuring each of the shortlisted finalists which, will be broadcast on the night.
The Awards Ceremony is once again a sold-out event. The team at Duhallow Community Food Services have pulled out all the stops to create a super banquet menu with as much local produce as possible.
So, if you have not already booked and secured your ticket for the 1st of November, you can keep up with the announcements of winners by tuning in online to our social media channels as there will be regular updates provided. The event itself presents a great opportunity to build further business connections, identify opportunities and synergies and increase business sales. I look forward to seeing who is next to take up the mantle of category winners and the overall winner Duhallow Business of 2024 this year following on from the success of North Cork Creameries in 2023.
A huge thank you to our excellent Skillnet team of Louise Bourke, Monica Gilmore and Anna Cieslowska led by Eileen Linehan for their work in supporting Businesses across the entire region with a wide range of courses to upskill their staff and drive competitiveness, innovation and growth.
All the wider IRD Duhallow team gets behind these awards to ensure that the Banquet is a top class event, great credit is due to all our staff that will work in the weeks leading up to it and on the night itself in a variety of roles to ensure it is an event that is fitting for these prestigious award finalists and that we can be proud of.
