A Kerry peninsula has been named as overall winner in the Digital Town awards — and it’s the Dingle Peninsula, for its ‘Reimagining Creatively through Digital’ project.

Dingle also won the ‘small town’ category prize of €9,000, which with its €10,000 as overall winner gives the area almost €20,000 for its efforts in what domain name authority .IE described as its “creativity, resilience and overall excellence in delivering a unique and lasting contribution to digital advancement”.

The awards honour local town projects and people that have demonstrated how digital projects have contributed to enhancements or digital improvements in areas such as health, tourism, education, public services, employment opportunities, citizen empowerment, and social entrepreneurship.

The focus of the Dingle team was on promoting innovation and imagining new ways of doing things through digital. Among the highlights was a pilot initiative to increase sustainability and productivity by collecting ‘real-time’ data using sensor technology such as current and predicted weather and soil conditions, and grass growth rates.

This will result in carbon efficiencies that can extend the grazing season. Localised ‘real-time’ weather data also enabled tourism providers to tailor tourist packages based on changing weather conditions.

In Association with

The awards span 14 categories, including gongs for a ‘digital hero’ and a ‘digital rising star’. The inaugural hero is Laura Williams, of Ballybough in Co Dublin, while the first rising star of the awards is the town of Tubbercurry in Co Sligo, whose people came together to use digital technologies to address problems facing rural communities.

CATEGORY WINNERS 

Small town – up to 2,500 population: Dingle Peninsula

Medium town – 2,500-5,000: Edgeworthstown

Large town – 5,000-10,000: Ballinasloe

Large town – 10,000+: Drogheda

Urban town – up to 30,000: Dun Laoghaire

Photo: IE Domain Registry executives Oonagh McCutcheon and David Curtin with minister Damien English (right), presenting award virtually to Maggie Breen from the Dingle Peninsula. (Pic: Conor McCabe)