Sunday, November 11, 2007

An Baile is fearr-We are the greatest


Kilkenny is the greatest town in Britain and Ireland and it's official. On Friday last the 19th. of November, the Academy of Urbanism, an international organisation of planners, architects and academics involved in planning cities and towns gave us the huge honour of naming us as the Great town of these four countries. In the process we beat St. Andrew's of Scotland, and Winchester of England to claim the title for the first time that an Irish town has claimed this prestigious title. For those that are jumping up and down at the thought of us being called a mere 'town', Winchester were also happy to be nominated for this award despite also being a city, and indeed a former capital city of England. We accepted the award in London's Dorchester Hotel, the one you know from the Bond movies, and celebrated long into the night. Hopefully the peole of Kilkenny will appreciate the importance of this award, and we will celebrate in style in the coming weeks.
We put a huge amount of work into wining this award, and the judges who visited us in August again commented on Friday about the huge effort put in by us as Councillors and our officials to show Kilkenny in its best light. For now though, we're just as proud as punch, and know that Kilkenny and its great people more than deserve this prize.