Sherkin Island Marine Station holds 22nd environmental awareness Munster School Competition

Sherkin Island Marine Station holds 22nd Environmental Awareness Munster School Competition

2019 Winners Announced

Tuesday, 12th of November 2019: Sherkin Island Marine Station has announced the results for its 22nd annual environmental awareness competition for Munster primary schools. The competition is sponsored by Inland Fisheries Ireland, who are one of eight sponsors and aims to promote awareness of environmental issues among national school children within the Munster region. The top overall winners included schools from Limerick, Tralee, Mallow, Dunmanway and Tramore.

As part of the competition, participants submitted a picture or project as an individual or group entry and were encouraged to use their imagination to expand on either of the two themes ‘My Favourite Place/Animal’ or ‘Protecting our Environment’. Some of the results from each of the competition categories were as follows:

Matt Murphy, founder of Sherkin Island Marine Station said: “One of the main aims of Sherkin Island Marine Station is to help introduce young people to nature and the environment through our educational programmes. We find the uptake of the competition to be fantastic throughout Munster and we enjoy seeing the children’s originality and creativity surrounding environmental issues. I would like to thank all of our sponsors without whom we would not be able to offer over 400 prizes to school children around Munster.”

Speaking about the competition Dr Ciaran Byrne, CEO of Inland Fisheries Ireland said: “We are delighted to be one of the sponsors for this competition and I would like to commend Sherkin Island Marine Station for the work they are doing in educating young people across Munster around environmental issues. Inland Fisheries Ireland places a large focus on conservation and we ourselves have been carrying out many changes across our national organisation to help reduce our carbon footprint. We know that every person and organisation can do their part and by educating our young people, we can make a difference to future generations and their attitude towards the natural world.”

The full list of results can be found on https://www.sherkinmarine.ie/competitionresults.htm. Over 400 books on the themes of Irish nature and wildlife will be awarded to the winners in each category. The Sherkin Island Marine Station School Competition was sponsored by City Print, Cork City County Council, Geological Survey of Ireland, Inland Fisheries Ireland, Jannsen Pharmecuticals, Natures Web, and Sherkin Comment.

ENDS

For Media Information:

Órla Sheils

Communications Manager

Inland Fisheries Ireland

E: orla.sheils@fisheriesireland.ie

T: (01) 8842673 / 087 099 5038

Sadhbh O’Neill

Communications Assistant

Inland Fisheries Ireland

E: sadhbh.oneill@fisheriesireland.ie

T: (01) 8842632 / 087 101 9998

Notes to editors

About Sherkin Island Marine Station

Sherkin Island Marine Station was founded in 1975 by Matt Murphy and his late wife, Eileen and is run by Matt and his family. Sherkin Island is situated one-and-a-quarter miles off the south-west coast of Ireland, off-shore from the fishing village of Baltimore. Sherkin Island Marine Station is privately run and funded. The Marine Station used to carry out long-term monitoring programmes on the flora and fauna of Roaringwater Bay and surrounding areas. For more information, visit https://www.sherkinmarine.ie/index.htm .