Ballinamore residents and businesses can celebrate this week with the news that for promotion of bilingualism, they are the number one town in the country.
As part of the annual showcasing of towns and villages in The Tidy Town Awards, this year a new category in the ‘Building a Bilingual Society’ was added to the list of honours and Ballinamore came in a historic first.
The category was for a town with less than a population of 1000 and was judged on not only the visual Irish signage seen on the business premises of the town but also on what social structures were in place to promote and support Bilingualism in relation to the Irish language.
Irish Officer on the Tidy Towns committee, Sean ÓSuilleabhain, who was aided by John Toolan in the endeavour, said that this first award ever in the new category brought honour on the town.
“We are very pleased with the award. A lot of work has gone into the effort of promoting Bilingualism in the town through visual signage as well as other programs and schools and it is a great honour for the town and Leitrim to be chosen in this new category in its first year out of all of Ireland,” stated Sean.
Influencing the judges in this respect would have been the all Irish pre-school, An Naionra; winter long classes in Irish in the Library the promotion of the use of language with the GAA club, as well the town’s heavy involvement with Scor.