Slane Bridge snap wins Wiki Monuments award

A photo of Slane Bridge, taken by Rob Hurson, has won this year’s Irish round of the world’s biggest photography competition, Wiki Loves Monuments.

The Irish edition of the Wiki Loves Monuments photography competition took place during September 2020, marking the seventh year of the contest in Ireland. Initiated by Wikimedia, the movement behind free encyclopaedia Wikipedia, and run in Ireland by the Wikimedia Community Ireland, the competition aims to raise awareness of Ireland’s national monuments and create a comprehensive crowd-sourced bank of quality photos that will be free for all to use.

Amateur and professional photographers were encouraged to photograph the national monuments and protected structures in their locality and upload their photos to www.wikilovesmonuments.ie.

Entries were judged by a panel from Ireland and the international Wikimedia community. These top ten Irish images have been entered into the international competition.Wiki Loves Monuments is an annual photography competition that was started in the Netherlands in 2010, and has been certified by Guinness World Records as the world’s largest photography contest.

All images are uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, Wikimedia’s online repository that makes public domain and freely-licensed educational media content (images, sound and video clips) available to everyone.

Rebecca O’Neill, Wikimedia Community Ireland commented: "2020 has been a tough year for everyone, and we are delighted that our participants took the time and effort to explore their local area and celebrate its built heritage.

"A huge number of the photos uploaded were of sites that had no image on Commons, so they have helped to fill in those gaps and record these sites for the whole world to see and enjoy. We are particularly happy to see the bridges and canals of Ireland feature strongly this year, as they are a key element in Ireland’s rich built heritage."