Five award nominations for Westmeath Independent

The Westmeath Independent has been shortlisted in five categories in the annual Local Ireland media awards.

The awards, sponsored by National Lottery, honour the talents of the hundreds of journalists, photographers, designers and advertising executives involved in producing local weekly newspaper titles in both print and digital format every week accross 45 local weekly titles outside Dublin and Cork.

The Westmeath Independent has been shortlisted in a whopping five categories; Best Use of Photography; Best Sports Story of the Year; Best Photograph; Best Advertising Campaign and Best Local Advertisement.

Editor Tadhg Carey has been shortlisted for the Best Sports Story of the Year award for an article on match-fixing allegations surrounding two Athlone Town players. Photographer Ann Hennessy was shortlisted for this spectacular shot of Buccaneers players in a muddy battle in an Ulster Bank League Division 1B match played at Dubarry Park, Athlone in March 2017:

The best use of photography award nomination refers to a series of photographs that help with our reporter's journalism to tell important news and sport stories.

A series of advertisements by the Athlone Regional Sports Centre and carried in the Westmeath Independent has been shortlisted for the Best Advertising Campaign while an advertisement for the Destination Athlone group, included in a special supplement of the Westmeath Independent received a nomination from judges for the final three in the Best Local Advertisement category.

The awards will be held on Thursday May 24 at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Athlone where the winners will be announced.