Tidy Towns 2026: Glaslough Wins Monaghan for the 16th Year in a Row
Glaslough topped County Monaghan in the 2026 SuperValu TidyTowns with 408 marks and a gold medal. Carrickmacross and Monaghan Town also won gold, Smithborough took the Endeavour Award, and Monaghan TidyTowns won the national EPA Circular Economy Award.
By the Monaghan Brief staff·Edited by Seamus McKenna·Published · 2 min read
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Stone bridge near Glaslough. Archive location photograph; not a photo of the events in this story. N-a · CC BY-SA 2.0. Resized and colour-graded; cropped in layout.
Glaslough has been named the top centre in County Monaghan in the 2026 SuperValu TidyTowns competition for the 16th year in a row, scoring 408 marks and retaining its gold medal. Carrickmacross (405) and Monaghan Town (402) came second and third in the county, and both also won gold.
The results were announced last Friday, the Anglo-Celt reported. The full marks are in the official TidyTowns 2026 results booklet. Ballinahown, Co Westmeath, was named Ireland's tidiest town for 2026 with 413 marks, just five more than Glaslough.
National and regional awards
Monaghan TidyTowns was the national winner of the EPA Circular Economy Award (€1,000).
North Monaghan Environmental Fishing Club was the North West and West regional winner of the Waters and Communities Award (€1,000).
Smithborough (263) won the county Endeavour Award. This goes to the entrant in each county with the biggest percentage improvement on the previous year.
How the rest of the county scored
According to the results booklet:
Category A: Tydavnet led on 349, ahead of Ardaghey (338) and Drum (328).
Category B: Glaslough (408) finished ahead of Ballinode (357) and Scotstown (324).
Category C: Inniskeen led on 353, followed by Clones (340), Emyvale (329) and Ballybay (303).
Category D: Castleblayney scored 353.
Ballinode has had a good few days. Its community centre also won at the IPB Pride of Place awards, which we reported here. Money for next year's competition is on the way too: 23 Monaghan groups are sharing €32,000 in Tidy Towns grants.
Sources
This article is an original summary based on the following reporting. We encourage readers to visit the original sources for full coverage.
SSE has awarded €164,279 to 25 groups in Cavan and Monaghan from the community fund linked to its Mullananalt, Bindoo and Gartnaneane wind farms. Glaslough Villa get €24,789 for LED floodlights, Clontibret GFC €16,784 and Latton O'Rahilly GAA €13,800.
Monaghan footballer Stephen O'Hanlon has rejoined Carrick Cruisers for their 2026/27 National League Division 1 season at the Phoenix Centre, Carrickmacross, eight years after he last played basketball on a US scholarship.
Luke Wall (33), who has 119 previous convictions, walked into small businesses during opening hours across five counties in the summer of 2025. Judge John Aylmer suspended the final 18 months to give him a chance at drug treatment.
