Tullamore Tradfest and Edenderry Boxing Club among Lottery Good Causes nominees

Tullamore Tradfest and St. Brigid's Boxing Club in Edenderry are among five Offaly finalists in the National Lottery Good Causes Awards, details of which were unveiled this week.

They willl now join with three other Offaly organisations: BLC Developments CLG; Boher-Liss Cemetery Group and the Offaly Centre for Independent Living in competing for a place in the National Finals of the Good Causes Awards next October.

The total prize fund available on the night of the Good Causes Awards ceremony is €100,000, whereby each of the seven category winners will receive €10,000 and the overall Good Cause of the Year will take home an additional €25,000.

A special category, ‘Hero of the Year’, will be announced on the awards night in recognition of outstanding work with the recipient receiving a prize of €5,000. In addition, each of the 35 national finalists announced later in the summer will receive a cheque for €1,000.

St. Brigid's Boxing Club in Edenderry, which was nominated in the sports category, was established in 1933 and is recognised as a renowned hub for sporting excellence, while Offaly Centre for Independent Living is a nonprofit based in Tullamore, dedicated to empowering individuals with physical and sensory disabilities.

Tullamore Tradfest, which was set up in 2018, has gone from strength to strength, attracting thousands of visitors and musicians to Tullamore every year for their annual Tradfest weekend, while the Boher-Liss Cemetery Group is a local community organisation which was established mainly through goodwill with the aim of maintaining the two cemeteries of Boher and Liss outside Ballycumber.

The fifth Offaly organisation named as a county finalist in the National Lottery Good Causes awards is BLC Developments CLG, which was nominated in the community category. This group, which is based in Ballycumber, was established in 2001 to promote and operate a community development centre at the local GAA pitch. Among its operations are a Meals to the Door service from their kitchen in the Community Centre three days a week in the rural area surrounding Ballycumber, and a Hot Desk Hub which can be hired by students and workers on an hourly, daily or weekly basis.

The 146 County Finalists will now progress to the next stage of the judging process and compete for a place in the National Finals. The 35 National Finalists will be announced during the summer. The awards ceremony will take place on Saturday, October 18 next in Killashee House Hotel in Naas, Co. Kildare.

Nearly 30 cent in every €1 spent on National Lottery games goes back to Good Causes in the areas of sport, youth, health, welfare, education, arts, heritage and the Irish Language. In total, more than €6.5 billion has been raised for Good Causes since the National Lottery was established 37 years ago. In 2024 alone, €239.3 million was raised for local Good Causes in communities across Ireland