Capturing Mayo moments in the year ahead

A brilliant initiative from the Tourism Department of Mayo County Council should get us all out with our cameras this year. The team there have come up with a competition which invites people to send in photos they take in the county over the course of 2026.

The photos can be of anything you like, whether that be people, events or places. They only need to have been taken in Mayo and reflect the theme of the competition, that of a ‘Mayo moment’.

An additional and creative aspect is that you take and submit your photos in four time windows: Winter season, where you have until January 30th to take your picture; Spring, where your photo must be taken between February 1st and April 30th; Summer, which runs from May 1st to July 31st; and Autumn, which stretches from August 1st to October 23rd.

The winning photographs will feature in the 2027 'Mayo Moments' Tourism Calendar. Winners will be invited to a launch event for the calendar in November and photos submitted will be used on Mayo.ie and in an online social media campaign, encouraging visitors to come to Mayo. Featured winners will also receive €100 for their trouble.

It is a really clever idea and a brilliant way to generate great photos as well as uncover new arenas to promote the county and all it has to offer. The submissions that don’t make the calendar will be as valuable in that latter aspect as the formal winners. I hope many of them get promoted through the various channels available.

The question that immediately arises is where the best pictures will come from, what they will reflect, and what they will say about Mayo in 2026.

Will they be of the iconic Mayo settings, such as Downpatrick Head, Croagh Patrick, or Keem Bay? If so, the next thought is what season is best to capture these places. Might the snow-capped Croagh Patrick be a photographic cliché or does it retain the power to always break out of that category? Keem Bay is now essentially a long term resident on Instagram so maybe some other places on Achill could benefit from the focus.

Keem of course isn’t the only spot we are all familiar with. So perhaps we might get some pictures of lesser-known places whose stunning setting deserves recognition? Of course, the calendar – and the competition itself – is designed to promote the county to visitors, so there will be a balance to strike between age old favourites and the revelation of undiscovered beauty. Where could the photographer go in our county to get a snap of something so beautiful that would amaze not only because of its magnificence because also because most of its viewers would not have seen it before? In my absolutely biased opinion, there is no shortage of those places in Mayo – and you can consult my extensive back catalogue of articles for proof (and for suggestions).

As well as scenery and landscape, surely some photos that capture the social dynamic of Mayo in 2026 will be among the winners. The same question about whether to capture the well known or the new will surely also apply here. In that sense, will it be pictures that capture the lived dynamic of people who live in Mayo now or will it be pictures that capture a Mayo that was? To illustrate that point, we could have a picture of an elderly couple sitting in front of the turf fire, or we could have one of a busy Pearse Street with pedestrians hurrying along – and walking into another – while looking at their phones.

The Summer category will surely bring some photos of the many events and festivals that fill the calendar at that time of the year. How will the intrepid winner capture a moment in that kaleidoscope of colour that reflects something unique about Mayo in 2026? Will it be the expressions on the faces of those watching on or participating, or will it be something in the displays?

What photos of the natural world would say something about Mayo in 2026? The salmon leaping is an obvious one here though the welcome return of the red squirrel would surely be a winner if caught by the camera in the right pose. A coastal county such as Mayo will surely see our coastline represented and there will be no shortage of options here for those with both insight and an eye. The line between simply depicting the wonder of the natural world and making a point about the need to protect it, if well caught, would surely make for a worthy contender.

Not wishing of course to introduce any controversy into the proceedings, but there may be some borderland issues. Alas, no photos of Enniscrone beach will count. It doesn’t matter how much many of us may feel it is in a sense part of our wider social and cultural domain – Enniscrone is not, strictly speaking, in Mayo. It is fabulous all the same.

But if Ballaghaderreen win the county championship, will a photo of the team bringing the Moclair Cup back to the centre of the town count for inclusion? Like a high hanging ball, I leave that thought there for us to look up at and ponder.

Would a picture from the summit of Devilsmother be suitable, or would you need to confirm and prove you were standing on the Mayo side of the line to see it included? Does a photo of Killary Harbour make the cut? Presumably it does if taken from the Mweelrea side though then the Twelve Bens loom in the horizon. So would it be better taken from the Galway side and thus capturing Mweelrea and the Mayo mountains? And does a picture of some lad holding a ‘Mayo 4 Sam’ sign at the Melbourne Gold Cup or at the Darts at Ally Pally get considered for inclusion?

I leave these delicate jurisdictional matters to the organisers, whose cleverness at coming up with the idea is to be roundly applauded. The full details of the competition can be found at www.mayo.ie/news/tourism-photography-competition. 

Happy snapping!