During the 1990’s Ardglass’s East Beach gained the reputation as the ‘dirtiest beach in Ireland’ thanks to the local fishing industry having a ‘custom and practice’ of dumping rubbish
overboard when approaching port. This rubbish ended up on beaches right along the coast of Lecale.
In the early 2000’s we focussed on ‘blue gloves’ or fishing gloves disposed of into the sea as this type of rubbish could not be disavowed by port authorities in Ardglass.
This campaign went on for years in different guises (see Wild Swimmers) and involved many campaigning groups led by Cadogan Enright.
Finally, the ports authority started to do its job in the 2020’s and this beach is beginning to be one of the cleaner ones in our area.
See the press release for this beach now being recognised as ‘The most cleaned beach in Ireland’.
