This Valentine’s Day, An Taisce’s Clean Coasts Programme invites Irish photographers to fall in love with the coast with the return of the Love Your Coast photography competition for 2026. To mark the launch of this year’s competition, Clean Coasts recently visited Coliemore Harbour in Dalkey for a special promotional photoshoot with the 2025 Love Your Coast overall winner, Maria Quigley.

Joined by Bobby Gordon, the subject of her winning image, Maria revisited the very location where her standout photograph was captured a year prior, a place that perfectly embodies the connection between people and the coast. Set against the familiar backdrop of the harbour, the shoot reflected on the lasting impact of that winning moment, highlighting how a single photograph can tell a powerful story about place, community, relationships and responsibility.

Now in its 17th year, the Love Your Coast competition continues to attract hundreds of photographers from across the country. This year, we have aligned the competition with Valentine’s Day once again to inspire photographers to truly fall in love with the coast and capture its breathtaking beauty, character, and the reasons it is so deserving of care and protection.

Maria Quigley, overall winner of last year’s Love Your Coast Photography Competition, pictured with Bobby Gordon, holding her winning photograph Embrace the Water, featuring Bobby swimming at Coliemore Harbour, Dalkey. In the background Liane Costello (Clean Coasts) and Róisín Fitzgerald (Clean Coasts).

This year, Clean Coasts encourages photographers to consider the theme of Impact when they take to the coast to snap their photos, as the lens through which they explore the ever-evolving relationship between people, nature, and the coast. The theme invites reflection on both the positive and negative ways our oceans, waterways, and shorelines are shaped by human activities and natural forces, and how these environments, in turn, can impact our lives, wellbeing, and communities. From conservation and care to pollution and climate pressures, we’re encouraging photographers to capture how these vital blue spaces are impacted by our actions, and how time spent along the coast impacts those who visit them.

Offering an overall prize fund of €5000 for category winners, Love Your Coast offers photographers the opportunity to showcase their talent across five distinct areas. Each of these categories highlights different aspects of Ireland’s coastal environment, celebrating our unique coastline. From tranquil waves, dramatic cliffs, and golden sands to vibrant coastal communities, diverse marine wildlife, and rich heritage, each category offers a chance to showcase the beauty and significance of the Irish coast:

Coastal Landscape
People and the Coast
Source to Sea
Wildlife and the Coast
Underwater

These categories invite photographers to capture the diverse and breathtaking elements of Ireland’s coastline, celebrating its natural wonders and the vital connection between people and the sea, taken within the last 24 months.

To support participants, Clean Coasts will provide helpful resources and guidelines for photographers to optimise their skills and submissions. This includes a detailed guide with tips from the competition judges and information on each category which will be published on our website in the coming weeks. Entries open on Valentine’s Day, February 14th 2026, and close on May 15th 2026.

For more information about Love Your Coast and to submit your entries, please visit https://cleancoasts.org/our-initiatives/love-your-coast/