AN IRISH woman in Leicester is among 11 Britain-based bloggers nominated for an inaugural Diaspora blogging award in Ireland.
Lynda Callaghan’s website, The Irish in Leicester, has been nominated for the Best Blog of the Diaspora award from Blog Awards Ireland 2013.
The 56-year-old education consultant said: “I know that the families of the individual people that I cover on the blog check it out. But I do not know whether other people with Irish heritage are reading it and that is something I want to achieve now.”
Ms Callaghan has run the blog, which covers the history of Irish people who migrated to the East Midlands city, since February of last year.
Saying she was “thrilled” to be nominated for the award, which is sponsored by Irish language television channel TG4, she added: “This gives validation to what I have been doing. It is also great that the blog is getting recognition outside of Leicester.
"You never know who is visiting the website. You throw the blog out there and hope that it meets somebody’s needs.”
The Irish in Leicester is joined on the 64-strong longlist for the award by 10 other blogs written by people living in Britain.
Among them is food blog Cuisine Genie, written by Laoise Casey, which includes original recipes and witty stories from Ms Casey’s time at London’s Leiths School of Food and Wine.
Other nominees include Coping with the Big C, Becki McGuinness’ honest account of her battle with cancer.
They will find out on September 8 whether they have made it onto the award’s shortlist.
