The overall winners of the 2025 Forest Photo Competition received their prizes this week at the 2025 National Ploughing Championships.

The competition, which is run by Teagasc and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, was themed 'Trees in our Lives' and featured three themes and incorporated both adult and junior categories.

Each theme winner was chosen by a panel of judges and the final selection in each age category was by popular choice.

The prizes were handed out on the day by Minister of State for forestry Michael Healy-Rae.

The overall winner in the adult category was Richard Duff from Portlaoise, Co. Laois.

Richard has had a keen interest in wildlife for many years, and his photo of a male great spotted woodpecker in Tomnafinogue Wood in Co. Wicklow highlighted "the great biodiversity and habitat value of forests and trees".

Richard has set up wildlife hides on his farm in Ballyfin, facilitating the capture of a variety of wildlife images in natural rural settings.

He received a voucher of €600 as both category and overall winner in the adult section of the competition.

In the junior category, the winner was Kendrick Urquhart from Sligo. Kendrick’s winning image featured a family of geese on the waters of Clare Lake in Claremorris, Co. Mayo.

Kendrick received a voucher of €300 as both category winner and overall winner of the junior section.

Commenting on competition and successful photos, Minister Healy-Rae said: "I would like to sincerely thank the hundreds of competition entrants for highlighting such excellent examples of the many roles forests play in all our lives.

"I would also like to thank [the] department and Teagasc for their important work in promoting and celebrating the variety of themes in this year’s forest photo competition. They clearly reflect the excellent supports available to farmers and landowners within our current Forestry Programme," Minister Healy-Rae added.

Tom Houlihan, acting head of the Teagasc forestry department, said: "We sincerely thank all participants who submitted high quality photographs to our 2025 competition.

"I would like to thank the minister and his department for sponsoring the competition prizes and the judging panel who had such a challenging task in selecting the winners in each theme," Houlihan added.