Our own Orna Clarke and Lughán Deane (pictured above), beat competition from all over the world to win Silver. They had just 24 hours to respond to a brief to get world-wide engagement on the climate crisis.

This is just the fourth year an Irish public relations team have competed. The Irish team are sponsored by the PRII and the PRCA.

Martina Byrne, CEO, PRII and PRCA congratulated the team and said the win was evidence that Ireland could hold its own in terms of creative responses to international briefs. “Orna and Lughán didn’t just win silver”, she said, “they won silver in the toughest year for competitors, working alone and online rather than in person in Cannes”.

A Consultant at Murray, Orna joined the company’s Corporate and Public Affairs team in 2017 following an internship in Consumer and Brand PR. Lughán worked as a Consultant at Murray and is now pursuing a PhD at DCU School of Communications. He was previously part of the communications unit at Fórsa Trade Union.

The Cannes International Festival of Creativity 2020 was held over until this year due to the pandemic so all of the Irish teams, representing Film, Print, Digital, Media, Design and Marketing as well as PR, had to wait until this summer to compete and, for the first time, compete online. The Institute of Advertising Practitioners in Ireland (IAPI) is the Cannes Festival representative in Ireland and organised the local heats for the seven disciplines. Young PR Lions Gold went to the UK and Bronze to Taiwan.

We were delighted to welcome Orna and Lughán to the Mansion House in Dublin on the occasion of the Awards for Excellence in PR on 25 June, when they were congratulated by PRCA Chairperson Owen Cullen, MPRII; PRII President Padraig McKeon, FPRII and Dr Martina Byrne; they are pictured below in the Mansion House gardens.