And the winner isn't ....

I spent a good part of this afternoon thinking that maybe I should have just forked out for the flight, the dress, the awards ceremony ticket and headed home to Dublin for the Blog Awards Ireland. 

I spent a good part of tonight glued to my phone and then my laptop, barely able to keep up with the #bloggies2015 tweets coming in, telling me who won what and waiting to see the word 'diaspora' pop up somewhere. 

I spent a good part of the last week telling myself I'm not bothered whether I win or not and telling myself I've no chance really anyway. Then thinking maybe I have as much a chance as any of the others. 

My name didn't pop up in any tweets. But one tweet caught my eye and it humbled me a bit

Figures from @BlogAwardsIE

4,000 nominations,

1,400 entries

and 80,000 votes!

Some judges chose me for  the longlist. Then some people thought enough of my blog to vote for me and I made it to the shortlist. Some more judges thought my blog worthy of finalist status. 

From all of that, I made it into the relatively small circle of finalists. That's something to be proud of, isn't it? 

So, so what that I didn't win? I didn't even know there was such as thing as a blog award when I started out. 

Instead of dwelling on what I didn't win, I'm going to be thankful for what I have won in the past nine months - and that is you, my readers. 

Thanks for the votes. 

Thanks for the encouragement. 

Thanks for reading.  

Fionnuala xxx

Post Script:

The evening after I posted the above, I got a lovely e-mail from the Blog Awards Ireland to let me know that I won bronze in the Best Diaspora Blog Category! I am thrilled. Thanks again to all who voted, helping me make it from the shortlist to the longlist, and thanks to the judges too.