Well now, we weren’t expecting that!

What a fabulous way to start winding down a massive 2015 for GoldenPlec. We’ve been showcasing our brand new look, functionalities and creating awesome feature content all year long promoting what we love – awesome Irish music. We launched our first print magazine and thanks to some fantastic advertisers are able to put that in our readers hands free of charge. Which is just how we like it.

So with all the hard work we put in, we try not to miss a beat when it comes to seeing the great stuff our peers are doing at other sites, including the winner of the last 2 years Nialler9, previous winners of the Web Award State.ie, The Thin Air, Dublin Concerts, The Last Mixed Tape, Thumped, The Ultimate Playlist and 7BillionPeople. What a finalist list to be competing against making winning all the more amazing for us. We’re thoroughly delighted and as I said on stage on the night, any one of the finalists would have been worthy winners, Irish music isn’t just in rude health, it’s littered with groups of people who tirelessly give up their free time to promote and help Irish acts and share big music news.

We’re thrilled to have taken the title of Best Music Site for the 3rd time in Web Awards history, putting us level with the incredible Niall Byrne (Nialler9). We can’t quite believe it, we’ve worked hard but so have our contemporaries and it means so much to us to have come out on top for a third time.

I have to thank the entire GoldenPlec team, our tireless Photo Editor Kieran Frost, our monthly-gig-guru and Plec Picks orchestrator Ros Madigan, our magazine editors Stephen Byrne and James Hendicott. Our amazing editor team, Debbie Hickey, Tara Thomas (Photos) and Niall Swan, Sean Noone, Justin McDaid, Anna Job, Greg Synnott, Vanessa Monaghan, Alice Goodwin, Bernard O’Rourke and Frank Hughes. Our writing and photography teams that just LOVE music through and through and are the guys lining the pits and crowds of live shows, creating amazing feature content and interviewing artists of all sizes particularly the amazing Irish artists we meet all the time.

This is another kick for us to keep up our hard work and progress further next year as we know everyone in our category will be working equally as hard supporting Irish music. I can only thank them because they drive us to continue to better ourselves each year.

We look forward to Web Awards 2016 in Lisbon!

Aidan Cuffe – Editor-in-Chief