Mums’ word nets garden two prizes
Trá an Oileán just outside Schull won a Community Tourism award in the Pride of Place All Island competition at the weekend — on top of scooping the Best Social Inclusion Project in the 2011 Muintir na Tíre Pride in Our Community Awards last week.
The three-quarter acre spread of undulating green grass and carefully chosen coastal sea grasses with comfy benches cost €70,000, about €30,000 of which had to be raised by local volunteers.
The community entered the project in the national Pride of Place competition with the support of Cork County Council after a group of mums, who regularly picked rubbish from an adjacent beach, noticed the possibilities of the site.
A group of local people approached Cork County Council and the West Cork Development partnership with a view to turning the site into a garden.
Soon a crew of about 50 people were involved in the project, which was later selected by RTÉ for a programme in which gardening expert Gavin drew up an eye-catching plan. The garden was completed in November 2010, and featured on Diarmuid’s Garden Designs.
“This work is all voluntary so it is very nice to be recognised for what we do in our community. This award, along with the Muintir na Tíre award the previous week, is a great shot in the arm for Schull,” said garden project manager Aileen Maguire.
She described the Pride of Place award as the “greatest accolade you can get for community projects of all kinds”.
The garden was described by judges as “an exemplary tourism initiative”, and a project which was “daunting in scale and in the timeframe for its completion”.
“It is a triumph of design, of the optimum use of scarce resources and of the never say die attitude of a group of people dedicated to its completion. The project was the building of a park to sympathetically enhance the approaches to a seaside town.”
The judges agreed this was achieved “in spades”.
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