Cork community gardens to be highlighted at national event 

Denise Cahill will tell Safefood event about the work of 25 community food-growing projects in Cork

Beds at The Glen Community Garden in Cork. one of the 25 community food-growing projects in the city being highlighted at today's event in Dublin. File picture: Larry Cummins

The success of community gardens in Cork City, which grow vegetables, supply food boxes, and tackle river pollution, will be highlighted at an event in Dublin today by Safefood, the all-island implementation body for healthy eating initiatives.

The event is part of a national Talk About Food campaign, which looks at how food is displayed in supermarkets, grown, transported, and other issues with local community groups. 

Denise Cahill, co-ordinator of the Healthy Cities initiative for Cork City for the last 13 years, said she has seen a spike in interest in locally grown food since the pandemic.

“Cork is being seen as a city that’s leading in this space because we’ve a very grassroots movement. There’s huge interest in food growing in Cork,” she said.

There are 25 community food-growing projects in the city.

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Cork's Healthy Cities initiative co-ordinator Denise Cahill will make a presentation at today's Talk About Food event in Dublin organised by Safefood. File picture: Darragh Kane

Ms Cahill added: “In the Glen, there’s an amazing community garden that’s tied in with projects around the Glen Resource Centre. 

They trialled growing food and doing food boxes for the local community, trying to really get people involved.

She will tell the Safefood event about an “amazing garden” in Togher, which is part of the local public park.

She said: “The Healthy Cities staff would have acted as a conduit to the city council to ask, ‘Can we have some space to grow food?’

"That was an experiment and it went so well that there’s now a whole load of projects coming out of it.”

Healthy Cities also cleaning up a river

Councillor Tony FItzgerald and WHO members Philip Chvatal; Kira Fortune; Maria Young, Greenspaces; Yannick Nadesan, France; Ingvill Dalseg, Norway; and Tsering Kalden with Denise Cahill of Cork Healthy Cities, at the community garden in Clashduv Park, Cork, in 2023. Picture: David Keane.

The Healthy Cities group also supports a maintenance project to clean up a “toxic” river.

Ms Cahill’s presentation is part of the opening of a Safefood exhibition called Appetite for Change. 

It includes 24 illustrations by Steve Doogan, which look at the difference between what communities want and what they actually have.

Safefood carried out a series of workshops around the country, which found that people want streets with local grocers and butchers rather than being forced to shop at large-scale supermarkets.

The workshops also heard calls for stricter regulation on marketing to children and changes to supermarket layouts so healthy food is more visible.

Carla Pittam and other volunteers at St Luke's Community Garden, one of 23 recipients in 2024 of funding under Cork City Council’s Community Climate Action Fund. Picture: Michael O'Sullivan

Safefood chief executive Joanne Uí Chrualaoich said: “Our food environment is everything around us, from the shops on our high street to the digital ads on our phones, and currently it means making a healthy choice is often much harder to make.”

The illustrations show that people “want a system that supports their health rather than working against it, with more affordable, accessible, healthy food for everyone”.

The exhibition is taking place at Chartered Accountants Ireland House on Pearse St, Dublin.

• Niamh Griffin, Health Correspondent