Tidy Towns 2023: Pride of place, a bit of competition, but mostly a festival of community spirit
Mary Kennedy told the crowd in Croke Park for the Tidy Towns awards that the anticipation and atmosphere at the annual event reminds her of Christmas Eve. File picture: Cormac Duffy
There’s a real air of anticipation to the Tidy Towns awards ceremony.
This year’s awards ceremony, the 65th, was the first to be held at GAA headquarters at Croke Park. It saw more than 600 volunteers from the 887 entrant small towns and villages — five more than 12 months previously, and one of the highest numbers in the competition’s history — gathered to cheer on their own and applaud each other’s efforts to make Ireland a prettier place.
A more biodiverse place too — this year’s event put the emphasis heavily on sustainability. Rewilding is as important to Tidy Towns in 2023 as well-assembled window boxes and hanging baskets.
Tidy Towns is big business, particularly in the more rural parts of the country where a beautiful village can really stand out to someone in transit.
There are almost 30,000 volunteers over 1,000 active committees across the country
Throughout the Hogan Suite those in attendance talked happily among themselves amid a crackle of anticipation. They then struggled somewhat to contain their enthusiasm at the request of RTÉ who had to film pickups for Friday night's Tidy Towns special, and needed a silent crowd to do it.
Whoops of encouragement greeted each award winner, while the award for most excitable recipient definitely went to a gentleman from the Abbeyleix contingent, who pumped his fist in delight and shouted to the heavens on the group’s journey to receive their Tidiest Small Town award. And that was even before the Co Laois beauty spot picked up the overall award as Ireland’s Tidiest Town.
Abbeyleix has been named Ireland's Tidiest Town for 2023 - see the Supervalu Tidy Towns Awards on #RTENationwide this evening, Friday 6th October on @RTEOne at 7pm @rte @LaoisHour @AbbeyleixTidy @LaoisToday @LaoisNews @tourism_laois @TidyTownsIre @LaoisCouncil @Midlands103 RT pic.twitter.com/bSywqcOl03
— RTÉ Nationwide (@RTENationwide) October 6, 2023
The collective was also capable of negative emotions — evidenced by the collective intake of breath and hushed moans of unhappiness at the announcement of the Gum Litter Task Force Award.
For Tidy Towns, chewing gum is an abomination of the first order, one would imagine. The joy of the winners, though, is infectious.
Mary Kennedy, the returning MC for the event, told the crowd that the anticipation and atmosphere reminds her of Christmas Eve:
Back to Abbeyleix, which has been competing at Tidy Towns since 1959. Friday saw its first win, and Laois’s second, following on from Castletown in 2002.
“It’s absolutely amazing. It’s a long time coming,” said Abbeyleix Tidy Towns secretary Mary White in the immediate aftermath of the town’s triumph.
“It’s Abbeyleix’s week,” Mary said, citing the fact the town will compete in its first county hurling final since 1947 within days.
“It’s a great credit to our volunteers. People should get involved in Tidy Towns, it’s not just about picking up weeds, there’s great camaraderie. People think it’s all about floral displays, we have long been criticised for our lack of floral displays. It’s all about sustainability and biodiversity,” she said, while extolling the problem-solving nature of being involved in such an endeavour.
“You go over the problem, you come up with the solution and how we can work it together, rather than going to complain,” she said.
For Cork, it was a day of mixed emotions, one win from two with Rosscarbery — last year’s winner for tidiest village — losing out at the last hurdle to Offaly’s Geashill — two of the four main trophies thus going to towns in the midlands.
There was better news for Ballincollig however, which emerged victorious in the Tidiest Urban Centre category over last year’s winner Ennis.
Ballincollig in County Cork has been named as Ireland's Tidiest large urban centre - See the awards from @CrokePark on #RTENationwide Friday 6th October @RTEOne 7pm @TidyTownsIre @CorkHour @BallincolligTT @bcollignews @pure_cork @yaycork @abcassin @DeptRCD @HHumphreysFG @rte RT pic.twitter.com/aaYX22ULV3
— RTÉ Nationwide (@RTENationwide) October 6, 2023
“It’s a fantastic feeling to be honest with you, the work that goes in 52 weeks of the year, by all our volunteers, it’s paid off today,” Tom Butler from the town’s committee said.
What did the award mean for the town in general?
“I think the work that’s been done, the people realise the community element of it and the importance of it,” he said.
“The work that goes in week in, week out shows that Ballincollig is a location that is top class, it’s very convenient to everything around it, and it’s a beautiful place to live in.”
Killarney in neighbouring Kerry meanwhile secured the title of Ireland’s Tidiest Large Town, fending off Westport in Co Mayo — both locations being legendary tourist attractions in their own right and perhaps a little more familiar to the uninitiated than maybe their fellow winners from the midlands.
That comes with its own pressures Kathleen Foley of the Killarney Tidy Towns Committee admitted, with the town having last won the overall award in 2011.
“We’ve been struggling a little bit since then, so this is a great lift for everybody,” she said. “Killarney is a very busy town, and it’s very hard to keep on top of litter. It’s absolutely unbelievable."
There’s a lot more to Tidy Towns than just winning the big gongs of course.
There are countless smaller awards and commendations — from pollination to the circular economy, ‘leave no trace’ (which concerns responsible recreation in the outdoors) to the aforementioned gum litter task force award, with a further new award category added to the roster in 2023 — that of Town Centre First, with Cappoquin, Boyle, and Ballyshannon the inaugural winners.
Most of the awards come with cash prizes of varying sizes for the various participants.
More than €270,000 was distributed to the various winners, runners-up and commendees being honoured on Friday afternoon.
For Clonakilty, which won last year’s Tidiest Small Town category, this year was about consolidation, having maintained its county gold medal standard together with Bantry and Skibbereen.
Returning proudly to the awards is veteran Noreen Minihan (92), who has been involved in the competition since 1978 and picked up last year’s award for Clonakilty.
— “Noreen is 92,” Ms Humphreys says, “she’s some woman for one woman”.
“We’re delighted, we maintained our gold medal standard which was our objective for the day, so that’s fantastic,” says John Hennessy, co-chair of the town’s Tidy Towns committee.
“It’s huge in Clonakilty, we’re well-noted for our community spirit and pride of place. A lot of towns are baffled really at the kind of support we can muster for Tidy Towns. We can have up to 40 or even 50 volunteers on a Tuesday evening, so it’s fantastic.”
Can they go one further again in 2024?
“Well our volunteers are out in numbers on a very regular basis, and that helps us to maintain standards. But our aim and objective is always to go one better and we’ll be setting the bar higher again for next year,” John says.
It’s that kind of occasion, pride of place, a bit of competition, but mostly a fostering of community spirit.
