Pretty County Limerick villages shine bright at Tidy Towns awards

TWO Limerick villages with spectacular natural backdrops shone brightly at this year’s Tidy Towns awards with big increases on their annual marks.

Ardpatrick and Galbally which are nestled under the shadows of the Ballyhoura and Galtee mountain ranges each jumped seven points on last year’s results.

“Having read last year’s report I was wondering how a place could get 47 out of 50 marks, but I quickly discovered why with the beauty of the village floral displays, lovely manicured lawns, young and mature trees,” read the report on Ardpatrick which topped the Category A (Population Under 200) in Limerick with 326 marks.

“We are up seven marks. We got on great - our best score ever,” said a jubilant Pat Casey, chairman of Ardpatrick Community Council/Tidy Towns Committee.

Pat put the good score down to “continuous development”.

“We upgraded Bishop Murphy Park. The adjudication was on July 2. We are a work in progress. The whole place was looking pretty good and we got a great report - very positive. We have about 14 members in the committee - a lot of them were on call for watering during the dry spell. Just to keep everything alive during the drought was a tough one. We have a lovely setting here, surrounded by the Ballyhouras. And we worked hard of course like the other groups,” Pat added.

Pat made the journey to at the 60th SuperValu TidyTowns award ceremony at the Helix in Dublin City University with Ann McGrath, David Meskill, and Catherine Herbert. They made the journey back home on the train and arrived in Ardpatrick before 8pm to a wonderful reception.

“Some of our own people had a table laid out for us in the community centre when we arrived home last night with some nice things and we uncorked a bottle. It was a lovely get together.”

A little further east in the county, the local Tidy Towns committee in Galbally were just as chuffed with their results.

“We are delighted. We jumped seven marks,” said Tim Ryan, chairman of Galbally Tidy Towns committee.

“We focused on the usual features but the other thing we’ve developed is a Men’s Shed. Three of our committee got involved in developing the Men’s Shed. We have the village square as well which is an architectural feature. There is about 15 in the committee. When John Kiely came back to the village with the MacCarthy Cup we were delighted with how well our village looked and our national school is very good to get the green flag,” said Tim.

Adare was once again this year’s County Winner in the competition and  a Silver Medal winner for the second year in a row, scoring  just 11 points below this year’s outright winner, Listowel.

Other areas to achieve high marks in their respective categories across the county and city were Templeglantine, Anglesboro, Broadford, Glin, Woodlawn, Ballysteen, Castleconnell, Kilmallock, Caherdavin, Newcastle West and Limerick City.

Limerick City, Ardpatrick, Galbally, Castleconnell and Newcastle West were each awarded bronze medals in their respective categories.