From tidy towns to tidiest county, Clare Tourist Council urges support

PLANS to increase tourism by making Clare Ireland’s tidiest county were unveiled in Ennis this week.
The proposal is part of the 50th anniversary celebrations for the Clare Tourist Council. It is hoped the county can capitalise on its year-on-year Tidy Towns success and a call has gone out to towns and villages across the county to get involved.

A meeting was held at the Old Ground Hotel on Monday to outline the proposal, and according to Clare Tourist Council PRO Flan Garvey, it was “a great success”.
“The idea behind this,” he explained, “is to get every town and village all over the county organised and involved in making Clare Ireland’s tidiest county. We wanted to find a way to mark our 50th anniversary, something that would make people really enthusiastic and want to get involved and we came up with this. We already present awards to the overall winners of the Tidy Towns in Clare and the area with the best improvement. Clare already has a great record of doing well in the Tidy Towns competition, with Ennis only just behind this year’s overall winning town of Killarney. The idea of making Clare Ireland’s tidiest county is something that could bring a real boost to tourism and to our county’s pride.”
While the national Tidy Towns competition does not have a category for the tidiest county, that hasn’t lessened the enthusiasm of those involved.
“Maybe if we get everybody to get together and make their villages and towns the tidiest in Ireland then maybe they could introduce a category like that. Really, what we are doing is urging towns and villages to get involved in making their places the tidiest and if all the top towns and villages are in Clare, then we’ll certainly be able to say we’re the tidiest in the country, and that would help promote the county to tourists. We want to see every town and village involved, no matter how small,” he said.
Monday’s meeting saw a number of guest speakers outline what is involved in achieving Tidy Towns success. Sharon Meaney of the Clare Volunteer Centre told the meeting her organisation wants to get involved in Tidy Towns and spoke about the importance of  volunteering.
Ciarán Lynch, director of Rural Development at Tipperary Institute spoke about the involvement of local authorities in supporting communities with their Tidy Towns entry. There were also speakers from Killarney, which was awarded the overall title of Ireland’s Tidiest Town this year.
They spoke of their experiences in getting communities, local organisations, businesses and local authorities to work together. Particular tribute was paid to Fr Michael Murphy, who at 86 years of age was an integral part in the Killarney campaign. He has a long record of Tidy Towns success, being instrumental in bringing the title to Sneem and Kenmare also.
At the meeting, there was also a questions and answers session. Mr Garvey added, “The event was a great success. There were people there who had never been involved with Tidy Towns before and they were very enthusiastic about what is being planned. We are hoping that if enough towns and villages get involved then it will be very visible that Clare is Ireland’s tidiest county. The meeting was very positive. There wasn’t a spare seat in the room. It was wonderful to see so many people interested.”
Among the suggestions made by the Clare Tourist Council is that communities may get involved in an ‘adopt’ a road or street scheme. “Through this, members of the community could take care of a certain section of road or street. That way if everybody does a little bit then there won’t be too much to do,” Mr Garvey said.