THE Shannon Tidy Towns group is planning a significant clean-up of the town on Saturday, beginning at 11am at the bandstand in the Town Park.
Secretary of the group Derek Clune said, “It’s part of the National Spring Clean that happens once a year, and in conjunction with that, we’re having it on April 23.”
Explaining how it will work, Derek added, “What we do is we divide the town into zones. We meet at the Town Park, there’d usually be 40 or 50 people and we distribute them to the different zones.
“You have the Drumgeely side, the centre of the town, the Town Park, the Tullyvarraga end and the Ballycasey side.
“During the week then, obviously not on the Saturday, we bring the schools out, St Caimin’s and the Comp, and we normally do the River Walk with them, which gets them involved as well.
“The Ukrainian people will be coming out as well on the 23rd, so we could have up to 60 people.”
He said it is very important to get one significant clean-up done in the spring.
“Once we get the main bit done we can keep on top of it going forward. The main thing is to get a major clean-up done at this time of year and then it’s only a matter of maintaining it going forward for the rest of the year.
“We have identified a few black spots that need to be dealt with, so we’ll be able to deal with those as well on the Saturday. There’s one area on the Drumgeely side of the River Walk and there’s another area on the main road going into the airport, down from the Drumgeely flats.”
The local Tidy Towns group has been very busy over the last couple of years.
“With Covid it has really become active. A few of our people have gone back to work now, but now that we have the long evenings people who are working during the day will come out for an hour or an hour and a half in the evenings.”
Already in 2022 they have a major programme of tree planting done.
“Since February we got 3,600 native Irish tree saplings planted, we finished last week, they’re all in the ground.
“We had students from the Comp and Caimin’s helping, and a lot of the Ukrainian people came out as well, in a few weeks we got the 3,600 trees planted.”
Both of the secondary schools have had 1,000 each planted on their grounds, with another 1,000 in the Glaise na Rinne/Cluain Airne area and the other 600 in Drumgeely.
While that was a major piece of work, it is only the start, says Derek.
“Over five years we’re hoping to plant 20,000 trees. We have a huge amount of green space in Shannon and we have the areas identified and the Council on board. The plan is there now, it’s just to get the trees in.”
A major project for the Ballycasey roundabout is also planned.
“We’re doing a big project there this year, planting the whole roundabout with pollinator friendly flowers. Hawthorn landscapers are commissioned to do the job so we’re going to do that in May, it’ll cost €10-12,000 to do it.”
The group is also hoping to see residents groups emerging, which would help with the overall effort.
“We want to get more residents associations going, to get people in their own estates involved in keeping them a bit cleaner. That’s something we’re trying to push as well, it’s crucial for a town of our size if you want to progress further in the Tidy Towns competition.
“The days of the Council going in and weeding and litter picking are gone, they don’t do that now.”
Owen Ryan has been a journalist with the Clare Champion since 2007, having previously worked with a number of other publications in Limerick, Cork and Galway. His first book will be published in December 2024.