Tidy Towns; Newsletter Spring / Summer 2020

Welcome to the Spring / Summer Edition of our Tidy Towns Newsletter.

Winter has come and gone with a bang. We came into spring with a virus (Covid19).Due to this there will be no Tidytowns Competition this year 2020. We were able to carry on with some new projects for our village. A lot of work was done while adhering to the Government guideline on physical distancing. Covid - 19 is a virus that has affected all parts of the world, and here in Ireland we had to face up to the challenges that this virus has brought to our country. We had to make changes as to how we interact with our friends, neighbours and our families. Our frontline services met the challenge with great dignity, professionalism and I would use the word heroism. We owe our (Frontline workers) and all their families a lot of gratitude for the sacrifices that they have made and continue to make.

Last year the adjudicator commented on the lack of heritage information about our village, so we had the above plaques printed, you will see them in various places throughout the village so please take the time to have a little read.

The Covid - 19 virus has tested our country and people over the last 2 months. With movement restrictions throughout the country and our over-70s asked to stay at home, it was hard but as a nation we did it. A lot of our frontline staff were put under a lot of pressure and to show our appreciation we have decided to dedicate this natural stone flower bed structure to them this is work in progress and we hope to have it all cleaned up by the end of the summer. This will be a reminder to future generations of this pandemic that effected all our communities and how important all our services are in time need. This structure was built by Fergus Corrigan and the field stone was collected by John Sheridan.

The railings around some of the older trees in the village are a protected structure but they have been neglected over the last couple of years and they are in need of some repair work. So we decided to paint them. After some consultation with residents the view was that a bright colour would be nice we decided on the colour (Turquoise) we cleaned around the bottom of the trees and put a stone border down. This work is ongoing and we hope to have it finished by the end of the summer.

Our community garden is coming along very nicely now. The Polytunnel is a great help and there is lots of activity here. As you can see there are lots of flowers, vegetables’ and fruits growing here. We have also put flowers into our hanging baskets and we hope that they will be ready soon to put out into the village. The Polytunnel is well used and we are very happy that this was a good investment. A big thank you to all plot owners who take a great interest in the garden. We still have plots available so if you would like to take one please drop around and have a chat or you can contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

This was a project that was taken on by Janine & Christy Bartley. A lot of time went into cleaning, removing the old paint and sanding down the pump. As you can see the black and gold highlights the pump’s features a great job done. Janine is part of the steering committee and it’s great to see that the community can get involved with projects while observing physical distancing.

Last year we did a lot of work here, we put in new rose beds and a new wheelchair accessible picnic bench. This year we did a bit more work we put in new boarders around the rose beds. We contacted Westmeath County Council to see if they could clean up the field at the back of the homes. As you can see the council ware very helpful they did a lot of work here and we appreciate the attention that they gave to this area.

We laid out this small hedge maze in February 2020. We planted 400 different types of hedges. This project was partially funded by Westmeath county council, Community Environment Action Fund. This is now starting to take shape and we hope in another year or two it will be fully mature.

We re- entered the tidytowns competition in 2018 and we have achieved a lot. A lot of hard work has taken place since then and we are very proud of this. We were 1 point short last year for best improved village and I am sure we would have achieved it this year. But due to Covid -19 we will have to wait until next year to try and achieve this. On behalf of the committee I would like to thank all of you who supported us and to all our sponsors and to Westmeath County Council for all their help with work carried out in our village.

On behalf of the committee

Secretary

John Wilson.