Christmas in Cloughjordan
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RIGHT: Cloughjordan CES Christmas Lights Team, rom left: Joe Carney, Liam Brady, Donal Shelly, Seamus Brady, Andrew Brennan, John O’Dywer, Willie Brennan, Jessica Cahalan (CES Supervisor), Roisín Costello (CCDA/Tidy Towns), Tommy Rohan (Electrical Contractor), Matt the Man.Image 2 of 2
Roisín Costello and Tommy Rohan with the Christmas Market schedule. Photos: Gearóid Ó FoighilCloughjordan is good to go with its annual Christmas Market and Lighting Up event on Saturday, December 6. An annual favourite, the market takes place each year in St Kieran’s Hall, attracting a wide range of stalls and offerings. The market day will kick off at 12 noon and run until 6pm and along with the stalls during the afternoon there will be a variety of happenings to entertain everyone. There will be live music by the Christmas tree after 1pm, children’s storytelling at 3pm and The Mellow Tones Choir will perform some festive favourites at 4pm. Events then move out to Main Street where at 5pm there will be a tractor lights parade with a very special guest, Samba drumming performance and the switching on of Cloughjordan’s Christmas Lights by Gretta Williams.
As part of the Cloughjordan Shop Local campaign, local retailers will be open, offering seasonal and festive products and treats for the family this Christmas. Though a small commercial centre, Cloughjordan has a proud business tradition and local businesses and suppliers have much to offer by way of products and services. Local spending boosts the local economy. It supports locally-sourced goods, services and most importantly, wages! Local shopping directly supports the livelihoods of your neighbours and friends. Each small business adds character to our villages.
They can offer one-of-a-kind shop fronts, products, goods and services that are not usually common to the larger international brands adding to the distinctive character of the area. This can help draw in other shoppers and indeed tourists. If we do not support our local shops and businesses that make our smaller places unique there will be little point bemoaning their passing when it’s too late. According to the Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association (ISME), every €10 spent on Irish products, generates more than €40 of benefit to local communities, by switching just one tenth of our ‘imported shopping’ to Irish produced goods it would shift the balance in favour of local producers, manufacturers and retailers.
The Cloughjordan Community Development Association are indebted to the operatives of Cloughjordan CES who have been doing trojan work this past week putting up the village Christmas trees and main street-lights for all to enjoy. A thank you also to Tipperary County Council for their support under the Christmas Retail Support Programme.