Clough’ up for award

Cloughjordan Village has been shortlisted for the Irish Times 2026 Greenest Places Award. This is great recognition of all the efforts undertaken over the years by local people to celebrate their natural heritage and conserve it for future generations to come.

Eamon Ryan a former Minister for the Environment and leader of the Green Party, is a member of this year’s judging panel. He said they were inspired by the quality and diversity of the environmental projects being undertaken.

“It was extremely difficult in the first instance for us to come up with the longlist and more difficult again to come up with the shortlist. Congratulations to the 11 places, projects and people who have made it on to the shortlist but also to everyone who entered and is doing such valuable work all over the country,” Mr Ryan said.

The shortlisting for the Cloughjordan Community Development Association shows the measurable and positive impact of collective effort and recognises how local community groups and individuals are making a positive difference for a more sustainable future.

Cloughjordan Tidy Towns Group, the local Community Employment Scheme Team, Cloughjordan Parish Heritage Group all play very important collaborative roles in local 'for climate, nature and people' initiatives run under the auspices of the CCDA who have driven nature and climate-enhancing projects in the area for decades.

The Tidy Towns and Community Employment Scheme teams collaborated daily in the enhancement of Cloughjordan's public and community spaces for the benefit of all with pollinator friendly management of village approach roads and seasonal planting projects that brighten up Main Street. The impressive list of local projects listed in the awards summary includes the Community Trails Programme, an award winning collaboration with Coillte Forest at Knockanacree Woodlands a deciduous Old Woodland site on Cloughjordan's Northern edge.

WOODLANDS

Our woodlands are essential for nature and climate, offering multiple benefits. For Carbon Sequestration, our native woodlands naturally absorb CO₂, helping to mitigate climate change. For biodiversity restoration, Knockanacree is being managed for nature and supports an increasing wide range of wildlife, reversing a decline in native habitats in the surrounding landscape. Native woodlands are recognised as powerful natural solutions for addressing climate change and biodiversity loss.

In todays increasingly busy world, for people, places like Knockanacree offer very valuable ‘Green Space’ for visitors to enjoy and spend time in with all the accruing recreational, social and mental health benefits. The CCDA are the community partners in the raised bog restoration programme at Scohaboy SAC to the North of Cloughjordan, a flagship Nature Based Solution project.

After a decade of restoration Scohaboy has become one of Ireland`s most successful 'for climate, nature and people' efforts, involving an award-winning collaboration between community groups, the National Parks and Wildlife Service, Coillte Forest and uniquely in Ireland, 52 private landowners.

Scohaboy Bog is one of the most important sites of it’s kind in the Atlantic region of the EU and today after four major physical works projects where thousands of dams were installed to block old drains along with installation of sixteen kilometers of specialised bunding construction the rewetted cutover areas are now home to an expanding variety of specialised peatland flora and fauna.

With 90% of Scohaboy's 1,500 acres now under conservation and rewetting measures, this ecological gem ten thousand years in formation is being conserved for future generations to benefit from. Peatlands are Ireland's most important carbon stores. Raising the water table on the bog also 'locks in' the peatsoil carbon, a crude estimate of the amount of carbon being stored as a result of the rewetting programme is equivalent to taking all of Cloughjordan's cars off the road.

In recent months, with funding from Community Foundation Ireland, the CCDA engaged an ecologist to carry out a Community Biodiversity Action Plan involving St Michael's and No 1 Primary Schools, Kilruane MacDonaghs GAA and Camoige Club, Cloughjordan Football Club, the faith communities of St Michael's and St John's RC Church, St Kieran's COI and Cloughjordan Methodist Church, with the Tidy Towns Group carrying out wider public consultation sessions.

The CCDA have also opened conservation conversations with local fisherman and the River Basin Management Service regarding the important salmonoid role of the local Ballyfinboy River, a priority for action under River Basin Catchment Planning.

For CCDA Chairperson, Gearóid Ó Foighil, “all of these inspiring and multiple beneficial initiatives under the CCDA involve highly positive collaborations with other local community groups like Tidy Towns and Heritage Group.

“It is local people putting their actions where their mouths are and very much a case of ordinary people doing extraordinary things”.

Fingers crossed for the final scoring!