DOWN BY THE RIVER
During the lockdown many families enjoyed walking and sitting down by the river and also being able to go swimming. While one woman in particular felt it was a treat to rediscover these beautiful areas around us, she was also very concerned about the amount of litter by the river.
Instead of just talking about it, Mary has decided to actually do something and is organising some lovely events in the coming months. The goals would be to make the areas nicer, increase our connection to the river, have fun by the river, and get together with other people who might be able to encourage more activity along the river.
There will be three small events on the first Saturday of the next three months in three different areas from 10am to noon
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Saturday 4th July along the river and around Inniscarra cemetery
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Saturday 1st August at the Fionn Laoi side of the Regional Park
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Saturday 5th September in the fields by The Anglers
Ballincollig Tidy Towns are delighted with Mary’s initiative and have organized litter pickers, gloves and black bags. They will also collect the filled bags
Saturday 4th July
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Gather at the car park at Inniscarra graveyard at 10am and do a Litter Pick along the river and around Inniscarra cemetery for half an hour
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From 10.30am do a Chalk Art activity for the kids (and adults)
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From 11am join a conversation with Pat O’Callaghan from Inniscarra Historical Association about the cemetery and old abbey
If anyone has questions, they can contact Mary on venables.mary@gmail.com
PLEASE COME OUT AND SUPPORT
NETTLES
Although our everyday came to a halt and we were in lockdown because of the Coronavirus, nature flourished undeterred. We may have noticed one plant in particular growing untouched while out walking over the past number of weeks, the dreaded nettles.
People tend to avoid nettles as they leave you with a nasty tingling sting. But what many don’t realise is just how many butterfly caterpillars depend on these ‘weeds’.
The Small Tortoiseshell, the Peacock and the Red Admiral are to name a few. In the last number of weeks Biodiversity Ireland has received many great photos of the Small Tortoiseshell caterpillars on nettles.
If you have any of these in your garden, or perhaps something similar, email your photos to Biodiversity Ireland at info@biodiversityireland.ie
WORKS BEING UNDERTAKEN
Adrian, one of our CE Workers, tackled the flower bed near Cleburne Mews on Tuesday and the result was well worth the effort.
Work continued on Barry’s Road this week and over the past weekend 3 tonne bags of weeds were removed. This project is ongoing and will take some time to complete.
LITTER PICKS
Although Ballincollig Tidy Towns has not officially restarted, our Volunteers themselves continue to carry out Litter Picks. This week twelve bags were collected. They covered a large area of ground, Classis to Poulavone and also the Regional Park. They were very disheartened to come across a large number of bottles and drink cans once again.
WATER HARVESTING
The government put a hose ban in place and we in Ballincollig Tidy Towns wish to address an issue that was raised this week.
With so many planters in place at various points throughout Ballincollig we use a substantial amount of water each year to keep them watered. In order to be able to carry out this arduous job we designed and built our very own Watering Trailer.
To begin with we were filling the IBC tanks from the mains hydrant with the permission of Cork County Council, but two of our Volunteers came up with a plan to harvest rainwater.
They designed and built a bank of IBC tanks and interlinked them so that we now harvest 13,000 litres of rainwater. We approached Scoil Barra with the idea and from the beginning the rainwater has been harvested from the roof of the school. A second bank has since been put in so that we can now harvest even more rainwater.
So, when you see the watering unit out on the streets of Ballincollig, the water that is being used is the harvested rainwater. With the heavy rain last Saturday, each of the ground tanks and the top tanks were filled, approx. 4,000 litres.
For more information on this and other projects, visit our website on www.ballincolligtidytowns.ie
