Don't thank Wordsworth, thank Castlebar Community Clean-up

by Dr. Richard Martin

I was in Dublin during lockdown. Dublin 24.

Four laps of Ballymount Park every day.

We moved over to Belfield after a few months.

I started a course in UCD, but I found the online learning not very stimulating.

I wanted to come home, so I did. And west I then drove.

I stopped in the Applegreen on the way down and got the biggest burger I could find in Burger King. XXL Coke. And Fries.

When you’re leaving do it in style.

For me, it was time to come home. It’s good to get out.

It’s vital to get out. Meet people. Experience life. Get knocked around the ring a bit.

Since 2005 I’d spent most of my time in Galway, England and Spain infrequently.

But when it’s all sliced and diced and weighed up and weighed down Castlebar is a serious town to live in.

We have everything.

Don’t listen to the negativity or the rubbish being parroted out there over the last few years.

The quality of life in our town is as good as anything in the country.

Go and live in Dublin, London or New York.

The only thing that’s free is the air you breathe. For everything else you pay a pretty penny.

The rent is savage. Getting a foothold on the property ladder is impossible.

We have everything at our fingertips and Knock Airport on our doorstep.

No generation has it as good as we do now today in Castlebar.

I've noticed that since Covid a lot of my generation have had the same idea as myself and migrated home to pitch a tent and settle down.

I found Covid difficult. We all did.

I like meeting and socialising with people. The restrictions were difficult but necessary.

Our then government got it right. Tough measures for tough times.

Once I got home and settled, I joined the Castlebar Community Clean-up Group.

I went to the Tidy Towns too. I’d stick my nose into any gap. No harm to give the pot a good stir too.

It’s hard to escape the politics at the best of times even when it comes to planting flowers!

My first morning with the Community Clean-up I met the crew down at Lough Lannagh, grabbed a slash hook and tore into a few briars.

Over a few weeks the group cleared the path right through from the graveyard to the pool. The ‘Upper Deck’, as Blackie Gavin calls it. I worked up a good sweat that morning. Got the pulse moving and had a nice cup of sweet tea after.

I enjoyed it, I must say. Meeting people. Banter. Fun. Jibbing with Blackie.

I decided that morning I’d keep coming back.

Over the last number of years, the group has undertaken various projects across the town.

The stream at Marian Row is a big one. A yearly clean and the crew have it spotless.

I went down one Saturday morning at 10 a.m. I saw Blackie in the stream on his own, hard at it.

‘What time did you arrive here?’ ‘8 a.m.,’ he said.

A while later he broke into a jig. I don’t know how it started. Maybe I was singing a tune. He showed us all how he jives.

The hips moving, hands swinging in rhythm and the water splashing with his wellies on!

They reckon the McWilliam on a Sunday night is the place to be. The best jive in Connaught.

Currently, the group is working hard around the town lake on a biodiversity project.

They are creating bee and bug hotels for the bees and bugs.

Accommodation is free, I hear, for the bees and bugs and the honey is not for sale.

Post Storm Éowyn there are still many dangerous branches that must be removed.

There is also a plan for a new biodiversity area and apple trees adjacent to the small cemetery across the bridge from the car park.

And the group have a daffodil planting programme in place at multiple locations around the town.

For those of us who sometimes wander aimlessly around the lake in deep thought and in a reflective mood searching for serenity and solitude from the tempest of everyday life in silent communion with the still lake, one may on occasion come across a host of golden daffodils beside the lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Don’t thank Wordsworth. Thank the community clean-up.

The group are always looking for extra volunteers.

I can honestly say don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it. Every Saturday morning at 10 a.m. during the winter months and 9 a.m. during the summer months.

You will be made to feel very welcome and you'll be doing something good for the town.