The winners of the 2023 Tidy Towns Local Authority Pollinator Award have been announced.
The Pollinator Award is a Special Award which has run since 2016 as part of the annual Supervalu Tidy Towns awards. It is administrated by the local authority Heritage Officer network and the National Biodiversity Data Centre. The aim of the award is to encourage and reward pollinator-friendly actions by Tidy Towns groups in line with the recommendations of the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan. Each winner is awarded a prize of €1,000.
With an overall winner, award for best newcomers, and two winners per region, there are plenty of opportunities for success in this award.
Overall winner for 2023: Raheny Tidy Village Group
Raheny Tidy Village Group in Dublin City are the winners of this year’s Tidy Towns Pollinator Award. The group displayed exceptional work for pollinators in every category – from providing food and shelter to eliminating pesticides. All of their actions are grounded in a deep understanding of their local biodiversity, and a whole-community approach to creating pollinator-friendly habitats.
One of their most impressive activities has been the creation of extensive areas of naturally restored meadows. It might be hard to imagine how this can be done in an urban area like Raheny, but the Tidy Village Group achieved this through collaborating with their local authority and encouraging the community to do the same in their own gardens and businesses. In consultation with Dublin City Council, ‘no mow’ areas were designated around Raheny, and contractors were given maps to show exactly where these areas were. In the churchyard, Pyramidal orchids have appeared for the first time as a result of reduced mowing.
As well as letting wildflowers grow naturally, the group have planted native pollinator-friendly trees (such as Holly, Willow, Blackthorn and Crab apple), all of which will provide a valuable source of nectar for pollinators when they come out of hibernation in the spring.
Much of the group’s success is a result of bringing as many people along as possible. The group have worked tirelessly to raise awareness of biodiversity in the local community. From running a ‘tallest sunflower’ competition to arranging a wildflower walk with a local botanist, and helping local schools buy containers for pollinator-friendly plants and create a biodiversity corridor, they have shown that the best results happen when more people get involved.
The Pollinator Award committee would like to congratulate Raheny Tidy Village group for winning this year’s award, and for showing that even our most urban areas can become a haven for pollinators!
Best Newcomer: Dalkey Tidy Towns
Dalkey Tidy Towns submitted an impressive first application to the Pollinator Award. Their brilliant work for pollinators includes protecting areas of nectar-rich gorse in Sorrento Park and granite stone walls in Dillon’s Park which provide nesting habitats for cavity-nesting bees.
Dalkey has several ‘Slow to Mow’ areas that are managed by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council as long-flowering meadows with a cut once a year. These areas have a border mown around them to show that management is deliberate. To supplement the seeds already in the soil, the group harvest seeds from local wildflowers and sow them on roadside verges. This ensures the wildflowers that appear are as local as possible, and provide the best source of nectar and pollen for the local pollinators, who they have evolved alongside.
The group also carry out pollinator-friendly planting throughout the town. Nectar and pollen rich plants like Crocuses, Lavender, and apple, pear and plum trees all feature in their extensive planting scheme. These flower at different times of year, providing a vital source of food throughout the pollinator lifecycle. On St. Patrick’s Day this year, the group planted a new community orchard with Hillside Resident Association, adding even more fruit trees to the town.
Building on their current work, they plan to create new bee and butterfly corridors, leading to and converging at Sorrento Park and Dillon’s Park. Congratulations to Dalkey Tidy Towns on winning the ‘Best Newcomer’ award this year. After such an impressive first application, we look forward to seeing what you do next!
Regional Pollinator Award winners
Congratulations to all eight winners of the regional awards. Each of these applications was excellent and demonstrated a huge range of actions for biodiversity. Here are all the winners, and the highlights of their work.
Midlands & East
Large Town: Raheny Tidy Village Group, Co. Dublin
Raheny Tidy Village Group are the 2023 regional large town winners for the Midlands & East, as well as the overall winners of the Local Authority Pollinator Award. An overview of their fantastic work can be found at the top of this page.
Small Town: Athboy Tidy Towns, Co. Meath
Athboy Tidy Towns have done excellent work for pollinators. In January of this year they gifted 51 fruit trees to the local community with the help of a biodiversity grant received from the Community Foundation Ireland and the National Parks and Wildlife Service. As an alternative to pesticides, they have purchased a Foamstream machine which is now shared with Meath County Council and other groups in Meath.
North West & West:
Large Town: Buncrana Tidy Towns Initiative, Co. Donegal
Buncrana continues to lead the way for pollinators. They have recently created new ‘rain garden’ beds which are filled with pollinator-friendly plants to tie in with Donegal County Council’s Sustainable Drainage Systems (SUDs) directive. This directive is focused on draining surface water to prevent flooding – a perfect example of how some actions for pollinators can also be part of other environmental solutions.
Small Town: Belmullet Tidy Towns/ Baile Slachtmhar Bhéal an Mhuirthead, Co. Mayo
For many years, Belmullet has been working hard to protect a rare local pollinator – the Great Yellow Bumblebee. In the past year they have propagated Yellow-rattle in St. Brigid’s Orchard, planted native trees in Cnoc an Chrotaigh, and created a beautiful new biodiversity mural ‘Dúlra agus Dúchas’ with artist James Kirwan. In June 2022 the Great Yellow Bumblebee was spotted for the first time in the town farm in the centre of Belmullet, a testament to their extraordinary efforts to enhance the habitats for this rare bee!
South East
Large Town: Clonmel Tidy Towns, Co. Tipperary
Once again Clonmel have been doing impressive work for pollinators. This year, after three years of meetings and consultations, the town has its very first all-town mowing plan. This impressive plan includes details of different reduced mowing schemes around the town, including short-flowering meadows and long-flowering meadows, as well as areas of pollinator-friendly perennials and planters.
Small Town: Tullahought Community Development Ltd., Co. Kilkenny
Tullahought are also familiar faces in this competition, and their work continues to go from strength to strength. This year they created a new Remembrance Garden with pollinator-friendly flowers, and local school children grew sunflowers for the 1916 memorial. Their ongoing collaboration with contractors ensures that the hedgerows around the village are managed using biodiversity-friendly methods, including cutting as late as possible in the season. This allows late-flowering plants like Ivy grow, providing a vital source of nectar when other food is scarce.
South & Mid West
Large Town: Cobh Tidy Towns, Co. Cork
Last year’s winners of the Pollinator Award have kept up their impressive work in 2023. This year, almost all of their container flower displays and those managed by Cork County Council include plants that are beneficial to pollinators, including perennial Geranium, Nepeta, Lobelia, and Dahlia. In February they planted a grove of native, pollinator-friendly Irish trees including Crab apple, Spindle and Willow.
Small Town: Sneem Tidy Towns. Co. Kerry
Sneem Tidy Towns have done amazing work for pollinators, including creating a Wild Garden with the aid of CLÁR funding. The site was chosen to protect existing habitats as a result of the town’s 2020 Biodiversity Feasibility Study, and is now being used to educate the community about biodiversity as well as protecting important pollinator food sources and nesting sites. For the first time this year, all public areas in Sneem took part in No Mow May!
Highly Commended Towns
The quality of applications this year was so good that six further Tidy Towns were highly commended for their work for pollinators. These towns are:
Abbeyleix Tidy Towns
Balbriggan Tidy Towns
Castlegregory Tidy Towns
Skerries Tidy Towns
Tyrrellspass Tidy Towns
Woodford Parish Development
Congratulations to all winners and highly commended groups!
Kate Chandler, Communities & Engagement Pollinator Officer at the National Biodiversity Data Centre said:
“Reading the applications for this year’s Tidy Towns Pollinator Award was truly uplifting. We were blown away by the quality of work taking place in communities across the country to help our struggling wild pollinators. The standard of applications was so high that we decided to acknowledge six further ‘highly commended’ towns, in addition to the nine winners.
Through their hard work, creativity, and leadership, these Tidy Towns have shown that communities of any size can play a crucial role in helping reverse pollinator declines. Many towns have taken the commendable step of reducing mowing to restore meadows naturally, rather than sowing wildflower seed mixes. Others have chosen to plant native hedgerows, or trees in the right places, or pollinator-friendly plants in urban containers. Many have eliminated pesticides – a fantastic achievement that we hope to see continue over the coming years.
Across the island of Ireland, pollinator numbers are still in decline. But we are seeing improvements in local populations where actions are being taken to help them. This is an encouraging sign – it shows that communities can make a real difference to pollinator numbers. Congratulations to all the winners and highly commended groups in this year’s Pollinator Award, and a huge thank you to everyone who applied – from us and the bees!”
On behalf of the Local Authority Pollinator Award committee, we thank the Tidy Towns Unit for the opportunity to administrate this special award alongside the Heritage Officer network. We look forward to supporting the work of communities in the future and would like to congratulate and thank all the winners and applicants for their great work for pollinators.
If you are interested in helping pollinators in your community, take a look at the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan guidelines for community groups. This free document includes evidence-based actions for pollinators to suit every community.