End of Year Report by Community Gardens Ireland – 2024
Posted on: 09/01/2025
Collage of some activities by Community Gardens Ireland in 2024!
It’s been another incredibly busy 12 months for all of us at Community Gardens Ireland! All committee members of Community Gardens Ireland are volunteers who work together to progress the need for more allotments and community gardens throughout the island of Ireland.
Here are some of the highlights:
1) AGM & Spring Virtual Gathering, March 2024
In March 2024 we held a joint online gathering with Social Farms & Gardens Northern Ireland (SFGNI) and Community Gardens Ireland (CGI). The event was hugely successful with over 215 people registering for the event.
These online gatherings started during Covid-19 and the numbers show how much of a success it has become – in 2022, 62 people registered for this event. In 2023, it more than doubled to 149. For 2024’s event, 216 people registered to attend. This is now the largest annual gathering of community growers on the island of Ireland.
The theme for 2024 was Food Education and CGI and SFGNI were keen to highlight the positive elements of local community food production and how it helps communities learn about ways to come together through food.
Presenters included the Edible Landscape Project in Westport, Co. Mayo, Louth Urban Food Sanctuary, Scoil Bernadette in Cork, Holy Family Primary School in Omagh, Patricia Wallace from SFGNI, Dónal McCormack from CGI, Marc Ó Cathasaigh TD with an update to the Community Gardens Bill, and Hans Zomer from Global Action Plan! More details of the event are available in the news article here.
One of the most exciting developments from SFGNI’s work is how Belfast City Council have recently adopted a Right to Grow in 2023 – which is the first local authority in Ireland to do so. This is such an important step for communities, especially given the current lack of requirements on local authorities to provide allotments or community gardens where demand is present.
2) Consultations Contributed to in 2024
Community Gardens Ireland have a history of contributing positively to public consultations by making well researched and considered submissions. Since 2021, we have made over 100 and some of our submissions in 2024 include the following:
- Sustainable Development Goals Champions Application
- Numerous submissions to Local Area Plans
- Submission to National Adaptation Strategy 2024
- All-Ireland Pollinator Plan Yearly Supporter Review
- Submission to Environment and Climate Action Committee on Sustainable Development Goals
- Digital Town Awards – Finalist for Community Gardens Ireland and Maeve Foreman (finalist for Digital Hero)
- Presentation in February 2024 to Space for Food discussion, Arklow
- Various Parliamentary Questions in relation to promised guidance document to be issued for allotments and community gardens in Ireland
3) Legislation Updates in 2024 – Community Gardens are now defined in law!
In October 2024, we welcomed the news that community gardens were to be defined in law for the first time.
This came about from years of advocacy work, submissions to public consultations, Oireachtas Committee presentations, meetings with government ministers, and more!
A huge thank you to everyone who contributed to this change to define community gardens for the first time.
4) Local, European and General Election Campaigns
In 2024, we launched our separate Local, European and General Election campaigns. Each of these campaigns sought to improve the provision of allotments and community gardens at a local, European and nationwide level.
We will continue to progress the implementation of these with all those elected.
5) Community Gardens Ireland @ Electric Picnic
We returned to Global Green at Electric Picnic this year. Dee Sewell, Conor O’Kane, Ellie Donovan, Maeve Foreman, Miren Samper and Molly Garvey from the Community Gardens Ireland committee along with other volunteers organised an amazing pop-up community garden & gave advice to interested growers from all over Ireland.
The team also contributed to talks held at Global Green!
More details here: https://cgireland.org/creating-a-community-garden-in-global-green-at-electric-picnic-2024/
6) Community Gardens Ireland Autumn Gathering at Airfield, Dublin – 12th October 2024
In October 2024 we held our yearly in-person gathering at Airfield in Dublin!
The Cathaoirleach of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Cllr Jim O’Leary joined members of Community Gardens Ireland (CGI) at Airfield Estate on Saturday 12th October 2024, to officially launch the second ever National Allotments and Community Gardens Week.
Over 50 gardening enthusiasts from all over Ireland attended the launch which was part of CGI’s Autumn Gathering of Community Growers. The event was co-funded by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, Ireland’s Cohesion Policy Fund and supported by Airfield Estate.
A huge thank to you all the speakers, attendees, the Cathaoirleach of Dún Laoighaire-Rathdown County Council, and everyone for helping to make this one of the largest gatherings we have seen.
More details of the event is detailed here.
7) National Allotments & Community Gardens Week: 12th – 19th October 2024
A huge thank you to all the community groups all over the country who took part in the second ever National Allotments and Community Gardens Week 12th – 19th October 2024! It was an incredibly busy week and we were overjoyed as always to see so many community-led initiatives be highlighted over the week.
Here are some highlights:
- Community gardens are now defined in law for the first time! This follows years of discussions, presentations and meetings held between Community Gardens Ireland, Oireachtas Members, and the Government to get a definition added to the Planning Law. More work is required but this should lead to local authorities planning and facilitating more of these key community spaces in communities across Ireland. More details here.
- There were approximately 30 community-led events taking place all over the country during the week! More details on the events that took place are here.
- We formally launched National Allotments and Community Gardens Week with the Cathaoirleach of DLR Cllr. Jim O’Leary at Airfield Estate on 12th October!
- Our Autumn Gathering took place on the same day in Airfield Estate. The day was busy and included a few presentations, a panel discussion about #HealthySoil, lunch and then tours of Airfield Estate. The day was exceptional and thank you to Airfield, Dún-Laoghaire Rathdown County Council and the EU Irish Cohesion Policy Fund for your support on the day! More details of the day are here.
- Our 2024 theme for National Allotments and Community Gardens week was #HealthySoil and we loved to see so many gardens post images and videos of their growing spaces, composting areas and how they are promoting healthy soil over the week – thank you again!
- We promoted eight videos of gardens all over Ireland to showcase these amazing spaces:
- We loved seeing and watching so many gardens highlighted in local media and in the national media.
- We continued to highlight our GROW2030 General Election manifesto, which calls on all politicians to commit to provide a space to grow for every community in Ireland by the end of this decade.
8) All-Ireland Pollinator Plan 2024 Annual Review
We recently gave an update on the work we have completed as part of the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan 2024 Annual Review. We are proud of our work supporting the Plan at an All-Ireland level, and can point to activities we have completed this year such as seed sharing at events and climate change / biodiversity loss consultations we have contributed to.
Details of our update are available on the AIPP website here.
9) Radio, TV & Newspaper Publicity
In 2024 we were successful in getting a number of press releases printed in local and national media and interviews on the radio. The following are a list of our press releases and actions printed in the media / on the radio in 2024:
- Donal Hickey: Urban allotments and community gardens growing in popularity – Irish Examiner, October 2024
- Wicklow man helps launch National Allotments Week, Wicklow People, October 2024
- Good news for community gardens in Kilkenny – recognised in law for first time, Kilkenny People, October 2024
- Community gardens defined in law for first time – Wicklow People, October 2024
- Wicklow communities urged to take part in national allotments week, Wicklow People, September 2024
- Community Gardens Ireland Autumn Gathering at Airfield, Airfield.ie, September 2024
- GROW2030 General Election Manifesto – Wheel.ie, September 2024
- Community growers highlight ‘urgent’ need for enhanced policies, Agriland.ie, March 2024
- Urban Agriculture Article from Sylvia Thompson, Safefood.net, August 2024
10) Supporting new and existing gardens
Our team of volunteers continued to help supporting new and existing gardens by answering queries, helping to set up new gardens, providing support for existing gardens, information about school gardens, insurance details and sources of funding.
Direct Correspondence:
Our team of volunteers helped with queries or advice from all over the island of Ireland for the setting up of new gardens and help with existing community growing initiatives. These queries were by email, on our Facebook group, by Facebook messenger, or in person at our gatherings!
Map:
Since 1st Jan 2024, 23 new gardens have joined the CGI network and are now up on the CGI map on our website. We also helped promote new gardens on our social media that contacted us. Is your community growing space on our map yet?
Social Media:
Facebook – our Facebook page has grown to 5,200 followers, with there being 4,400 members on our Facebook group.
Twitter – our following on Twitter is at over 2,400 followers.
Instagram – we continued to grow our followers on Instagram and now have over 1,100 followers. This account was reactivated in 2023.
Website – we continued to grow the number of visitors to our website with 2024 recording the highlight number of visitors since it went live in 2015, with October 2024 being the biggest month (National Allotments and Community Gardens Week), shortly followed by February 2024.
If you have a query, get in contact at info@cgireland.org or check out our Facebook and Twitter accounts!
11) 2024/2025 committee members
Our committee for 2024/25 includes the following volunteers:
- Maeve Foreman – Mud Island Community Garden, North East Inner City (NEIC), Dublin 3
- Claire Lyons – Cherry Orchard Community Garden, Dublin 10
- Dónal McCormack – Blessington Allotments, Wicklow (co-Chairperson & Policy Officer)
- Conor O’Kane – Social Farms and Gardens Northern Ireland
- Órlaigh Sally – Co. Tyrone therapeutic horticulture teacher and Community Gardener (Treasurer)
- Miren-Maialen Samper – Bloomin Crumlin Allotment / Community Garden
- Justyna Traore – Top of the City Community Garden, Waterford
- Maria Young – Green Spaces for Health, Cork
- Dympna McNamee – Community Gardener, Tyrone
- Adrian O’Connor – Community Gardener, Tipperary
- Jenny Lyons – Urban Agriculture Researcher, MA Gastronomy and Food Studies, TU Dublin (Secretary)
- Ray Harte – Men’s Sheds Portlaoise Community Garden & Graham-Haslam-Whelan Community Garden
- Molly Garvey – Co. Cork and Community Gardener (co-Chairperson)
- Dee Sewell – Environmental Awareness Officer at Carlow County Council
Thank you to our committee members for everything in 2024!
In 2024, we also noted that longtime supporters Justyna Traore and Ellie Donovan stepped down from the Community Gardens Ireland Committee in 2024. A huge thanks to both Justyna and Ellie for your help and contributions over the years!
12) What’s next in 2025?
We will continue to work with the new government to push for guidance documents to be issued for allotments and community gardens, and for further improvements for a community growing law in Ireland. We will also work with other organisations to help pursue our goals.
We will be hosting an online gathering in early March – keep an eye on our social media for details about this!
Community Gardens Ireland is a purely volunteer-led organisation. If you are a community grower and want to get involved or want to find out more, get in contact at info@cgireland.org or check out our Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Check out the Community Gardens map of Ireland – is your local garden on it? If not, see here to add it!
Posted 09/01/25 by Dónal McCormack. Photo credits: Maeve Foreman, Áine Budds, Miren-Maialen Samper, Dónal McCormack, Ellie Donovan, Dee Sewell, Justyna Traore. For any omissions on this list or questions on anything above, email us at info@cgireland.org.