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 – 19st October 2024!

It was an incredibly busy week and we were overjoyed 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.

Lord Mayor of Cork Cllr. Dan Boyle celebrating the end of community gardens and allotments growing week with all the Cork city and county growers on 18/10/24 – photo by Togher Community Garden

• We formally launched National Allotments and Community Gardens Week with the Cathaoirleach of DLR Cllr. Jim O’Leary at Airfield Estate!

Cathaoirleach of DLR Cllr. Jim O’Leary and attendees at Community Gardens Ireland’s Autumn Gathering at Airfield Estate on 12th October 2024

• Our Autumn Gathering took place on the same day on the 12th of October 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 Funds 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 8 videos of gardens all over Ireland to showcase these amazing spaces:
  • An Gairdín Beo in Carlow Town
  • Merlin Woods Community Garden in Galway City
  • Blackpool Social Gardening Group, Cork City
  • Togher Community Garden, Cork City
  • Mud Island Community Garden, Dublin City
  • Taplin’s Fields, Dublin City
  • Cloughmills Community Action Team, Ballymena
  • Salthill Community Garden, Galway City

• We loved seeing and watching so many gardens highlighted in local media and in the national media. 

Volunteer gardeners at the Walled Garden at Russborough, Blessington, Co. Wicklow on 19/10/24

• 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.

This is just a flavour of what happened during National Allotments and Community Gardens Week 2024! We hope to run this again in 2025 and in future years.

If you enjoyed #NationalAllotmentsWeek #NationalCommunityGardensWeek or had any feedback on the event, please let us know by emailing us at info@cgireland.org and also consider donating here.

Thank you – from all the volunteers at Community Gardens Ireland.