A Place to Love and to Care For – Skerries as an Eco Town

Skerries is a wonderful place to live in, and it offers so many ways in which you can get active for the environment, for biodiversity, for climate action.

Some of the things that all of us can do:

• Fruit trees: Plant some, or get involved in Skerries Open Orchards Project
• Plant flowers for bees (householders’ pollinator friendly gardens) – even a balcony can make a difference!
• Water: Let’s keep our beaches and streams clean and in good shape as habitats
• Reuse, reduce… Do you have a Keep Cup? (Skerries Tidy Towns are working with local coffee shops – ask for money off when you bring yours!) Do you bring a shopping bag? Every little helps!
• Water: Rain water management / rain gardens are becoming a thing. Watch this space for more information!
• Solar panels on houses are becoming the norm. Can your roof supply you with electricity? Check in with the Skerries Sustainable Energy Community Initiative!
• Litter pickers: Pick as you go and keep our town tidy – or join Skerries Tidy Towns Adopt-A-Patch and commit to doing so regularly.
• Grow some food! Have fruit & veg in your back garden, or on the balcony. Get an allotment. Join the fun at the Skerries Mills Community Garden.
• Bikes: Ride them! And join Skerries Cycling Initiative to make it safer to do so.
• Observe nature: Birdwatch Ireland are very strong in Skerries.
• Become part of the change with these actions – they all add up, pick what speaks to you most! And if you want to help change things even more, become part of Sustainable Skerries and participate in relevant consultations at national and county level.

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See you around!

Pride of Place 2024

We have been nominated by Fingal County Council to be “their” nominee in the Climate Action and Biodiversity Category of the 2024 IBP Pride of Place awards. A great honour!

From the Pride of Place web site:

The competition focus is about people coming together to shape, change and improve daily lives in their communities. Since the competition commenced in 2003, it has impacted on hundreds of thousands of people, all of whom are proud of their place. The competition is based on communities demonstrating directly to the judges their pride in their place by oral presentations where they highlight community activities, culture and many other aspects that contribute to their pride of place. It is also important that the community demonstrates a real partnership with their local authority and shows that all sectors of the community are included.

On the afternoon of Monday 2 September, judges will come and visit us, eager to see what it is that we are so proud of – in the climate action and biodiversity area especially. We are calling it the Skerries Sustainability Ripple Effect and hope that many people all over Skerries (as well as from the many departments of Fingal County Council which support us in so many ways) will join us “on location” (there’ll be a whistle-stop tour with site visits throughout our town) and for refreshments at the end. Details tbc, come back to this page!

This is what it says in the judges’ booklet. Let’s live up to it!

Fifteen years ago, Sustainable Skerries was established by the Skerries Community Association to make this Fingal seaside town as resilient and sustainable as possible. This very active committee has been doing so together with many other groups, and over time, a “Skerries Sustainability Ripple Effect” has developed. 12 mini orchards, planted and tended by locals, offer people and pollinators food. A pollinator corridor, following their Pollinator Action Plan, takes in nearly all Skerries. Annual Bee Festivals highlight eco-friendly practices, and the Skerries Eco Festival (27-29 September 2024) brings together many groups to celebrate and spread climate-action and biodiversity awareness. Sustainable Skerries work closely with Fingal County Council, especially the Community, Operations, Biodiversity and Environmental Awareness Departments. The work of Sustainable Skerries has resulted in the creation of Skerries Allotments, Skerries Mills Community Garden, and Skerries Sustainable Energy Community Initiative, and influenced too many other groups to list. A visit to Skerries would give some idea, or their website, sustainableskerries.com.