National Community Day to be held next May bank holiday
At the Ploughing Championships today in Offaly, the Minister Rural and Community Development, Michael Ring, launched National Community Day, to be held for the first time on May Bank Holiday weekend 2019. Minister Ring has urged local communities to come up with ideas for events in their areas.
“National Community Day is a celebration of the great spirit of community that exists throughout the country and an effort to facilitate people who share communities to get together, get to know each other and deepen the sense of community in their area," he stated.
“Events will take place over the course of the May Bank Holiday weekend (4-6 May) 2019. The days will be getting longer and the summer will be just upon us.
“I invite people throughout the country to begin thinking about how they can help make National Community Day events a success for their local community.
“The success of this initiative lies in having local communities decide what events are most appropriate for their area. National Community Day belongs to everyone. We don’t want to tell communities what they should do, events will be very much driven by communities.
“The events could include themes around sport, history, baking, anything that will help neighbours to come together. It could be as simple as neighbours coming together for a cup of tea and a chat.
“National Community Day is a chance for people to foster a sense of helping each other by coming together, not just on that day, but all year round. As our society has become a busier place, people have less time to get to know their neighbours. National Community Day will provide a structure to allow people to meet each other, have an enjoyable time at local events which are devised and driven by the community.”
Minister Ring concluded: “Further details of this exciting initiative will follow in the coming weeks and months.”
National Community Day is an initiative of the Department of Rural and Community Development in conjunction with stakeholders.
Arising from consultation with a number of interested stakeholders, a working group has been formed to consider the design of the event. Among the Group members are representatives of public participation networks, local community development companies, Volunteer Ireland, Young Social Innovators, Macra na Feirme, Street Feast and Change X.
Ploughing back on track
Despite the destructive appetite of Storm Ali and her best efforts to put paid to the National Ploughing Championships, exhibitors, contractors, service providers, the NPA team and local volunteers put in a mammoth effort and returned the site to all its glory, and as a result it was business as usual this morning for day two of this year’s event today.
A crowd of 81,500 visitors descended upon the site in Screggan, Tullamore. NPA Managing Director Anna May McHugh said: “The feedback from exhibitors so far is that business is extremely vibrant and those I spoke with today said sales are already well ahead of what they predicted, and are delighted to have another opportunity to exhibit again tomorrow, given yesterday’s unforeseen postponement. This is very positive for both rural Ireland and the wider economy.”
The hotly contested National Brown Bread Baking final took place in the Aldi tent in front of an audience of several hundred. The overall winner in first place was Emma Ferguson from Trim, who had only given birth twp and a half weeks ago. Emma was absolutely delighted with her win as she is now the 2018 National Irish Brown Bread Baker and her bread will be sold in every Aldi store in the country.
Gates will open to the public at 9am tomorrow morning, Friday 21st September.