Three Offaly groups vying for top Pride of Place honours

Three Offaly organisations will vie for top honours in the prestigious 2025 Pride of Place competition, which promotes and celebrates the best in community development and recognises the important role that volunteers play in making their local areas better places to live, work and socialise.

The three Offaly groups are Ballycommon Technology and Training Centre CLG; Accessible Counselling Tullamore (ACT), and the Clonfanlough Hall Committee, all of which were nominated by Offaly County Council to represent the three municipal districts of Edenderry, Tullamore and Birr.

While the winners of the overall Pride of Place awards are not due to be announced until November, each of the three Offaly groups had their entries assessed by Pride of Place judges, Martina Maloney and Katrina Murphy, who visited the locations of each of the three Offaly entries on July 21 and 22.

The first group to receive a Pride of Place judges' visit was Ballycommon Technology and Training Centre, which is a community-owned social enterprise established in 1999 roughly 10km from Tullamore.

During their visit, the judges were given a tour of the centre's extensive facilities, including the recently installed polytunnel, surrounding gardens, the retrofit training workshop, and the meeting and training rooms.

They also met with local service users, including those attending the weekly older persons activities morning at the adjacent Dún Eochla Project Centre, as well as local children who demonstrated their VEX robotics skills in the games room.

An informative presentation followed where Gerry Maguire, chairperson of the board, outlined the history and ethos of the social enterprise and Deirdre Arnold, Manager, updated the judges on current activities and future plans.

The next stop for the judges was Clonfanlough Hall, located close to the world-renowned heritage site of Clonmacnoise.

The Clonfanlough Hall Committee was established in October 2023 with the aim of reopening the Community Hall to offer a range of activities and social events for all ages and groups in the local community.

Young musicians from Music Generation Offaly, who are weekly users of the hall, provided musical entertainment after which Lorraine Guinan, chairperson, Leanne Kelly, secretary, and Lorraine Kelly, treasurer, outlined the history of the Hall and surrounding areas; the background to the setting up of the current committee; activities and users of the hall and funding and plans to maintain and improve the Hall to ensure its sustainability for years to come. Part of those plans include refurbishment works due to commence in the coming weeks.

The final organisation to receive a visit from Pride of Place was Accessible Counselling Tullamore (ACT), a not-for-profit CLG which began operations in January 2020 from their offices on Main Street in Tullamore, with a mission to support people in the community to maintain positive mental health by providing them with accessible counselling and psychotherapy services.

Lisa O’Connor, co-founder and operations manager of ACT gave a poignant outline of the history and background to ACT, co-founded with the late James O’Connor who passed away in March 2023.

IPB Pride of Place is an annual competition organised by Co-operation Ireland and sponsored by IPB Insurance.