Success flows for Tidy Towns

Community groups’ work often goes unseen, but for Shercock Tidy Towns their efforts are often distinctly eye-catching. From the splendid series of street art, to the litter free footpaths, the group has a huge impact.

“We’ve had a very busy year,” says Carol Smyth secretary of Shercock Tidy Towns. “The starting point would be the completion of the ‘Town and Village’ works, which has seen 22 buildings painted, and four murals that explore our biodiversity, our cultural heritage and our archaeological heritage.”

The group, who has Grace Collins as chair and Michelle Menice as treasurer, also repaired damaged railings and installed street name signs.

“They are all small but impactful changes,” says Carol of the Town and Village Renewal Scheme. “It’s getting really great feedback from our community in terms of restoring pride in the town.”

While all that great work can be seen and appreciated by the community, Carol notes there’s much advocacy behind the scenes to “make sure we’re heard and don’t get left behind”.

For example Cavan County Council facilitated the Tidy Town’s request for resurfacing work on Main Street, initially scheduled for November, to be brought forward to August.

Another area on which they are lobbying is flood mitigation works.

“The back road gets flooded quite often so we are trying to work with the council on that to see if there are ways that we can be prioritised.”

Shercock Tidy Towns also undertook a footpath survey in 2025, categorising them using a traffic light system: green for recently improved; amber for those needing short term attention; and red for those requiring immediate repair. They also did a walkability survey with Cavan Disability Network which reinforced their findings.

“It also pointed out issues for those who are visually impaired, that we had perhaps overlooked but have included in our work.

“We have had positive engagement from Cavan County Council as a result of that,” Carol happily reports.

“It shows how Cavan County Council are willing to work with us on important matters like this - that’s encouraging.”

Footpath improvements remain on the Tidy Towns’ 2026 to-do list. That list will be compiled in December and January and is likely to include a Community Culture Day with the focus of food, the installation of swift boxes and projects with partners under the Community Climate Action Fund.

Tidy Towns focus on sustainability in their projects. A good example was a ‘Toy Trade’ they held recently.

“We asked people to bring along toys they were finished with and take one home with them. It was a huge success. We estimate that 30% of toys went to new homes in our community and the remainder went to charity shops, so everything was responsibly recycled.

“We hope we have set the seed to change people’s perspectives.”

Sustainability was the motivation behind the installation of water refill station at the athletics track, courtesy of a grant from Cavan County Council. Building on this, they hope to secure a grant for reusable drinking bottles in 2026.

Continuing with the water theme, Shercock Tidy Towns feel a responsibility to their surrounding watercourses - Steepleton, Muddy and Sillan lakes, and Annalee River.

“We have a project that’s ongoing with ‘Friends of Upper Annalee’ that focuses on recording the phosphate and nitrate levels in the different water courses with the idea of establishing a baseline dataset and then year on year we can look at the different data and see are certain ones getting more or less polluted,” explains Carol. It’s a project that is well worth pursuing as one of their murals reads: ‘Níl beatha gan uisce’.