Yesterday, about 20 people showed up for the canal and riverbank cleanup. We were hoping for some sunshine, but it didn’t happen. At least it didn’t rain!
The meeting point was Richmond Rugby Football Club on the canal bank at 12pm. The Munster Junior League final was on at 2:30pm, and we knew the place was going to get very busy.
People continued to arrive between 12 and 12:30. Miriam Lohan had done an audit of the riverbank and had maps for every group – with the severely littered areas marked on it.
Members of the Clancy Strand Street Feast group brought lovely cakes. Mary from Wildroutes showed us how you can build a nice birdhouse of almost any material. Children were playing around. A fisherman showed up, wearing high boots, and offered us his help with carrying the rubbish back on the river and on the canal.
Shane Hickey and a few other people from the UL Green Campus initiative came to help, and brought materials left after last year’s spring clean with them (pickers, plastic bags).
We also had the support of the City Council Environmental officer, Sinead McDonnell, who helped us getting gloves and plastic bags, and made possible the pick-up of the rubbish this morning.
People spread along the canal and the river. We noticed the work that had been done to prepare the side areas for sowing grass. We tried to avoid them. Miriam cycled up and down, making sure everyone had the proper materials and helping various groups.
It was amazing to see how all the various people belonging to groups across Limerick city and from the neighbourhood came together. The “We love Plassey riverbank” Facebook page was the central point, but this blog post, together with the posters that we placed on the riverbank on Friday and the tiny flyers (actually business cards) also did the job.
We encountered mixed reactions from the people who were walking, jogging and cycling. Some avoided eye contact and didn’t answer to friendly hellos. Others stopped and engaged in a conversation. A lady told us it was the first time she walked there in ages – and she was really impressed.
There were people of several nationalities and backgrounds – together with locals, there were Swedish, Romanian, Polish, Hungarian. Not everybody knew the others in the beginning, but we quickly bonded.
The before and after pictures on our Facebook page show impressive transformations. We felt we really made a difference! The problem was that we ended up with 60+ very heavy bags of rubbish, that we had to carry back to Richmond RFC.
Dan O Neill, Plassey fisherman and hero of the day, ferried all he could fit in his boat.Anthony Furlong, of Limerick City Biodiversity Network took quite a few of these 60 bags down the path on his bike. The problem was that we only had a wheelbarrow. Most of the bags had to be carried back – and that was probably the toughest job we had! Asia came to our help with her 3 lovely daughters, carrying heavy bags at the back of the buggy.
When all the bags were brought back to the Richmond club – to be collected on Monday morning, we enjoyed the warm hospitality of the club, getting a cup of tea and a cake and planning the next action.
Note: Brian Leddin, who took part in the clean-up, has a post on his blog on this event as well. There is also a mention of our action on this local blog.