Crinkill Tidy Villages officially open Soldiers Garden

Crinkill Tidy Villages held a small event to officially open and launch the completion of phase one of their new Soldiers Garden recently.

The garden was opened at Crinkill Sports & Recreation Centre on Saturday, October 7.

With over 50 people in attendance, a very informative talk was given by local historian Brian Kennedy, Birr Historical Society. Attendees then enjoyed light refreshments and ice-creams.

Soldiers Garden is so named as it was once used by the Soldiers stationed in the adjoining Barracks. Crinkle was home to a major military barracks until 1922 when it was burned down during the Civil War. This piece of land was most generously gifted to the community by John and Frances Smyth and in recognition of this generosity, a plaque has been placed at the entrance to Soldiers Garden.

Soldiers Garden will form part of ‘the Crinkill Heritage and Military Trail.’ The community garden may be one of Offaly’s first living seed banks containing the Offaly Lady Finger Apple Tree and the rare pre-famine Black Bog Potatoe, once commonly grown in the midlands.

The aim Crinkill Tidy Villages is that the garden will bring together all generations of the village and that it will also serve as an educational and sensory experience for a range of groups to include local schools, people with disabilities and the wider community.

The local tidy villages group said that the main thing they learned from our time during the lock downs and restricted movement of the Covid-19 pandemic was that the village had no central or designated greenspace that people could escape to.

While there were footpaths around the village there was no central open green space with seating that the residents of Crinkill could go to. They hope that Soldiers garden will provide this space of escapism for the local residents.The new Soldier Garden received funding from Axa Parks through the Community Foundation fund.