Kilgarvan cousins open hotel - for eight-legged lodgers!

COUSINS Nathan Kelliher (12) and Chloe Casey (15) have raised a few eyebrows and garnered lots of praise after making an unusual ‘5-Star Hotel’ for bugs on behalf of a very proud Kilgarvan Tidy Towns Committee.

The cousins have helped out the committee on a weekly basis over the last few years and the committee asked them to construct the house for the Wild Flower Garden in Kilgarvan after hearing of the idea at a regional Tidy Towns meeting.

Nathan, who is going into First Year in the autumn, said he and Chloe made the piece over the course of three days on his farm.

“It’s made from pallets and layered with laths,” he told The Kerryman. “It’s filled with items like stones, twigs, pots, hay, pipes, flowers, turf, slate, and grass - just about anything that attracts insects! We followed some online tutorials, spending about a day researching the project, and then we got some tools and followed the instructions laid out on the internet.

“After we were done, my dad brought it down to the garden in his van, and it’s still there now.”

Chloe explained that the hotel wasn’t merely built to attract and protect wildlife.

Outside of its environmental purposes, she said the hotel has done just as well in terms of attracting amazed onlookers as it has insects.

“It has a lot of colour, it looks very nice, and people have travelled to the garden ever since it was brought down there,” the Junior Cert student said.

“It’s there as an attraction for the garden as much as anything else, although it has managed to draw in a few bugs, who have been staying there for a while now!”

The hotel is currently under the management of Dawn Hegarty, and is located opposite the local Mace store, while Eileen Finnegan of Kilgarvan Tidy Towns Committee has been full of praise for the young craftspeople.

“We heard of the idea and it struck a chord, so we passed the thought on to Chloe and Nathan. But we didn’t realise they’d start building the day after!” she said.

“We are over the moon with the work they’ve done, and we hope that many insects take up residence at their hotel!”

Nathan Kelliher and Chloe Casey with their unusual creation, which they made on behalf of Kilgarvan Tidy Towns.