Killarney volunteers ready to tackle Rhododendron

FOR the group of volunteers who are part of the Killarney National Parks Mountain Meitheal Group, who regularly give their time freely to help keep our national park looking so spick and span, it was a sign that they’re moving back to the activities they most enjoy.

While they have not been able to get out and clean up the park at all during the last few months of lock-down, slowly there have been signs that things will soon be returning to some bit of normality.

Evidence of this came in the recent pesticide course that volunteers in the group took part in last Friday in Killarney National Park, and it was the first course of its kind in the country to resume since the lock-down restrictions were eased. Speaking to The Kerryman about the course, Johnny McGuire said that it was all centred around helping the volunteers to learn the correct and safe way to use pesticides so that he and others can continue to tackle the Rhododendron problem in the park.

“We do different jobs in the park, but one of the big jobs that we have become involved in is tackling the Rhododendron eradication scheme that is going on at the moment. In this, we have been using a very weak solution of a herbicide and now, recently, we learnt that to continue taking part in the programme, we would have to take a ‘Pesticide Application

Course’,” said Johnny.

“It was a one-day course, and we got a certificate saying that we are now competent and aware of how to handle the pesticides in a safe way,” he continued. “It was a very interesting and educational course and a day for our volunteers because of the enormous dangers that do exist when working with pesticides if you were to handle them in the incorrect way. So for us to learn how to use then safely, it was very important and it will help us immensely in the future tackling the Rhododendron,” Johnny continued.

The main work that the group does involves working on the eradication of Rhododendron

from Killarney National Park, while also concentrating their efforts on cleaning and clearing the areas trails and pathways, making it a safer beauty spot for locals and visitors.

from left) Michelle Cooper Galvin Paddy Cosgrove of Cosgrove Health and Safety (front right) giving a course on Pesticide Application to (front left) Donal O’Donoghue, (standing Michael Murphy, Derry O’Mahoney, Padraig O’Donoghue Mick O’Connell and Johnny McGuire at the Castlerosse on Friday. Photo by