How Mallow went from being a ‘dirty old town’ to cleanest in Cork
A RECENT ANTI-LITTER RANKING, WHICH RATES MALLOW THE CLEANEST IN COUNTY CORK, HAS BEEN ACHIEVED THROUGH A ‘COLLECTIVE EFFORT’ IN THE TOWN
MALLOW’S retention of its second place ranking in the latest Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL) survey, released last week, is the town’s latest achievement in what has been a golden period for it with regards its cleanliness.
In the last year alone, Mallow secured its first awarding of second place in IBAL’s mid-year litter league, having been absent from the survey’s inspections since 2017, and saw its score increase by nine points in the annual Tidy Towns competition, in which it has consistently improved its markings in recent years.
Amid such a positive era for the town, it might be easy to forget that things have not always been as rosy as they are now and, especially in terms of its IBAL ranking, the capital of north Cork endured many days that were, literally, rubbish.
For instance, Mallow was ranked second last out of 60 Irish towns and cities by IBAL in January 2009 after the state of the town led judges to ask if the law on litter was being enforced in the area at all.
Referring to the result, a report by The Corkman in August of that year noted that the town had once again been “labelled a litter blackspot”.
In the same article, a leading Tidy Towns member, Vincent O’Keeffe, said Mallow was “one of the dirtiest towns in Ireland” and pointed the finger of blame at local residents and business people.
“There is a lack of co-operation by and large. The people of Mallow don’t seem to care about cleaning up the town. Mallow has fantastic potential, but there is a lot of apathy out there,” Mr O’Keeffe said.
Noel O’Connor, then a councillor, weighed in behind Mr O’Keeffe and said that: “The town must get behind the actions of the Tidy Towns committee.”
Following yet another damning IBAL ranking in January of 2010, the frustrated committee of Mallow Tidy Towns issued a statement urging “everyone to come on board to play their part”.
“20 volunteers can’t carry the town of Mallow. We need everyone to play their part,” the statement said.
The call to action did ignite change, kickstarted by a mass town clean-up in March, and the next litter league standings saw Mallow improve its lot to 27 th out of 53 areas surveyed. More misery, however, was just around the corner when the next round of rankings in January 2011 branded Mallow as ‘littered’ and “disappointing”, placing it 48th.
The Tidy Towns called for residents to take more responsibility while Cllr O’Connor, by then a staunch critic of how the IBAL rankings were determined, claimed the standings were taking away from the work of the local
Tidy Towns and Mallow’s wider image.
“It does not seem right to me that Mallow could be marked down so drastically on the basis of a single two-hour visit to the town by competition judges. Particularly as the findings of those judges are not echoed by the results we have received in the Tidy Towns competition,” Cllr O’Connor said.
In August of that year, the chairperson of IBAL, Fermoy-based businessman Dr Tom Cavanagh, hit back when he accused Mallow politicians of “indifference” to the anti-litter rankings, in which it would place 40th in January 2012.
The future did not look bright for the town in terms of its fight against litter and desire to climb the IBAL rankings, but Mallow’s fate would begin to change when it was removed from the spotlight.
Budget cuts saw the town omitted from the IBAL rankings until 2017, and it would place in a respectable 22nd on its return. That improvement would only be the start of Mallow’s redemption arc, and after a six-year hiatus from the IBAL judges’ inspections, the town was remarkably ranked in second place in the mid-2023 survey, a position it has managed to maintain in this month’s rankings.
So how did Mallow go from being described as a “dirty old town” in some reports, to now being regarded as one of the cleanest in the country?
Current chairperson of Mallow Tidy Towns, Niall O’Keeffe, told The Corkman that because towns cannot choose to enter the IBAL surveys and are often unaware they are under examination, the bad reports Mallow once received were likely a “good reflection of the state of the town”.
At some stage in the intervening years, however, a “cross-community
“It wasn’t just the Tidy Towns, it wasn’t just the council, it wasn’t just Avondhu Bnladck water, it wasn’t just the residents associations ... It was actually all of them together that added up to make Mallow cleaner”
effort” got underway in Mallow, which has contributed to achieving the town’s current status.
“It wasn’t just the Tidy Towns, it wasn’t just the council, it wasn’t just Avondhu Blackwater, which are very helpful, it wasn’t just the residents associations,” Mr O’Keeffe said.
“It was actually all of them together that added up to make Mallow cleaner.”
The “collective” efforts of the community have also been bolstered by annual clean-up events and a more “educated” public attitude towards littering, according to Mr O’Keeffe.
The Tidy Towns chair believes that the period of lockdowns due to Covid-19 also allowed the residents and volunteers of the group work on their own terms.
“Tidy Towns ebbs and flows, it can be difficult to get volunteers, if life is busy it’s harder to get people out,” Mr O’Keeffe said.
“Covid probably gave people time to reassess.
“Definitely you’ve [now got] people out individually, not directly with Tidy Towns.”
Councillor Gearóid Murphy told The Corkman that most of the credit for Mallow’s clean-up, which was not an “overnight change”, must go to the volunteers on the ground.
“Slowly but surely, maybe behind the scenes a bit, we have seen the efforts of volunteers and there’s great work that’s been done, in particular by the Tidy Towns, in keeping the town tidy every year,” Cllr Murphy said.
“The Tidy Towns score has been consistently increasing, so based on that maybe gives a bit of a hint of how we got from there to here.”
Cork County Council has also played its part in improving the appearance of Mallow, with the running of initiatives like the Anti-Litter Awards bolstering the local authority’s day-to-day “operational measures” in the town.
“We’re one of the only towns that have a street sweeper from the council on the town seven days a week and on weekends too, which is key,” Cllr Murphy said.
“That’s one of the huge advantages that Mallow would have had over many other towns and the MD is lucky enough to have the budget and the staff to cover that.”
The Fianna Fáil representative said that overall, the improvement in Mallow’s appearance is down to a “collaborative” approach taken by the Tidy Towns and other voluntary groups, Mallow Chamber of Commerce and local businesses as well as the council’s outdoor staff, who deserve “real credit”.
Councillor Pat Hayes, a long-time representative of Mallow, agrees that the town’s current cleanliness is due to increased cooperation between various bodies, which “have instigated a change in the way people looked at the town and the tidiness of the town.”
“The local County Council staff who are constantly looking after the bins doing the road sweeping cleaning the footpaths, they are doing tremendous work,” Cllr Hayes said.
“It’s a credit to them and the council and Mallow Tidy Towns, that’s why we are at number two position [in the IBAL rankings].”
The councillor also complimented the efforts of the Mallow public, who have become much more aware of how they dispose of their rubbish since the dark days of the late noughties.
“You’ll always have a small amount of people who just don’t care but the majority of people now are conscious of how they dispose of their waste,” Cllr Hayes explained.
“It’s great to see we have come this far, to be number two is a wonderful achievement for Mallow municipal district, the County Council and Mallow Tidy Towns.”