Success in the Tidy Towns competition is hard earned and often it takes a visit to an 'overall winner' to fully appreciate the effort that's involved. If you harbour ambitions about getting to the 'Promised Land', you, and your community must be prepared to work extremely hard.

The Avondhu has a number of serious Tidy Towns contenders and great credit is due to these communities for applying themselves so diligently - Kildorrery falls into this category. Ahead of Fermoy, Mitchelstown, Mallow and Midleton, the famous village gained a whopping 6 extra points this year - which in Tidy Towns terms is massive. Their progress is all the more remarkable if you factor in that they've gained 50 points in the last 7 years. The goal is to push on to the 290 mark and while this won't be easy, it's certainly attainable.

Kildorrery Tidy Towns committee was further buoyed by their success in both North Cork and Cork County litter challenges - competitions that are also extremely difficult to win. This triumph and the Tidy Towns progress was celebrated at a function held in Sheahan's Hilltop Lounge last Saturday night. In a sign of the times, it's now news worth to enter a public house that's packed to capacity and this was certainly the case last weekend.

Master of ceremonies was Ted Enright and he oversaw the presentation of prizes in a variety of categories. Before presenting the awards Ted thanked everyone who contributed to the Tidy Towns and Litter Challenge successes - his own committee, business people, residents and those involved in community employment schemes. Proprietor, Danny Sheahan was thanked, as was local firm, Exact Signs.

The night wouldn't have been possible without sponsors, and Ted made a special point of acknowledging the role of Star Fuels, Monaghan's Transport and Carmel's Garden Centre in Kilworth. There was a tremendous spread of food laid on and an equally impressive amount of spot prizes which were distributed following a successful raffle. The Fogartys supplied the music and did a fine job. Politicians in attendance included Fianna Fail councillors, Kevin O'Keeffe and Frank O'Flynn.

Ted's key message was that the present effort needs to be sustained and he made an appeal for more volunteers to come forward to aid the cause. Overall, his address was, like the gathering itself, very positive, very upbeat and clear evidence of the goodwill that exists towards Kildorrery Tidy Towns committee.

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