National Tree Week Celebrated in Rockchapel

National Tree Week commenced on Sunday 20th March 2022 and was celebrated with wild intent in the parish of Rockchapel.

After a year or so of training and organising, 862 native Irish trees and fruiting bushes were planted throughout the parish. The week was punctuated with various tree planting events, which began with a Knockaclarig National School lead initiative, supported by the newly formed Rockchapel Heritage Group and local volunteers. Saturday 26th March saw the bulk of the action, where community members, again supported by the Rockchapel Heritage Group and by Rockchapel Community Development, planted oak and rowan within the village along the bank of the river Feale.

Rockchapel GAA organised a significant event which contributed greatly to the overall quantity of trees planted that weekend. Gratitude must be extended to the Rockchapel Community Centre for opening their doors to our village contingent on the day, to Murphy’s Shop and the Church for their continued support in facilitating the communication of training and planting events and to Neily Curtin for his beautiful photography.

We wish to offer a sincere thank you to IRD Duhallow for organising training and offering support through the LEADER funded programme “Communities Planting for Biodiversity”. Evidently the resounding success of National Tree Week in Rockchapel can be attributed to the support and cooperation of its various volunteers, community groups and organisations. Akin to the global response required for both the Climate and Biodiversity crisis, significant efforts from all cohorts of society are required for us to have a fighting chance in preserving and regenerating our natural heritage. By extension, Rockchapel Heritage Group intend further planting events to take place in late 2022. There are several prospective projects in the pipeline centred around enhancing community awareness of the river Feale and developing associated amenities.

We wish to thank once again all those who collaborated in recent efforts and look forward to many successful future initiatives. Rockchapel is well endowed with its natural heritage so here’s to celebrating it, long into the future!

- The Rockchapel Heritage Group