Warm welcome for opening of Kiltoom sensory garden

A long-cherished ambition to create a proper village centre for Ballybay in Kiltoom was finally realised on Monday of this week when a sensory garden and car park was opened to serve the needs of the growing South Roscommon community.

On-going Covid restrictions prevented the new facility being officially opened, but Michael O’Brien, Chair of the Kiltoom Community Development Company, which spearheaded the project, has pledged that an official opening will take place “as soon as it is safe to do so.”

Mr O’Brien said it was “a dream come true” to see the new sensory garden being enjoyed by young and old in the area, and he added that the car park, which has 80 spaces, was a vital facility to improve safety on the busy N61 Athlone to Roscommon road. The new facility also has public lighting which will ensure that it can be fully utilised all year round.

Planning permission for the €250,000 project was granted in September of 2020, and funding to cover 75% of the cost of the works was secured from Roscommon LEADER Partnership with the remaining monies having to be raised in the local community.

“We raised in the region of €64,000 through a number of fundraising initiatives, the biggest of which was our raffle which brought in around €24,000,” said Michael O’Brien, who also paid tribute to Fr Michael McManus, Parish Priest, for the “very generous contribution” which was made to the project from the parish.

He also paid tribute to his fellow committee members: John Tiernan, Tom Shine, Paddy Kenny, Pat Leonard and Ciaran Toohey for all their hard work in bringing the ambitious project to a successful conclusion, and he also thanked the volunteers in the Friends of Kiltoom Sensory Garden group for their ongoing work on maintaining the garden in pristine condition.

The new sensory garden and car park is located in close proximity to Ballybay National School, the Church of the Risen Christ, Kiltoom Community Hall and the Hodson Bay Celtic soccer pitch, so Michael O’Brien said it is “at the very heart of the local community” and will appeal to young and old alike.

The new sensory garden, which is open to the public, has a picnic area with tables and seating, a wildflower area for biodiversity and a wide range of fruit trees and herbs and attractive planting schemes.

The car park which forms part of the project was one of the most urgently needed facilities for the Ballybay area, according to Michael O’Brien, who said it is already being “widely used” by the local community. He envisagesd that it will be even more popular when pupils return to Ballybay National School as it will facilitate parents dropping off and collecting their children. “Whenever we had a function of any sort, whether it was a soccer match, an event in the community hall or a soccer match, many parents ended up parking on the main road, and the N61 is not safe for parking as it is too busy and the traffic is too fast” pointed out Mr O’Brien.

Even though the sensory garden and car park are now open to the public in Kiltoom, the local community still have a funding shortfall of around €15,000 due to what the Chair of the local Community Development Company described as “unforeseen costs on the project.” They are hoping to organise a Community Run, in line with current Covid guidelines, in the coming months to help to bridge the shortfall, and are hoping to attract participants from a wide catchment area.

“We are very deeply indebted to many people for bringing the Sensory Garden and the car park project to the point where we now have it open to the public,” said Michael O’Brien. “It is a great day for the local community.”