TTK in the News
January 2008
TTK on You-Tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zePkjIM4hO0
November 2007
Southern Star, South County page, Leo McMahon
TTK Congrats: Kinsale – the World’s First Transition Town
Congratulations on making Kinsale the world’s first Transition Town was extended by members of the town council to the local organising committee.
Having heard a presentation by some members of Transition Town Kinsale (TTK) prior to the monthly meeting of the local authority, Mr. Fred Treacy, who initially proposed the body be given grant aid support over two years ago, said he was very excited by what he had heard and the future plans of TTK. The feedback from schools and the community at large was very positive. Mayor Mary Evans praised the group for the development of a Community Garden near Sean Hales Terrace and said she could vouch for the quality of produce.
Co-ordinator Mr. Daniel Benn said it was an ideal place for people to learn the skills of growing for themselves and it had served to remove the stigma that such work amounted to drudgery. The weekly seassions held on Sunday afternoons were in fact, fun events, open to all and very popular. Surplus stock was sold at the TTK stall at the weekly Farmer’s Market.
Liz Creed, a member of TTK confessed to knowing nothing about gardening when she went along to the community garden but said it was a great hands-on learning experience for her and her children. The Education for Sustainability programme in the local schools was also very successful.
Mr. Tomas O’Brien also congratulated TTK and said he saw great potential for green waste recycling and an anerobic digester in a town which had many gardeners and could generate income for the locality. Mr. Benn said it was envisaged the anerboic digester would be on agricultural land on the periphery of the town to cater for commercial food and agricultural waste and wouldn’t require much more than an acre.
Ms. Isabelle Sutton, who is a member of TTK, said a group of scientists was currently studying the proposal for an anerobic digester for Kinsale and TTK hoped to go ahead with a feasibility study pending support by South Cork Enterprise Board. A presentation would then be made to Kinsale TC.
October 2007
It’s been a busy month in the Publicity Forum. Apart from the usual flurry of activity sending out press releases and getting leaflets and banners printed, we’ve been bombarded by media attention in the past few weeks.
RTE Radio came down to talk to us for a programme called ‘The Green Light’ that went out on air on Thursday 11th October. It's a weekly show that reports on people around the country making a difference for the environment.
You can listen to the podcast here: http://www.rte.ie/radio1/podcast/podcast_greenlight.xml
In the Irish Times on Saturday 13th October, Jane Powers wrote about sustainable communities in her Planet Matters column (see Quote of the Month below) and in the Examiner, Regina Sexton in her Good Food column, covered our involvement in the Gourmet Food Festival and our ‘inventive idea’ of grateful gleaning (see below).
Finally, Global Public Media, an international online media group who specialise in issues around Climate Change and Peak Oil wanted to hear how TTK was doing two years on from the initial spark that was the Kinsale Energy Descent Action Plan (now downloaded from the internet over 5,000 times!).
The interview can be heard online at: http://www.globalpublicmedia.org/kinsale_two_years_on
Visitors from Abroad
Interest in TTK’s activities continues to grow as the Transition Town movement spreads itself around the globe (latest to sign up - Transition Sunshine Coast, Australia).
In September we had two visitors who were in Ireland for the ASPO (Association for the Study of Peak Oil) Conference in Cork City Hall. Daniel Gomez from Spain and Giovanni Marocchi from Italy wanted to see the first Transition Town so they came down and were shown the Further Education College where it all began.
They were well impressed by the straw bale house, the timber, cob and cordwood amphitheatre and the new roundhouse, in its initial stages of construction, which will become a changing room for the drama students when completed. Giovanni was particularly interested in the self-supporting reciprocal frame on the roof and wanted plenty of details about how it was constructed. Daniel is hoping to set up a Transition Town in his hometown in Spain.
The following week we had another visitor, Josh Dolan, who is involved in sustainability projects in Ithaca in New York. He sat in on our monthly public meeting where he gave an overview of what sort of activities he pursues in Ithaca, and was impressed with our own efforts. He organises a weekly local food night in a café in the town in which the entire meal, main course and dessert, is made from locally produced food. Now there’s an idea.
With the many enquiries we get via email, and this new interest in coming to see the world’s first Transition Town, it seems that TTK could become a potential tourist attraction. Anyone interested in setting up a TTK Tourism Forum?
May 2007: KINSALE IN THE NEWS AGAIN
There has been yet another mention of Kinsale in the national press, this time in an article by Haydn Shaughnessy on Transition Towns and food production. He highlights the fact that in the future, food prices will be affected by rising fuel costs and climate change.
While Transition Towns are exploring more sustainable means of food production, such as increased localisation and farmers markets, he says that the recently established Horticulture Network Ireland (HNI) is trying to move producers away from food and into amenities such as decking and garden furniture and that it believes there will be less Irish-produced food in the future.
This is a worrying development as it flies in the face of what we at TTK are trying to do.
February 2007
Sustainability in Clonakilty
We were pleased to hear of the establishment of Clonakilty Carbon Countdown, a similar group to our own, who have held two meetings so far on the issues of climate change and carbon emissions. We would like to wish them every success in their endeavours to build a more sustainable community.
January 2007
SPOTLIGHT ON KINSALE IN THE IRISH TIMES
The Kinsale Energy Descent Action Plan featured in the Irish Times Magazine on Saturday 13th January, with an interview with Graham Strouts from Kinsale Further Education College. 'The Earth Issue' edition of Saturday's magazine was devoted to personal, community, national and international responses to peak oil and climate change, including well-known environmental writers like Richard Douthwaite (author of 'The Growth Illusion') and Guardian writer George Monbiot (whose recent book 'Heat- How to Stop the Planet Burning' calls for a 90% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2030) as well as features on Quentin Gargan and Clare Watson's strawbale house and wind-turbine near Bantry, the Cultivate Centre in Dublin and The Village sustainable housing and community project in Tipperary.
The magazine editors should be congratulated on an excellent coverage of the main issues, and the fact that they chose to focus on practical and positive solutions and responses like Kinsale - rather than giving space to climate sceptics for example - shows how far the debate has moved in recent months.
Everywhere we are seeing a growing acceptance and understanding of the challenges of climate change and energy scarcity that we are faced with. In Kinsale, the Town Council has lead the way by backing the College Energy Descent Plan; now it is up to the people of Kinsale to join us in working for a sustainable and secure future for their town.
TRANSITION TOWNS KINSALE WINS LOCAL AGENDA 21 GRANT
Transition Towns Kinsale received a great boost and vote of confidence from the Department of the Environment and Cork County Council just before Christmas when it was announced that TTK's community composting project had been awarded a grant of €2500 (€1250 from the Department and €1250 from the County Council) under the Local Agenda 21 grant scheme.
Local Agenda 21 is one of the outcomes of the Earth Summit held in Rio De Janeiro in 1992. Some of the main aims of Agenda 21 are that people are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature and that environmental issues are best handled with the participation of all concerned citizens. There is now an obligation on local authorities to enter into dialogue with its citizens and local organisations on environmental issues and a grant scheme has been initiated to fund local projects which take into account the well being and quality of life of the community in the long term and include a high level of participation at local level.