Kiltale GAA launched its green club programme on Thursday the 17th April to the community and club members.
Kiltale GAA has joined phase 3 of the GAA green club programme. This programme lasts from March 2025 to November 2026. The Green Club Programme was established to support Gaelic Games clubs in taking simple and effective sustainability action in their grounds and activities.
The Programme is structured around the themes of Energy, Water, Waste, Biodiversity and Travel & Transport and is designed to promote sustainability awareness and action in GAA clubs and communities.
Kiltale GAA applied for the programme in January this year and was approved in February. After the acceptace of the club into the programme a green club committee was established and the green officer role was created and eleced as a new role at the Kiltale hurling club AGM.
The green club in Kiltale was launched officially on Thursday after the Easter James Kelly hurling Camp by club chairman Stephen McCormack and club green officer Regina Purcell. The launch included the following:
- Biodiversity
- Tree Planting by Stephen McCormack Chairman with club members. 10 Trees Planted.
- Wildflower planting demonstration again by Stephen Mccormack
- Free Trees made available to attendees
- Over 300m2 areas designated as reduced mow areas and signage installed and communicated to grounds keepers.
- Waste Management
- Litter picking and tidy up of the club grounds at the launch and later by the U12/U13 hurling team after training; filing a large wheelie bin and skip
- All waste bins were labelled with new clear labelling and additional bins have been ordered
- Free Re-usable water bottles handed out to reduce single use water bottles
- Display of all entrees from an recent anti-litter competion run in Kiltale National school and Announcement of the 2 caetegory winning entries
- Transport
- Free High Vis gear handed out to promote safe walking, cycling and plogging.
The day was a great success. Future plans by the green club include instalation of bike racks and a water refill station along with community education events on biodiversity and energy and upgrades to site lighting and looking to reduce dependency on the diesel generator. The club also hopes to upgrade the fabric of the clubhouse and install solar panels (subject to funding).
All these measures will aid the club to become more sustainable and reduce its carbon footprint while engaging the community to assist us and to look at their individual home practices to make positive changes.
