Knocknagree: The Cork village that has fought to survive

Knocknagree Community Development Group (KCDG) has been behind a number of recent enhancement projects in the village, including the refurbishment of the community centre, which is costing around €350,000.

The group also funded a beautiful centrepiece in the former Fairfield mart area — a large round outdoor patio with wooden bench seating and tables, along with planting, a waterfall, and a sensory garden for children on the autism spectrum. The idea is to offer those in the community an outdoor central space, when weather permits, to meet, chat, and offer a ‘heart’ to the village.

The group built it with the help of the county council.

Again, with the help of the local authority they also developed a state-of-the-art playground a short distance away.

KCDG charwoman Mairead O’Sullivan said they hope to have the community centre reopened before the end of this year and it will act as a focal point for events in the future.

“We have a long tradition here in the Siabh Luchra area for traditional music, song and dance and we want to use the community centre as a catalyst to get that going again,” she said.

Ms O’Sullivan said that other plans for the community centre include a social café, yoga and pilates classes, a venue for indoor soccer, and a youth club.

“We also plan to host events there into the future including fashion shows,” Ms O’Sullivan added.

KCDG member Norita Casey said the group also plans to build a 1km-long footpath between the village and the GAA grounds which are undergoing significant works at present.

In terms of education, the local national school was facing a crisis a few years ago because the pupil population had dropped.

“As a result, we lost our fourth teacher, but thankfully we got that position back,” Ms Casey said. “We currently have 76 pupils in the school and the numbers now are relatively stable. But we will still have to fight to ensure we retain that fourth-teacher position.”

Housing

One stumbling block to retaining and enhancing pupil numbers is the need for more housing in the village for young families.

Some progress is being made on that front, but locals say it is now their priority to get more homes and therefore new blood into the village.

Fianna Fail councillor Bernard Moynihan, who is chairman of the Kanturk/Mallow Municipal District Council, points out that new homes are in the pipeline.

A former site at Park Rd, on the eastern entrance to the village, was due to be built on, but when the recession struck the plan was shelved.

However, the site same site is now fully serviced with public lighting, roads, sewerage, and water and is ready to go.

“The county council plans to build nine houses on this site and a private developer has bought a proportion of the land where he plans to build another five. He has lodged planning permission for that project,” Mr Moynihan said.

Just a few yards away the former garda stations lies derelict, and while Knocknagree  prides itself as being relatively crime-free, locals don’t like the fact that it’s lying idle in the middle of a national housing crisis.

“I have been on to the OPW (Office of Public Works) asking it to put the old garda station on the market. I have had lot of people onto me about it. They could do it up with the use of a derelict sites grant,” Mr Moynihan said. “We need to get that sorted.” 

Ms Casey said developing more housing is now the key issue as the community tries to regenerate itself.

“We know that people want to come and live here but they can’t unless we develop more housing for them. I would thoroughly recommend living here as we have a great community spirit and great volunteerism,” she said.

Accessibility

One major advantage to moving into Knocknagree is that it now has extremely good broadband and fibre optic connections, so people can work from home. Both Ms Casey and Ms O’Sullivan work from home for multi-national companies.

Even if they have to leave on business to go to Cork, Limerick or Kerry, they use the train to make the commute.

“We’re just four miles from the train station in Rathmore. Having the train is huge for people living here. It’s a great asset,” Ms Casey said.

While Knocknagree no longer has its own shop, there is a large supermarket in Rathmore and also good shops nearby in Ballydesmond and Boherbue. 

Mr Moynihan said not having a shop in Knocknagree isn’t the end of the world, but, he is hoping that an entrepreneur who has been in contact with him will set up a mobile shop there, operating for a few hours a day.

Similar mobile shops have operated in parts of north Cork, travelling between small towns and villages on different days.

“This may be the way to go in parts of rural Ireland in the future. We may have to think outside the box,” Mr Moynihan said.

A mobile shop may sound like an unusual addition to a rural community, but there is a huge passing trade through Knocknagree. The village’s main road is one of the busiest routes between Cork and Limerick apart from the N20, with a large volume of HGVs using it.

In addition, just a few kilometres north of the village Munster Joinery has a significant manufacturing plant — employing more than 1,000 people.

In line with national trends, which has seen more than 2,000 pubs across Ireland call time on trading since 2005, there are only two pubs left in the village. One, Doyle’s, only opens on the weekends. The other, The Paps, which is named after a nearby mountain, opens seven days a week.

Affinity

And as with so many rural villages, the GAA provides much of the lifeblood. Club chairman Kevin McSweeney said they are in the process of constructing a new clubhouse, which is costing €850,000.

The club hopes it will open next spring. Mr McSweeney said it will have toilets, a gymnasium, kitchen and meeting rooms which will also be available to the community if required.

Knocknagree won an All-Ireland Junior Football title in 2018. It has 42 regular players across Senior, Junior A and Junior ranks. Some are working in Dublin, Galway and Cork but travel back for matches when they can.

“These players have a great affinity with the area. We are punching above our own weight,” Mr McSweeney said. “The community here work together and buy into things. Everybody rows in. We are trying to build things back up here but we definitely need new blood,” he added.

One thing you notice about the village is that it is spotless. That’s in large part thanks to the 15-strong volunteers in the local Fairfield Tidy Towns Group.

They sponsored the recent unveiling of a magnificent mural on the gable wall of a local house which depicts the village’s cultural history.

The group has also carried out planting and upgrading works on the entrance roads to the village and planted blackberry and gooseberry bushes interspersed with native trees such as mountain ash as well as apple trees and bio-diversity shrubs.

Meanwhile, they hope to put up an information board shortly about the native flowers they have in the area and put place names on the streets.

Their chairman, Andy O’Halloran, said they are currently planning to put up a Christmas crib in the village.

“We are also hosting a fundraising event for our group on Sunday, December 1, at 7pm. It is going to feature Duhallow Choral Society performing in our local church of Christ The King,” Mr O’Halloran added.