Many hands were making light work the day I visited the village of Ardfield in west Cork.

It was the final day of the village’s Summer Festival and preparations were underway for the fashion show that night in the marquee that had mushroomed uphill beside the Mountain House bar.

Gravel was being spread on the ground, the red carpet was lying in wait and members of the flower club were inserting carefully-tended hydrangeas in a wall that would make an attractive floral backdrop for photographs later on.

The fashion show is a very important part of the festival each year but especially in 2016, organiser and microbiologist Therese O’Shea told me.

“We’re trying to support our local town, Clonakilty, in a very practical way. The shops in Clonakilty are great but they’ve had a hard time in the past year because of roadworks affecting business. So we thought we’d help out what way we can. Clon, a 10-minute drive away, is an incredible town. You can get everything there and we’re lucky to have it on our doorstep. We think it’s really important to encourage everyone to support the shops and keep the money in the local economy.”

VARIETY IS KEY

The festival starts with the Sand’s Cove fishing competition and continues for a week. This year, events included everything from bootcamps, music and historical walks, to science shows, a golf classic and a car treasure hunt.

“We try to have something for everybody in the lineup,” John Miles says.

John came to Ardfield from Wales via London 10 years ago and is happy with his choice.

“There are pros and cons of everybody knowing your business but I think the pros far outweigh the cons. It’s lovely to feel part of a community after living in London for 20 years. You could walk into the pub on your own here and know everybody. What amazed me is that you’d see a 20-year-old sitting down chatting with a 70-year-old. There’s no age gap between people.”

FUNDRAISING focus

Festival fundraising has bought floodlights for the pitch and rewired two churches. This year the money will be spent on repairing the busy road that leads to the playschool and tennis club.

Liam Evans, an agricultural adviser, settled in Ardfield in 1982 and helped out, along with 109 others, with raising the €290,000 for the recent GAA facility development.

“Most people would be in several organisations in the village,” he says. “€1.3m has been invested in the GAA facilities in the last eight years in total, and 110 people travelled the highways and byways of west Cork selling tickets to raise our part of it – a great commitment.”

Liam also helps out on the Tidy Towns front.

“We put a huge focus on the chapel cross area with its triangle of 60 houses. We haven’t changed the traditional buildings, just enhanced them, and we keep the village looking well with the help of trojan work from our FAS workers. Ardfield is a small community but a fabulous one.”

All is not totally rosy in this scenic place, however. The scenic aspect itself leads to raised property and site costs and to planning permission restrictions.

“The biggest problem facing our community is a lack of affordable sites and housing for our young people,” Liam says. “It’s going to affect the school in time and the GAA and soccer – every club.

“Cork County Council will really have to take stock of housing needs and ease up on planning permission restrictions because the community will die in time if they don’t.”

Billy Sheehan, retired from Eircom, traces the community spirit in Ardfield back to the famine.

“Ardfield was badly hit then but what that did is it made people resilient and independent and adaptable at seeing what opportunities are there and working on that. Going back years, Ardfield has always been progressive, with a great emphasis on education.”

WATCHING OUT FOR ONE ANOTHER

Ardfield community is also one where “we all have our oar in the water”, he says.

“In this sort of community, you’re kind of a parent to all the youth. Sport is very important for that. We know where the youngsters are, we know if some fella is missing and we’d be asking is he all right. We all look out for one another. It’s spying on each other but in a good way. The community spirit here is an instinct in people.”

The LEADER programme has been hugely important for Ardfield, Billy adds.

“We embraced it since it came in during the 1990s. We identified things we needed to do and what we could do and went from there.”

Help from their Cork County Council area engineer has to be mentioned as well, he says.

Later I attended the fashion show where high heels, high spirits and highlighting local businesses were much in evidence.

As the MC said: “These shops are not multinationals, they’re depending on you to come through the door and support them.”

Leaving west Cork from the spectacular Dunmore House Hotel the next day with the fuchsia in bloom and the sun shining, I was conscious once again that rural Ireland is fighting back in a great many places. CL