Naas Community Men’s Shed, Co Kildare

A remarkable story of resilience, adaptation and ingenuity reaches us from Naas Community Men’s Shed in Co Kildare. We present an edited version below, as related to us by shed member Paul Spain.

“Fadó, fadó (about five years ago), the Naas Community Men’s Shed was founded with the purpose of providing a place for men to gather and support one another. The shed’s foundation was built on some of the best of the Naas area’s rural heritage.

“A generous offer was made by a local property developer and the shed entered a rental agreement on an old disused farm on the edge of town. Hundreds of voluntary hours were spent reclaiming the buildings and the remaining land until it was fit to occupy. We had music nights, coffee mornings, we turned wood into art, we repaired lots of things, we did our bit with the Tidy Towns. We were on the edge of the Naas community but we were becoming our own community. All was well and many men were feeling more relevant, more resilient than they were before the shed.

“Then came the day. We received legal notice to quit. What would we do and where would we go? Our community was at risk and we needed to react. We were feeling increasingly despondent and concerned when one day, our current patron turned up on our doorstep to ask what the shed was all about. We told him and he said that if there was anything he could do for us to let him know. We half-jokingly said, ‘If you can find us a new home, that would be great’. Over the next few weeks we explored a couple of possible locations with him.

“He offered us Anach Cuain on the Dublin road. A fine, if near-derelict, housing development.

“For the second time, we would have to put in huge effort to make the house habitable and the site suitable. We recycled gifts of obsolete paint, carpet, furniture, kitchenware, tools, old glass and windows.

“We invited our good friends from Naas Tidy Towns to share the site with us. With the help of a couple of tree surgeons, we reclaimed the overgrown gardens and let light into the place for the first time in about 15 years. We are also in the process of moving our bees and encouraging diversity in our wilderness area. There is still much to be done.

“It’s been a long, hard move. It’s hard to mobilise and re-energise yourself when you are in your 60s, 70s and 80s and you have limited resources. Hundreds of hours have been spent in blood, sweat, tears and laughter.

“We are much more connected to our wider community. We have a renewed sense of purpose and of our contribution. Our neighbours are delighted and we have a constant stream of visitors. The fires are lit and it’s a place of welcome, chat, friendship, music, and creativity. We are even more resilient”. CL

Macroom Men’s Shed, Co Cork

A remarkable coincidence has come to light at Macroom Men’s Shed in Cork. The shed recently welcomed not one, but two, members who have moved to Macroom from San Francisco.

One man is a returning emigrant, while the other’s most recent Irish lineage stretches back to the Famine. While the two men were previously unknown to one another, it transpires that they had lived just a block apart in San Francisco, having numerous mutual friends, acquaintances and favoured haunts. Proof, if it were needed, of men’s sheds’ almost magical ability to forge friendships across every conceivable boundary.