Save The Green Group mark centenary of park’s registration – ‘It’s important to mark this moment’

Chairman of Save The Green Committee Tommy Collins spoke of the park’s importance to the people and the many hard-fought battles to save it over the decades.

“We felt it was important to mark this moment. Not only is the Green an historic part of life in our town, it goes back to 1969 when Save The Green Committee was first formed to help protect and preserve it for the town,” he said.

The original story is that in 1922 Tralee Urban Council negotiated a purchase of lands from the Finnerty estate, previously acquired from the Denny estate.

The Council borrowed £6,000 from the National Land Bank over a 30-year period. The primary reason for the purchase was to build houses and to establish a recreational area for the ‘working classes’ in Tralee.

Houses at Cloonbeg and Castlecountess were subsequently build in the 1930s, with the remaining stretch of land used for a town park, the deeds of which were officially registered on February 5, 1923.

“They were visionaries. Look at the time they were planning this, there were political troubles before and after it and yet they still managed to make that historic decision,” Tommy said.

He explained how Save The Green Committee’s campaigns over the years to prevent development in the park make them the torch carries of this vision of 100 years ago.

Tommy refers to their work as ‘parallel progression’ due to the fact the town succeeded in retaining 35 acres out of what was originally 118 acres when purchased in 1923.

The last section of the park to be used for development was the building of Ashe Memorial Hall in the 1920s as the seat of local government. This was one of the earliest public buildings erected in the country, after the foundation of the state.

“When we look at it now [the Green] it makes it all worthwhile. No matter when you stand at the Green gate there are people flowing in and out all the time. It was the only playground and garden for many people who lived in the centre of town,” he said.

As recent as 2012, Save The Green Committee amassed over 10,000 signatures from people against plans to use a section of the park for traffic flow close to Ivy Terrace.

In 2019 the committee celebrated its 50th anniversary by placing a bench near one of the park’s oldest oak trees, estimated to be 150 years old.

“I have yet to get an opportunity to sit on the bench when I’ve been in the Green as there’s always someone sitting on it,” joked Tommy.

“It’s a marker of our fight to save the Green and its place in the hearts and minds of Tralee people. I would also make an appeal to the young people to take up the cudgel.

"When we pass on, we would like a new generation to fill our shoes. There is no law protecting the Green so we must be watchful all the time,” said Tommy.