Cloughjordan, the winner of Ireland's national Green Community award and the second best Village to live in, according to the Irish Times, makes for a perfect environment to experiment with community resilience initiatives. Due to its high level of community spirit car-pooling, tool sharing, a bread club and food exchanges already exist and more collaborative enterprises are popping up.
The Ecovillage project has played a large part in the recent regeneration of the midlands town of Cloughjordan. It includes 22 acres of residential development 50 green/high performance houses within a 67 acre site that has land designated for food growing, community woodlands, a district heating system fuelled by woodchip and a large array of solar collectors, as well as its own in-house IT company and internet provider. It has spawned the Cloughjordan Community Farm, a wholefoods buyers club, and has contributed to the spirit of active citizenship seen in the town. A number of national businesses and organisations are now based here, including Cultivate, FEASTA, Go-Car Car-sharing and Local Switch. The new Cloughjordan Wood-Fired Bakery just won several awards for excellence and there is a burgeoning community of artists and craftspeople.
The Cloughjordan Community Farm is the local (CSA) Community Supported Agriculture project that now has over 60 member households. The development of a co-housing project is also underway, which will be a model of low debt housing where people will have their own living space but will share common rooms and amenities. Due to open is the ‘We Create’ centre, a co-working space that will provide the space and resources needed for small businesses, independent workers, designers and entrepreneurs to work on their own projects.
