31/08/2026
Tidy Towns and the Economic and Tourism Town Team are delighted to see our picturesque town with its intact vernacular streetscape and buildings used in director’s Colm Bairéad new 1950s set feature film Mary Rose.
The Town Team have devised a suggested colour scheme for Baltinglass drawing from our rich natural surrounds; pastel blues, greens, purples, yellows and browns.
Butter yellow featured in many of our wildflowers and a dairying heritage embedded in the life of the town, cornflower blue, a flower which once grew widely in corn and flax fields and foxglove pink provide some of the inspirations.
Textile production associated with the town and its hinterland and the use of local flowers and fauna for their dye making properties, is another source for the colour palette. Purple loosestrife gives brown and purple dyes, brambles which give us blackberries produces green, black, blue and yellows, depending on what part of the plant is used, St John’s Worth hues of yellow, green and maroon, while gorse, so visible on Baltinglass hill, gives bright sunny shades of yellow and deep green.
William Hanbidge in Memories of West Wicklow, 1813-1939 informs us that you could tell where a person was from by the colour of their clothes, as the dyes for home produced clothes came from local plants.
The Team are encouraging owners of premises to paint colours drawn from this pallet, creating their own interpretation, while paying attention to the overall look, in enhancing our pretty little town. They have secured funding for this……..
As ever, thanks to the increasing number of owners/businesses who have brightened up their premises for all to enjoy. And best wishes to Colm and those involved in Mary Rose, we look forward to its release at the end of 2027/early 2028.
