Newbridge Tidy Towns Association

31/08/2026

Annual Meadow Maintenance has commenced in the a Green Flag for Parks Award Ireland

There are two “formal” managed meadows – the Wildflower Meadow & Short-cut Meadow

As park users will be aware the grass areas alongside the Liffey are not generally cut & those areas are left to nature, with some limited areas carefully cut down to the riverside to facilitate access for those who like to swim in the Liffey here in Newbridge.

The meadows in the Liffey Linear Park are there to promote biodiversity in the park & they are managed with one annual cut & lift.

Our pollinators & wildlife are facing significant problems so by providing native wildflower hay meadows & short-cut or “no-mow” meadow areas in parks & residential green areas we create habitats which are potentially helpful to our pollinators during the growing season – March to early September.

Of course, the variety of colourful wildflowers in the meadows during the spring & summer months is visually pleasing to park users & by providing a mown (meandering) walking path through the meadows, the visitor gets an opportunity to enjoy the flowers & pollinators close up!

So it’s not just biodiversity & pollinators that benefit – but every visitor to the park.

The meadows are used by local schools for educational purposes – identifying trees, wildflowers, butterflies, bees, bumble bees, moths, hoverflies, red soldier beetles & a myriad of other pollinating insects.

The meadows have now been cut, seeds from the wildflowers will, in general have fallen into the ground by end August. Later this week the cuttings will be raked up & removed - thus reducing meadow fertility - wildflowers grow best in less fertile soil

Because the park is a park (where all green waste is fed back into the park’s ecosystem), all of the cuttings will be deposited around one of the fruit orchards & as they decay they will fertilise the fruit orchard – that work will commence later in the week.

Later - in September we will scarify parts of the meadow – particularly some selected areas into which Irish grown Yellow Rattle will be introduced – we tend not to add other wildflower seeds (other than some collected from the meadow) into this meadow, we do however plant some pollinator friendly spring bulbs in sections of the meadow.

Delighted to have a visit from our former colleague Ger Ahern today – now volunteering with Tidy Towns Killaloe

Thanks gents for meadow work today.

Roll on next spring & summer wildflower meadows!

Everything is greener when it’s cleaner.

Kildare Community Stories

28/08/2026

It's great to see that work on the New Library building has commenced in Newbridge.

We received advance notice of this work commencing, which provided us with an opportunity to remove the Newbridge In Bloom flower display - hopefully when the new library complex is built & opened we will have an opportunity to erect the display again to complement the planned new landscaping which will be carried out as part of the new development.

The library is of social significance to our town & the new 3 storey structure will be considerably larger than the current library, providing a purpose-built facility which will have many improved resources for the population of Newbridge & the surrounding locality - including a local studies & archive resource.

The older two-storey library building will be repaired & retained as part of the development as will the iron railings, wall & gate. This "Art Deco" building was opened in 1936 & although it was a relatively small library many in Newbridge will remember visiting this wonderful place to borrow books in the years prior to having use of the "new" more modern building which was provided on the adjacent site in the 1970's.

The combined Kildare County Library, Archives & Cultural Centre buildings comprising of the new library alongside the older protected structure will be a welcome & imposing landmark at the entrance to our town.

While this work is progressing the https://www.facebook.com/KildareLibraryService is located in Liffey Lodge (the old Patrician Monastery) beside the Liffey & St. Conleth's Bridge.

24/08/2026

24/08/2026

While a group of young people from Open Arms Church Newbridge carried out a litter pick in the park - a group of regular volunteers were working on the strand.

These volunteers undertook the substantial task of watering trees on the Strand - the long period of warm weather has resulted in many trees coming under pressure & needing significant watering. This is a task we have undertaken weekly for some weeks now & is likely to be repeated again next week.

In addition a litter pick was carried out in the area around the strand & the paths to the Athgarvan Rd. boardwalk.

In addition they watered some of the flowers in the upper park near the bridge.

Thanks to everybody for turning out on Saturday & as usual some not in the photos.

23/08/2026

Huge thanks to the group of young people from Open Arms Church Newbridge, and their leader Jennifer, who joined us yesterday for some community volunteering. They helped support a deep litter pick of Liffey Linear Park and environs. Pictured here with some of our NTT volunteers.

19/08/2026

Our tuesday evening volunteer team watered the railing planters at the bandstand along with the ground planters at the main entrance at the bridge to the

It was somewhat damp & we welcomed the albeit limited shower of rain.

Thanks folks - our tuesday gatherings will come to a close in a week or two - we will however continue our Saturday meetings throughout the year & also those who 'pick-a-patch' will continue their essential work in numerous areas around ths town.

16/08/2026

Heritage Week Sunset Bat Walk in the Liffey Linear Park

We were delighted to welcome a wonderful group of people who attended a wonderful Bat Talk & Walk on Saturday night last in the Liffey Linear Park, Newbridge & were proud to fly the Heritage Week flag at the Watering Gates.

We assembled on the Strand just before sunset & the evenings proceedings commenced with presentations by members of the Kildare Bat Group – detailing the number of bats we have in Ireland, where they breed, feed & hibernate.

We discovered that bats are mammals - warm-blooded creatures who live in colonies & frequent lots of places around Newbridge – in buildings, bridges, trees & all along the riverbank here in the Green Flag Liffey Linear Park!

During the presentations & indeed later while we were observing the bat population, some really interesting & quite detailed questions were asked & Kildare Bat Group experts answered all the questioned & were in a position to show examples of some bats to those who assembled for the bat walk. Some of those present shared their positive experience of bats in & around their residential areas.

So we learned about the secret life of bats … where they fly, what they eat, how they feed their young, how some trick their prey & then consume them! Some bats can consume up to 3,000 insects on any given night – so they are quite busy every night!

We now know that there are 9 species of bat in Ireland.

As the presentations & discussions ended it was time to walk along the tarmacadam paths on the Strand – where after a brief waiting period the local bat population began to venture out all around the park & along the Liffey. The group progressed around the Strand & then up along the Towpath to the Watering Gates – observing bats all along the route.

While using some specialist lamps - specifically designed to observe some bat species without negatively impacting on the bat’s habitat & lifestyle, we spotted some of the Daubenton’s Bats flying & foraging just above the water’s surface.

Using Heterodyne bat detectors supplied by the Kildare Bat Group we encountered 6 of the 9 species on our walk through the park - namely:-

Brown long-eared bats (Plecotus auritus);
Common pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pipistrellus);
Daubenton’s Bat (Myotis daubentonii);
Leisler’s bat (Nyctalus leisleri);
Natterer’s bat (Myotis nattereri);
Soprano pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pygmaeus);

Our sincere thanks to Kildare Bat Group – namely Anna Collins, Caroline Whelan & Caroline McDonald who made this Heritage Week event so interesting by sharing their expertise & imparting so much information about bats in our locality – how privileged we are to have such wonderful wildlife on our doorstop!

As an organisation Newbridge Tidy Towns have been working with Kildare Bat Group since 2012, we will continue to work with the Kildare Bat Group who monitor the 21 bat roost boxes which have been erected throughout the Liffey Linear Park & hopefully more roost boxes will be erected later next year.

Thanks to all who attended the Sunset Bat Watch event, including some of our volunteers for their help on the night - we certainly enjoyed the evening & we hope you did as well.

Roll on next year!

Anna Collins
Heritage Week
Kildare Community Stories

16/08/2026

16/08/2026

Some of the volunteers who came out to help on Saturday morning - as usual some were tending to other work & are missing from the photo.

A number of tasks needed to be addressed - including:

Watering some of the semi-mature trees & the orchard trees in the - a selection of the trees are suffering from dehydrating despite their proximity to the Liffey. Hard to think we would be hoping for rain in an Irish summer 🤣

The flowerbeds at the Watering Gates were tended to as well, tidied up & watered.

Once the trees were watered on the Strand, the group moved up to tend to the floral display between the Watering Gates & the Bridge, all planters & floral displays were watered & some dead-heading done as well.

In addition to this essential work a litter pick was carried out on the Strand & the park generally.

All in all quite a busy morning's work.

Thank you to all the volunteers who came out to help on Saturday morning.

We will gather again on Tuesday evening .