Twenty years of KCA: Eoin Houlihan & James Byrne

James and Eoin at the 2021 Pakman Awards where their company Faerly won the 'Online Green Packaging' category award.

Kilcullen Community Action was founded 21 years ago, on 9 May 2001. The Diary asked a number of people who have been involved with it during the last 20 years to give us some of their thoughts on the organisation. We will be publishing these as they come in, to mark the completion of two decades of KCA work.

It was the summer of 2010 when myself and my husband James came to look at an apartment to live in here in Kilcullen. I'm originally from Kildoon, a townland outside of Nurney not far from here and James is from Enniscorthy in Wexford. We had been living in Dublin together for four years and circumstances meant we needed to move. 

What struck us both when we came to view the apartment was how beautiful the main street was, not just the buildings but the beautiful window boxes in full bloom and how clean the street was. Jump forward 11 years and we ended up buying a house in a beautiful estate called Nicholastown and we are both active members of Tidy Towns, indeed I'm now a Director with KCA. 

Kilcullen is very lucky to have a group like KCA who work tirelessly at improving Kilcullen. KCA along with the CE workers and the Tidy Town volunteers help to keep Kilcullen looking the way it is. Over the past number of years KCA has evolved and taken on more and more projects that are beyond flowers and litter picking. KCA is now involved in the National Pollinator Plan, developing a Sustainable Energy Community, as well as looking at creating energy from our current resources with the potential of feeding into the local grid. There are biodiversity talks to help educate people about the world we share with so many other creatures. KCA are now involved in producing a Town Design Plan for the future development of Kilcullen that will endeavour to try and accommodate the needs for everyone. We even have a newly built poly tunnel as well as two bee hives. These are just a small example of the work that KCA are involved in. 

For us this is what is great about KCA, it is a group with a vision and people who are willing to explore new possibilities for the betterment of Kilcullen and the planet. KCA reaches out to the community and draws on the strengths of the people who live here. KCA is a community organisation of volunteers who work tirelessly to make Kilcullen a better place to live, work and visit.

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