John Dooley's garden lives on at Kildare school 

A COMMUNITY has rallied together and will celebrate this week the opening of a beautiful garden originally created by the late John Dooley.

The official opening of ‘John’s Garden’ on the site Scoil Diarmada, Castledermot will take place on Friday.

Poignantly, this will also be the first anniversary of the pioneer of this award-winning horticultural delight. John sadly died on 5 June last year, only a week after this garden displayed at Bloom 2024. He had previously won RTÉ’s Super Garden competition.

Since then, the community, under the watchful eyes of John’s wife Liz and local principal Jennifer Murphy, have carried out Trojan work to get the garden disassembled in Phoenix Park, and moved back to Kildare where it was re-built in the sheds of Mr Dooley’s neighbour Graham Murphy.

Significantly, the producers at RTÉ covering ‘Bloom’ were also aware, and recently both Marty Morrissey and Áine Lawlor came to Castledermot to film a segment on the garden – a piece that went out on Bloom coverage at 7pm on Thursday evening, 29 May.

“The garden was lovely,” said Liz. “Even the raised beds are built at different heights for different ages, it’s lovely. It really is.”

She added: “The RTÉ people came out a few weeks ago to film me and a few of the kids, and showed it last night.

“Marty and Áine spoke about John, and the 58 in the class, but the whole school is involved.”

Liz thanked Mark Wall TD – “a great Castledermot man” – for getting some funding from the council, but it wasn’t quite enough to fund the shortfall, and so the village has started an online fundraising page to raise money for the maintenance of the garden. Principal Jennifer Murphy said the school had aimed at preserving John’s gardening ethos.

“The sixth class in the garden this year was the fifth class that went with John to Bloom last year … but all 342 kids in the school take part, so everybody goes gardening.”

“We started the garden with pots, germinating in the class, carrots, and parsnips, watercress, nothing too taxing anyway,” she said.

“I remember last year John was supposed to transport the Garden back from the Phoenix Park after the Show to Castledermot.

“So between Graham Murphy – a farmer and neighbour of the Dooleys – and Bord Bia brought it back lock, stock, and barrel to Murphy’s sheds,” she smiled.

“Last week, when it was mad hot, and we had problems watering the garden, Graham again went above and beyond, and brought a tank of 1,000 litres of water down for the job,” she revealed.

“At the end of the summer, we had a garden sale of the plants and veg that wouldn’t last the winter, and Graham kept all the others watered,” she explained.

“Pat, who was its original landscaper, and Kilsaran had to make a few tweaks like, and began a vegetable patch and a poly tunnel, but we maintained John’s ethos of mixing veg with flowers, keeping biodiversity for the past, present, and future,” said Ms Murphy.

“In the polytunnel we’ve already harvested tomatoes and strawberries, and we’re growing peppers, maize, kiwis, blackberries and raspberries!

“In the vegetable patch we’ve got potatoes, peas, broccoli, mint, lavender, rosemary, thyme, lettuce and sunflowers.

“We’re still using John’s ethos that anything can be used as a planter, and we have flowers growing in a bed of compost inside a stack of tyres.”

On Friday, there will be a formal ribbon-cutting, before guests can enjoy refreshments prepared by the parents’ association.

“People are welcome to come and have a walk around the garden at any time during school hours, and we’re looking to have it open for one day a week during the school holidays, but we’re liaising with Liz on this,” said Ms Murphy.

“We’re hoping to start a Grandparents’ Gardening Club for September so the kids can come with their grandparents, and they can share their knowledge before having a cuppa and a biccy,” she revealed. “Maybe even a strawberry!”

To support the garden, people can donate on readandraise.ie by searching ‘Donations for Scoil Diarmada’.