"It was a great honour for myself personally and for my family," Jimmy O'Neill said when asked to reflect on being awarded the title of Cashel Lions Club Person of the Year.
The popular, retired school teacher can be found in the early morning light and at sundown giving his all to a labour of love, Larkspur Park and when his name was announced as the winner of the award on the Thursday night before St. Patrick's Day at Halla na Feile, a huge round of applause rang out.
"It was a great honour for Larkspur Park and in particular for Larkspur Pitch and Putt club where I had the pleasure of voluntarily helping out over 30 years. I was delighted to receive it, I was really surprised to be honest with you!
"I got caught out completely and to get the award is a great source of pride for me," Jimmy said.
Over the decades he helped out with cutting the greens, maintaining the Fairways and other jobs associated with keeping a Pitch and Putt course in pristine condition.
Jimmy says that Larkspur Park is a gem in Cashel: "It is a marvellous facility. It is a very popular place and we host a lot of championships. This year we have the All-Ireland Matchplay finals on the June Bank Holiday weekend.
"That is a really big event and it will bring a huge crowd to the town as well so everyone should do quite well out of it."
Jimmy taught for many years at the secondary school in the town and knows the town well: "It has a nice environment and it is a progressive town and continually improves which is essential.
"It has been doing quite well the last ten years. It is great to see the town expanding as it was stagnant back in the 1960s and 70s and even into the 80s. There are a lot of new developments in the town as well, even there recently the new fire station opened and is a state-of-the-art facility.
"The Cashel Palace has brought another dimension to tourism in the town and that has brought the centre of the town more alive as well as you can see with coffee shops and other businesses as well. Most of the shops are occupied," he said.
Obviously there are issues the Cashel townsfolk can work on improving such as wider footpaths and a new cycle lane serving the primary and secondary schools.
The areas around the schools suffer daily congestion from an over dependence on cars because of narrow approach footpaths to the schools and a lack of cycle lanes near the schools, but Jimmy is hopeful that outstanding issues in Cashel can be addressed:
"I know there are plans afoot to enhance the environment - that is needed. Things like public lighting and a redesigning of the plaza in the centre of the town as well as increasing pedestrian accessibility throughout the town are being looked at.
"All towns, not just Cashel, need to be more pedestrian friendly and more environmentally friendly as well. That should become the focus now in future," Jimmy says.
Jimmy has seen a lot of changes in the town which is expanding rapidly: "Not to be too technical now, the two fastest growing towns in Tipperary are Nenagh and Cashel so in terms of that kind of growth and development it is very much different to the time when I was growing up.
"It is great to see such diversity and the contribution different people have made to local life as well, in the way they have got involved in local activities and so on.
"I would have experienced that first hand as a former teacher in Cashel Community School. I have seen all the different pupils come from many parts of the world to Cashel over the last twenty years," he says.
Over the course of his teaching career Jimmy worked voluntarily in Larkspur Park: "I would have worked in Larkspur nearly every day of the summer holidays and other times. I was born and bred as a Cashel man and I am very proud to have received this award.
"I lived in Cashel apart from my four years in college in Galway. I came back then and worked in various towns around when jobs were hard to come by and I was fortunate enough to get a job in the Vocational School and then we moved up to the Community School before finishing up the year before last.
"Cashel Community School has grown in numbers - like the town. It is probably the biggest school in Tipperary with approximately 900 students. There was a new extension built on recently so it has progressed with the expansion of the town," Jimmy says.
The importance of new wider footpaths, cycle lanes and a plan for the primary and secondary school zones is huge in this new period of growth: "The quality of the local environment can help enhance the town in a big way.
"They have pedestrian crossings at both schools and a roundabout at the secondary school that tends to slow traffic down but you just can't be too safe," the Cashel Lions Club Person of the Year says.
Quality of life is key so further developments like wider footpaths around schools, more pedestrian crossings, an enhanced plaza and developing more quality facilities similar to Larkspur would add greatly to the quality of life in the shadow of the ever present Rock.
"We are blessed in this town because we have the Rock which is such a prominent national monument. It is internationally known. There are a variety of historical buildings and plenty to do around Cashel.
"It is a great place to live and hopefully we continue making our place even better still for the years to come."
