“THE SECRET OF Birdhill is there’s a wonderful community gathering,” says Anne Barry of the the Birdhill, Co Tipperary Tidy Towns committee.

The small village community won the national prize in last year’s competition, including another award for tidiest village – a title they have held since 2016 and hope not to lose.

They say hard work and community members coming out to participate in group weeding, painting, litter collecting and other activities is the key factor in their success.

Though it’s rare to win the national award twice in a row, the people in Birdhill are not letting that stop them from putting in a maximum effort for this year’s competition.

“You can’t just reach the standard you got last year – you have to up it again,” says committee secretary Gránne Delaney.

We took a tour of the champion village to see what lessons we could learn to become a national Tidy Town winner.