On the ground in Cork City
From community garden to steering committee: Cities@Heart sees Cork's approach to urban heart health first-hand
On 22 September 2026, the Cities@Heart coordinators and several project partners spent a day in Cork. They met local community leaders, health service managers, and researchers to see how the city is tackling cardiovascular disease (CVD) at neighbourhood level. The day ended with a hybrid Steering Committee meeting, so the whole consortium could take part.
Where the change happens
The day began at University College Cork (UCC). The visitors gave an overview of their work on Cities@Heart, and the UCC team presented its CVD research in the School of Public Health. UCC also outlined its work on developing interventions for the project's prevention pilot.
The group then travelled to Gurranebraher and Knocknaheeny on the north side of Cork city. There, they met programme managers and community organisations working on the ground, and heard about the local context and the challenges they face.
One of the stops was the the Niche Community Garden. This project was funded through health and local authority funding, and residents use it to grow food, connect with nature, and to build community connections. Denise Cahill, Healthy Cities Coordinator in Cork, explained why spaces like this matter. She shared:
"It's a fantastic community project where the local community can learn to grow food but also gather in this lovely hub. Community is essential from the perspective of the work that I do in Healthy Cities. They're a key partner for us, and they inform everything that we're engaged in at a multi-sectoral level."
Let's Grow Together: giving every child the best start
The visit also included Let's Grow Together, a charity based in Knocknaheeny that focuses on early childhood development and family support. Its vision is for communities to be "places where children experience happy, healthy and thriving childhoods that last a lifetime". Its work starts from the understanding that the early years, from birth to six, are critical for children's long-term learning, health, behaviour, and wellbeing.
Let's Grow Together runs a range of programmes in the local area. These include home visiting, parent and toddler groups, Newborn Behavioural Observation, Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, and the Kidscope paediatric clinic. It also provides training for practitioners and support for schools and early years settings.
Katherine Harford, who leads Let's Grow Together, explained the thinking behind the approach. Let's Grow Together is a charity to improve outcomes for children: giving all children the best start in life, which then supports their lifelong outcomes and quality of life. They do that by building the capacity of parents, of service providers, and of the communities themselves to support those children in their lives.
For Harford, communities are the natural starting point for any intervention.
She shared:
"Community is where the change happens. Listening to communities, understanding where people are at, and tapping into their existing knowledge and networks means starting interventions from a point of strength and opportunity. When you listen and understand the cultural context of people's lives, and respect those lives, trust builds, relationships build, and change can happen through those relationships."
Bringing care into the community
The group also visited a local chronic disease management hub. These hubs are part of Sláintecare, Ireland's health reform programme, which aims to integrate care from hospitals into the community.
Dr Peter Kearney, Regional Clinical Director at HSE South West, said the visit showed the value of placing care close to where people live. He added that the conversations with Let's Grow Together offered an important lesson for health professionals.
He shared:
"What we can see is that there is enormous opportunity for very effective intervention centred right in the community. As healthcare delivery individuals, we don't always think about the cultural acceptability of our interventions. To both implement and sustain them, we've got to have those thoughts at the top of mind."
An open discussion with the consortium
In the afternoon, the visitors moved to Lapp's Quay in Cork city centre for a meeting of the Cities@Heart Steering Committee. This time, the meeting was open to the entire consortium allowing all our partners to join in person or online.
Relevant discussions were had on plans to proceed with the city pilots and updates from each of the work packages.
The lessons from Cork city were the value of listening first, building on existing community strengths, and designing interventions that fit people's cultural context. These lessons will feed into Cities@Heart's prevention pilot and its work with communities across all seven pilot cities.
Watch the video here about our visit to Niche Community Gardens.
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