Meals on Wheels

The Meals-on-Wheels volunteers cook approximately 40 meals each day for clients, 5 days a week. The Douglas branch operates out of the centre’s Kitchen (see photo featured).

Douglas Tidy Towns

Douglas Tidy Towns volunteers meet at the centre every Saturday morning at 10am and work until noon approximately. The equipment necessary is supplied by the Douglas Tidy Towns, and anyone wishing to volunteer is always welcome.

The Dough Hut

Open Tuesday to Sunday (weather permitting) 11am-5pm and located in the heart of the park, the Dough Hut is ready to serve up barista style coffee, mini donuts and ice cream.

About Us

Our History

Douglas Community Association was founded in 1969 by Mary Hanley who was a local District Nurse and midwife in Douglas for over 25 years.  As a midwife, she found many women were socially isolated in their homes and impressed with the ICA movement nationwide, she founded Douglas I.C.A. and during her first term of office the ICA hall was built on Church Rd., opposite the Community Park.  The ICA Hall was very much a community hall, used by lots of different groups in Douglas.

In the late sixties, many housing estates were built in Douglas over a short period of time in formerly rural areas such as Grange, Donnybrook, and Rochestown.  Douglas became a very sought-after area because of its lovely, established villages in East and West Douglas, its proximity of 2 miles to the city, its many shops and public houses; it was also well serviced by buses to the city.  Added to that, it was on the route to lower harbour areas, Passage, Monkstown and Ringaskiddy, and also to Crosshaven, and Carrigaline.

What was once a semi-rural community, almost overnight became one of the fastest growing suburbs in Cork.  Mary saw that buildings were shooting up everywhere in Douglas, using up every available green space.  In her role as District Nurse, she was very aware of the stresses and strains of women rearing their children without a supportive  community structure, i.e. playing areas, places for the public to walk and enjoy the visual environment.  She was also aware of the elderly who needed support to continue on living in their own homes who would need services such as meals-on-wheels.

There was just one green space left in the heart of Douglas, a 5-acre area known as “The Soccer Pitch” which ran between Douglas East and Douglas West  However, this area was in private ownership, and would have been a prime site for the development of housing estates. Getting this land for public amenity became almost a personal obsession of Mary.

She gathered some like-minded people together, the first, was her good friend Seamus Lucy, who agreed to be first chairman as women weren’t as yet accepted to act in top roles in community organisations, unless they were women-only organisations.  They formed the Douglas Community Association.  In the December 1971 minutes of DCA, the following officers were elected:  Fr. Frank Fehily, Chairperson, Canon Packham, Vice Chairperson, Enda McDonnell, Secretary, Brendan Swanton, Treasurer, Jim Lucey, P.R.O., Jim Ryder, Seamus Lucey and Mary.  Initially their sole aim was to get ‘the last bit of green field in Douglas for the people.’  For almost 9 years, this group of people persisted in trying to get Cork County Council to buy the land, which they eventually did in 1977, when then Manager of Cork County Council, Michael Conlon, purchased the site by Compulsory Purchase Order for the sum of €32,000.  The Council agreed to give DCA a leasehold on this land.  Fund-raising for the Douglas Community Centre started immediately and the Douglas ICA were the springboard for most of the fund-raising activities through use of their hall and their huge voluntary effort, and the centre was completed in 1986.  Mary was given National Person of the Year Award in 1977 in recognition of her service to the community.  She died in 1995 at the age of 73.

Mary’s family, daughters Helen and Claire, sons John and Mick, recently donated (September 2021 – a hundred years since Mary’s birth) a plaque in honour of Mary which is located on one of the benches at the Church Road end of the park. We are extremely proud to have this piece of history cemented in the park.