Bere Island parkrun celebrates its 5th anniversary

Last weekend, the 5k parkrun on Bere Island in West Cork celebrated its 5th anniversary having started on the 30th of August 2014.

To date, a parkrun has been held there on 271 occasions which includes special days like Christmas and New Years Day as well as of course every Saturday morning. The only Saturday that it actually wasn't held as far as I can tell was during the start of March 2018 when we had the icy blast from the 'Beast from the East'.


The chart above shows the numbers for all 271 events and the average number for all of those events is 48 participants. As you can see, they get a huge influx of runners during July and August due to all the visitors and it then settles down a bit for the rest of the year.

The chart below shows the average numbers for 2014 to 2018.

2014 is a bit lower probably because it started just after the tourist season. For the other years, it has hovered between 43 and 51.

The average so far in 2019 is 62.7 but that is likely to drop as the numbers for the remainder of the year will probably be lower. Still though, it should end the year at a roughly 55 or so.

One of the most amazing stats for the Bere Island parkrun is that they are able to host a successful weekly 5k parkrun despite the fact that there are only just over 200 people living on the island. Obviously people travel over it from the mainland each Saturday but it's still an amazing community effort.

I always think the Bere Island is a great example of what can be achieved. If they can host a parkrun on an island off the coast of West Cork then surely there must be loads of towns all over the country that could host one?