Ennis will be ablaze with thousands of flowers during the Entente Florale awards ceremony in September, the first time the prize-giving for the Europe-wide civic competition is being held in the Republic.
Clare County Council nursery is growing 25,000 flowers, 20 per cent more than usual, for the town. Community and residential groups are making a big effort as well, and businesses will be putting up window boxes.
Towns and villages across Europe and beyond participate in the competition, and Ennis won a silver medal four years ago.
About 300 delegates from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Portugal, Slovenia, the Netherlands and Britain, as well as Northern Ireland and the Republic, are expected for the ceremonies, which run from September 14th to 16th.
Ennis Urban District Council, in partnership with Ennis Tidy Towns Committee, Ennis Information Age Town, Shannon Development and the council, has set up a task force for the event. It's not simply a matter of saturating the area in flowers: the town has to be ultra-tidy, and its amenities showcased.
The work programme was inaugurated last Sunday by nature expert Eanna Ni Lamhna. It will be run by project manager Josephine Cotter Coughlan and project co-ordinator Etain Murphy, in co-operation with the task force.
Second-level students will be recording the preparations on digital camera for uploading to the Ennis website, www.ennis.ie
All the town's schools are being given the opportunity to take part.
"The enthusiasm of the students is unbelievable," said Ms Triona McInerney, assistant chief executive of Eircom Ennis Information Age Town. "The first school that we went to was St Flannan's, and even though it was lunch-time, 60 of them signed up immediately."