Welcome to Carlow: the South African who left it all behind to run Carlow Tidy Towns
Matt Cocci pictured at home in Carlow with his wife Sophia and sons Alexander and Valentino Photo: Michael O’Rourke Photography
OPPORTUNITIES. That’s what made Matthew Cocci (45), his wife Sophia and their two sons up and leave their home in Johannesburg, South Africa and move to Ireland in 2019.
It was also something of a homecoming â Matt’s grandfather was born in Ireland before moving to England and later South Africa.
Matt’s first trip to Ireland was in 1993 with his mum, who was visiting friends in Limerick. In among the castles and puffins, he remembers of this trip: “One of the coolest things was learning to play that old school game ‘Lemmings’ on a computer with a whole lot of Irish friends,” said Matt.
The climate, of course, was also different to home, as were the political dynamics. “I could see the clear difference in the way people live here and the way we lived in South Africa.” Growing up in South Africa during apartheid was “hectic”, said Matt.
Schools were still completely segregated by race when he was a child under the Bantu education system, which ended in 1996. Such systemic inequality has created a country where violent crime is rampant.
“The middle or lower class who can’t get jobs turn to crime. It’s just easier to sit at a traffic light with a firearm.” Matt said they lived in “constant fear every day” in South Africa.
“You’re living in a house that’s got an alarm, you’ve got a security gate on the front door. You would have burglar proofing on every window. We lived in a double storey house; we had an interlocking gate between the lower and upper level just in case. Then we obviously had, like, the wall around our estate, that’s 7ft high, electrified. And then around the whole estate would be a palisade fence that’s electrified with an electric gate to get in and out.”
He saw the violence up close working as a paramedic for three and a half years after finishing school. “It was mentally absolutely obliterating me. I loved helping to save people’s lives and helping people, but the mental toll was insane, to see what human beings can do to other human beings.”
During his first year in Ireland, Matt was still on high alert: “I had to get over the fact that you didn’t have to really worry about locking the front door or, like, leaving the keys in the door and going out the whole day to work.”
“When we would hear a sound outside, it was scary because we were used to hearing gunshots or broken windows or people breaking into cars or car alarms.”
It is a relief that Matt’s two boys are not living under the threat of violence now in Carlow.
“They’re not going to get stabbed and their bicycle stolen. And there’s just a lot of opportunity here. As a parent, you want your kids to be better than you at every point in their life, you know?”
Matt explained how even policies introduced to reduce racial inequality have only made life more difficult for South Africans. The (BEE) policy adopted after the end of apartheid was designed to give black South Africans a foothold in the business world.
However, a reconciliation barometer survey report from 2025 by the South African Institute for Justice and Reconciliation notes the policy is now ‘highly contested’ with three-quarters (76%) of South Africans agreeing that hiring and promotions should be strictly merit based and two-thirds (67%) agreeing that using racial categories does more harm than good.
Critics say the policy has caused inflation and led to corruption within the economic and political elite rather than improving the economy for everyone.
“At the moment, South Africa has become so corrupt that everything is just falling apart there,” said Matt.
After struggling to get work in Johannesburg, the couple secured jobs before they even arrived in Ireland in 2019 â Matt is a graphic designer and his wife, who is originally from Greece, is an events manager.
They moved when their two boys were young, aged six and three, and elected to leave their heritage behind completely.
“We kind of steered away from South African culture to embrace Irish culture more and to learn more about it and to be more involved.
“We will never go back to South Africa. There’s no need to and, as beautiful as South Africa is, it’s just too dangerous. If we want to go on a summer holiday, we just go visit Sophia’s mum in Greece.”
They do, however, love having a (a South African barbecue) with the other 50-100 families originally from South Africa that Matt estimates live in Carlow town.
Upon moving to Ireland, the Cocci family first lived in Shankhill, Co Dublin, but were priced out and decided to move to the ‘one horse town’ of Fenagh in Co Carlow. To grow their community during lockdown, Matt and Sophia got involved with ‘Clean Carlow’, driving to the town on the weekends to meet the group.
From that, he learned of tidy towns and Matt was made chairman of the group in 2023. “I love it,” he said, but with two young kids and a full-time job, he’s hoping that someone will take over the reins soon.
At the moment, the committee is building a sustainable community garden complete with composting station, greenhouse, solar panels and AI-operated irrigation system in Shaw Park. The use of AI relieves volunteers of having to water the plants every day, a chore especially for those in the group who are older.
Only a small proportion of the tidy towns group are Carlow locals â many of the volunteers come from the volunteer centre. “It’s difficult to find volunteers. It feels disheartening; we really want to try and get more of the community involved.”
He recalled a time when people of colour, who joined through Carlow Volunteer Centre, were openly abused as they worked. “They were going around picking up stuff and local people were just like ‘if it wasn’t for you monkeys then you wouldn’t have the mess’.
“I thought this was disgusting. Coming from a country that’s pretty much defined on segregation, it’s just my trip switch,” said Matt. “So, I just thought, okay, we’ll just be the change we want to see.”
Last year, tidy towns combined with the Carlow Nigerian community for a litter pick event and planted two fruit trees in Shaw Park.
“These trees will grow as a symbolism of coming together to grow together,” said Matt. “And whoever comes here, whether you’re Irish, Nigerian or whatever, you can pick an apple off that tree and it’s not going to discriminate.”
Despite that awful experience, Matt thanked the community in Carlow and Ireland more generally for giving his kids “the opportunity I would never have had and giving them a future that will springboard them to something better”.
Finally, he urged people to get involved with tidy towns: “It’s only every second Saturday or every second Tuesday, and just come help us. One hour makes a big difference.”
