As with other community groups, Donabate Portrane Men’s Shed has had to suspend its normal activities over the past year and a half. However, small groups of members have been able to tend our plots at Turvey Allotments while observing all public health protocols; this has been possible with the support of our many sponsors. Fingal County Council, who lease the plots to us, grant-aided materials for a patio so members who are not so physically active can join us; Fingal Chamber paid for our greenhouse and funding from Tesco was used to purchase seeds, plants and other materials.Recently, members have also met outdoors for coffee at the Shoreline Hotel. However, with increasing levels of vaccination and easing of restrictions, we hope in the not-too-distant future to be able to resume our weekly get-togethers at Donabate Scouts’ Den. With this in mind, a Men’s Shed sign, acknowledging all of our sponsors, has taken its place alongside the other signs at the Den. As our sign says, if you wish to join us, please email donabateportraneshed@gmail.com or phone Jim on 086-3694316.

The Keep Well campaign has been running since October 2020 and covers the following headings – Keeping active; Switching off and being creative; Eating Well; and Staying connected- staying connected with people, addressing isolation, supporting volunteerism and initiatives that support person-to-person connection is important to our wellbeing.It really has become clear since the start of Covid that we have a cohort of members who are not connected and who have not been able to stay in touch fully with the weekly emails or zoom classes. While committee members have been trying to stay in touch with everyone, it has been really difficult – and it is very hard to say much in a text message! AAfA were thrilled to hear that they have been successful in receiving funding for 10 ACORN tablets. We hope to start this project in the next 2 months and it will be an opportunity for members to have the use of one of these tablets and to be trained how to use them. You will then be able to see if it is right for your use. Donabate Portrane Community Centre are also working with us on this project and we really appreciate their assistance. The ACORN has been designed in Ireland specifically to be easier to use than a computer and to give the user real access to much useful information AND, perhaps most importantly, the ability to stay in touch with ‘smart phone’ style. You can read the local papers, see family photos and much, much more. The Companion app can be downloaded for free by family and friends and when this is used to call you, or you call them, you both can see each other. The companion app allows your family to add in appointments etc., into your diary. We already have members who have expressed interest in becoming more connected and we have members who are willing to assist with training. Some will be on traditional computers and now this will be available for those who may be complete beginners. More information will go directly to member over the next few months. PLEASE NOTE: NEW MEMBERS WELCOME (OVER 55) REGISTRATION JULY, CLASSES START AUGUST. QUERIES TO CAROLYN 0879284307, OR PHILLIPPA 0874118335

Cllr Adrian Henchy has welcomed news of progress on the sporting and recreation campus at Ballymastone. He said, “Since 2014 this has been a project that started from the ground up with Lambay Sports Athletics club joining with the existing sporting clubs at Ballymastone, St. Ita’s AFC and St. Pats Gaa in creating a vision for a truly world class sporting and recreation campus to serve the needs of our 3 local clubs, our local schools and indeed the wider Donabate Portrane peninsula. In recent weeks this project took a major step forward through the direct intervention of Fingal County Council Chief Executive Ann Marie Farrelly and my colleague and Minister for Housing, Local Government & Heritage Darragh O’Brien who negotiated and agreed the service site funding of €11.5 million towards Infrastructural improvements within Donabate Portrane to include the early delivery of the Ballymastone Sporting, Recreational & Educational Campus which is an enormous boost to the local community and shows lessons have been learned where we are now delivering much needed infrastructure in advance of additional housing in the area.

This project would not have happened without the outstanding work, goodwill, cooperation and ability to always see the bigger picture for all all of our local community from all three of our local clubs, St. Ita’s AFC, St. Pats GAA and Lambay Sports Athletics Club who will now finally have a home and be able to move in beside the already wonderful facilities provided by both St. Ita’s and St. Pats. When delivered this top class campus will greatly add to the already wonderful facilities that have been developed & provided for the local community by both St. Pats Gaa and St. Ita’s AFC. The addition of a fully Floodlit 8 Lane running track including a grass soccer pitch as well as a Full size All Weather GAA and Soccer pitches along with improved access and parking at Ballymastone is long overdue. I am also particularly pleased that an issue close to my heart and something that has regularly been raised with me the needs to also provide for younger people outside of formal sports will also see the campus provide a Junior & Senior playground as well as a large scale Skatepark which will ensure it is truly a campus for all of our local community.

Finally I want to especially recognise the enormous efforts on behalf of St Patrick’s GAA Club from Brian Mc Grath and Felim Mc Allister, St Ita’s AFC, Conor Tonra and Brian Tighe and Lambay Sports & Athletics Club, Dara Carr and Sonia Francis who have all represented their clubs with utmost professionalism, goodwill along with an ability to always see the bigger picture on behalf of their club members and the wider Donabate Portrane area. I now look forward to over the next 12-18 months to finally see construction getting underway on what will truly be a World class sporting/recreational campus at the very heart of the Donabate Portrane community”

Corina Johnston Labour Party Local Area Representative welcomes a recent commitment given by Fingal County Council on a Garda text alert initiative for the Donabate peninsula. Johnston said; “I am very pleased to have been informed that a verbal commitment was given by Fingal County Council at the May JPC (joint policing committee) meeting to the introduction of the See Something Say Something text alert initiative on the Donabate peninsula on a trial basis.” Johnston added; “Duncan Smith TD and I first proposed that this text alert initiative be introduced on the peninsula at a meeting with Superintendent O’Neill to discuss Garda resources in Donabate and Portrane a number of months ago. At the meeting Superintendent O’Neill gave his support to our proposal. Duncan Smith TD subsequently proposed this at the March JPC meeting. A similar scheme was introduced in Swords last year and was deemed successful.“Johnston continued; “At a follow up meeting on Garda resources for the area with the Assistant Commissioner and Ronan Barry the new Superintendent for our district full support was given for the introduction of this initiative on the peninsula. This text alert initiative will enable members of the public to confidentially report incidents that might need Garda intervention. “ Johnston concluded; “ Details have yet to be finalised but it is hoped to introduce this text alert initiative on the peninsula in the coming months.We look forward to it’s introduction and hope it will act as a deterrent against anti social behaviour and other criminal activities and bring about a much quicker response from the Gardai.”

DPSO Club held their AGM in June; this always gives an opportunity to reflect and review club activities and achievements since the last meeting (which was closer to 2 years ago thanks to COVID). As our accounts were presented to the members, the thing that really stood out for us is how well supported our club is by our members, Fingal County Council and the Donabate Portrane Community. Since our club was established in 2018, our income is over €15,000. We have been supported by Fingal County Council to the tune of €4,750. Tesco Distribution Centre have selected us twice to receive a donation from their Community Fund. Local student Ella McDonagh nominated our club to receive €557.50 from Donabate Tennis Club’s stepathon challenge last November. Local athletes have run thousands of miles for our athletes; two of our parents have completed marathons for our athletes raising over €3000. Local club Mojo Fitness chose us as their charity for their marathon runners in the Dublin City Marathon 2019 raising over €4,000 for our club. We’ve also been the recipients of funds from cake sales (thank you Maisie!), bag packs, raffles, donations of pocket money from our athletes and gifts from individuals. In addition to all of this were also the recipients of a prize of sporting equipment from Decathlon who had a national “like” competition on Facebook. Despite our small size, we have so many supporters that we were among a few large well established clubs to be awarded prizes! We are proud and grateful to be part of this community; thank you everyone. In July local club LSA are hosting their first race as part of the summer Dublin Race Series.This will be a virtual event, with distances of 5km, 10km and 10 miles.We are delighted to be selected as their chosen charity for 2021. Thank you LSA! As we look forward to the launch of our athletics club and our first competitions in 2021/2022 season we are looking forward to putting all these donations to good use.

May brought us at Donabate Portrane Special Olympics Club the best news ever; with an ease in Covid restrictions and thanks to hard work by our safety committee we have returned to ‘live’ sessions on Saturdays.I don’t know who was more excited, our volunteers, the parents or the athletes!Despite the rain, and thanks to the covered yard area in DPETNS, we welcomed our young athletes and parents back in pods of fifteen, and it was a privilege to see the smiles as they saw their friends face to face for the first time in so long.We are all sure they could all tell we adults were smiling under our masks as we marvel at how much they have all grown up over the last 15 months.We thought it might be difficult to run our sessions within the restrictions, but as always our superstars adapted to the challenge and were soon running, hopping, skipping, balancing.Playground games are a great hit; with the children enjoying their turn at being “it” and calling the shots in Red Rover and What’s the time Mister Wolf. While activities were under way in Donabate, one of our parent volunteers, Maedhbh, took on her first marathon to raise funds for Down Syndrome Dublin and our club. Our club followed her progress with some of our families going along to support Maedhbh on her route. We are all very proud and grateful to Maedhbh who raised over €3500. Local Athletics Club, LSA are great supporters of our club and will help us with the launch of our athletics programme as soon as we are able.We are delighted that they have chosen us as their charity partner for their first official event this summer to celebrate their 10th anniversary.Thank you LSA.

LSA (Lambay Sports & Athletics), is an athletic club in North County Dublin with juvenile and adult members, founded in 2011.This is our first club race and we would love if you could join us in our celebrations.Unfortunately due to restrictions this year we can only be with you in spirit and hope from next year to continue with an annual road race around the beautiful coastline of Donabate and Portrane.For now we are celebrating everything 10 with a 10k and 10 mile. We’ve also added a 5k and juvenile races so everyone has a race to suit them. So get the family out and run, jog, walk or roll your distance between 12th to 18th July 2021. We will have spot prizes which will be announced over the next couple of weeks too for winning club teams (it doesn’t have to be an athletic club) and age category. Our nominated charity is Donabate & Portrane Special Olympics Club, a new club with a big heart, catering for kids with disabilities from all over North Dublin and beyond. If you would like to train for this event, join the club and share in the celebrations, please email Heather on lambaysportsathletics@gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook - Search “LSA”.

Active Age for All recently acquired two sets of croquet equipment and asked Donabate Portrane Men’s Shed to assist by assembling the two flat-packed trolleys included with the sets. So, with engineering know-how and carpentry skills, not to mention a code-cracker’s ability to decipher the unintelligible assembly directions, a few of our members proved themselves up to the task. We managed to produce two fully functioning trolleys in time for Active Age for All’s socially distanced return to croquet. With the easing of Covid-19 restrictions to permit outdoor gatherings of 15, the Men’s Shed has arranged a few outdoor get-togethers over the coming weeks. Work at our allotments also continues. If you wish to join us, please contact Jim on 086-3694316.

Councillor Adrian Henchy has welcomed news of a Skate park for the area. He said I was very pleased at a recent area committee meeting to receive confirmation that as part of the Ballymastone Sporting and recreational campus, Fingal County Council have agreed to install a skate park as part of this project. This has been one of my key objectives since my election in 2014 from my visits to our local primary schools and engagement with students of our local secondary school as well as many youth organisations and indeed local residents calling for the installation of a skate park local to Donabate given the nearest one is currently in Swords. The first step was getting this stitched in as a local objective for Donabate within the Fingal Development Plan and its very positive to now see Fingal County Council follow through on its commitment. Donabate is a growing community with a very young population and its critically important that we provide a wide range of facilities and amenities to appeal to as many young people as possible. I am also very pleased to see this amenity co- existing with the proposed eight lane Olympic standard athletics facility and the full size flood lite all weather facilities to accommodate Gaelic Games and Soccer.

On Monday 10th May, the croquet players were all ready to celebrate the start of the 2021 season using their new equipment. This was purchased, at the end of last summer, using a grant from Fingal County Council Community, Culture and Sports Division. Prior to this we had a loan from Croquet Ireland, and we thank them very much for that.
Thanks too to some of the Donabate Portrane Men’s Shed, Jim O’Donohoe, Gerry Kirwan and Oliver McDonald, who volunteered to put together the trolleys that arrived in kit form. (see photos). The existing AAfA members who play croquet regularly were really pleased to see this arrival. At the time of writing, we have more members wishing to join and we will be at trying to extend our playing time, or additional time, to try to accommodate this.

We will continue to monitor the changes in opening-up from Covid and how it might impact on our activities. Keep checking on our weekly emails to see what else may be happening from time to time. All we need now is a summer of glorious weather.