Congratulations to the Néala and Wednesday Ventures who boarded the beautiful Tall Ship Pelican recently for a week at sea! The Sea Scouts also had a lovely treat in August as they welcomed the Tall Ship Grace O’Malley for the first time into Dublin Port Company .

Please also keep this date free… 51st Annual Sea Scout Sailing Regatta hosted by Malahide Sea Scots on Sunday 2nd October 2022.

Over the summer months Junsa have continued their training sessions both in the Lusk scout den and in Corduff national school where we have gained new members.Full training schedules will resume in September and we are always welcoming new members in beginner and advanced groups and during the summer we have had past pupils start training again. Have a look at our pics of our club members over the years and at present. New members are always welcome!

It has been a very busy few summer months for Lusk Athletic Club athletes who continue to train and race and with things returning to normal there has been a glut of races to take part in which were postponed during the last two years. The Dublin Graded Track & Field meetings finished with the final event at Lucan Athletic stadium on the 3rd of August. Lusk AC athletes performed brilliantly in the 8 meetings in both track races and field events. Some club members were competing for the first time and others improved their PBs.From 5K to the Marathon our athletes have been running some great times, all the hard work during the first 6 months of the year now paying off. Lusk Athletic Club were well represented in the Fingal 10K around Swords in July and thanks to our large group of volunteers at this event. Sheila Bourke and Emma Przymusinska have been burning up the local Parkruns in Ardgillan and Donabate on Saturday mornings with one or the other usually finishing as the first female most weeks. Well done to all our members who set new Parkrun or Junior Parkrun PBs.Lusk Athletic Club welcomes all members back to training! Most groups have now resumed training from Tuesday 6th September. New members are always very welcome, runners, throwers, jumpers, training on Tuesday & Thursday from 7pm at the Hub, Rathmore Road. Please contact us via our social media or Luskacpro@gmail.com Our Fit4Life & Fit4Youth 5K training programmes return on Tuesday the 13th of September and both programmes are designed to help complete beginners or those returning to running after a layoff complete a 5K in 10 weeks! Open to all in the community and across North County Dublin. Register at luskathleticclub.ie/registration-2022/

We had a busy and exciting summer in Thomas Ashe Park with our Club Camp and our Kellogg’s Cúl Camp taking place. We had a fantastic turnout for both camps with over 350 children taking part this year. The camps were packed full of games, camogie/hurling, football, challenges, waterfights and plenty of fun. We thank all the wonderful coaches and our GPO Gerry for making our camps such a wonderful experience this year. We hope everyone had a great time in Round Towers Lusk this summer. We are always looking for new players to join our Juvenile and Adult Teams so please feel free to get in touch if you are interested in joining us. Contact:roundtowersluskpro@gmail.com for further details.

The public consultation for the new development plan closed in May with 1,946 individual submissions made by stakeholders and members of the public to Fingal County Council. Fingal County Council’s planners have now evaluated these submissions and fed back to Councillors on any proposed changes to the zoning maps. Speaking on the matters regarding the requests for large residential rezonings around Lusk in the public consultation Cllr Rob O’Donoghue noted, ‘we are going into what may be the final phase of the 2023 – 2029 Fingal Development Plan, I am glad that the Planners in the Council have taken my view that Lusk after developing rapidly in the last 20 years have rejected any additional residential zonings for the town requested by developers in the public consultation. The town will hopefully get the chance to consolidate and settle for duration of the next development plan, where social infrastructure can catch up with the residential development that has taken place in recent years.’ The final round of Councillors motions, seeking to alter the Development Plan will be brought in front of the Council at the end of September and run into mid-October. O’Donoghue continued, ‘although myself and Council planners are in alignment on the near to mid-term development of Lusk, there maybe other Councillors from outside the constituency who seek to promote motions that bring back these large scale rezonings in the final round of motions as they did in the previous round in February. I can assure you that I will be resisting these attempts again, should they come forward, and will keep you informed of these proceedings on social media.’

Both Lusk Community Council and Lusk Community Clean-Up Group received recognition for their work in improving the town via the Fingal Mayor’s Awards 2022. This recognition for the significant volunteer work in our town is greatly appreciated. As we look to the ongoing improvements that we plan to make in Lusk, the need for greater volunteer engagement will only increase. After 16 months of work on the Lusk Community Cultural Centre redevelopment project, the Community Council is delighted to bring the construction phase to a conclusion and at last officially move into opening up the facility for exhibitions and other uses. Special thanks goes to Pat Fitzgerald’s construction team and all sub-contractors, our professional team, Bernard Voortman (architect),Paul Sexton (engineer) and Shane McCullagh (quantity surveyor) as well as finance supporters of Fingal Leader Partnership, Fingal County Council, Founding Friends of the Lusk Community Cultural Centre and Lusk Community Council, without whose support this iconic project would not have been possible.

We had a little bit of LSA Track and Field history made this summer when our Ladies team, ranging in age from 15 to 53, qualified for the final of the National Track and Field Outdoor League. The Track and Field League is a Team event where teams compete in up to twenty one disciplines over the course of the day, and score points in their best fifteen events. This year was the first time in our eleven year history that we’ve been able to field a team in the National League. The final took place in Tullamore on the 14th August with our athletes taking part in the full range of track and field events. It was a great day out for the LSA Ladies team rounding off an exciting summer of competition.A big thank you to all the athletes who made such an effort over the three rounds of the National League. Thanks also to the supporters who were a crucial part of the day. It was a huge achievement for LSA to field a team and make it to the final in our first year. Well done all - onwards and upwards! Our Masters men were also in action in Tullamore the same weekend, and brought back four National medals for their efforts in the National Masters Track and Field Championships. Xavi Hubert Silver in High Jump, Enda Gavigan Silver in 100m and Bronze in 200m, and Steven Rice Bronze in 5000m. Great inspiration for our juvenile athletes! The outdoor track and field season has now come to an end and it’s back to training again. For more details of how to get involved please see our social media and website.

St. Itas AFC football for kids from 5-9 years will be running again this season with the aim of providing the basic skills for the next generation of football players. The sessions are run on Saturday mornings for an hour in St. Ita’s Ballymastone Campus. Two separate sessions are run with the 9.45am session for girls only and the 10.00am session primarily for boys. Sessions are run in a fun manner, and are aimed at players who have limited or no experience of football. The club hope to build upon a very successful season which ran from 2021 to 2022. According to Robbie Sinnott, who helps run the girl’s academy: “Last year saw our previous academy players achieve incredible outcomes on the U12, U13 and U14 panels, but we also saw huge improvement in our current academy players who hopefully will develop into the club’s future stars. We had a group of Ukrainian kids join us mid-season, and our own girls were fantastic in how well they included them immediately and created a fun hour for them on Saturday mornings.”While some players stay for two-three years in the Saturday morning sessions, there also is a ‘graduation’ of a cohort of players, who go on to form teams who will play in inter-club competitions in the coming season. According to Niall Hayden, who coordinates the boys training: “We had a new boys team and a girls team emerge this year, and hopefully the Saturday morning sessions will have given them the core footballing skills which they can develop and grow in the future.”The boys and girls training every Saturday benefits from the sponsorship of Glenveagh Homes, whose support has been critical in helping fund the training, and kitting out emerging teams for the new season. For anyone interested in joining, please contact: Girls: Robbie Sinnott (robbie.sinnott@gmail.com) Boys: Niall Hayden (niallhayden85@gmail.com)

If reports of last month’s Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann stirred your interest in learning traditional Irish music, look no further than Leithinis Donabate Portrane CCÉ, your local branch of Comhaltas Ceotóirí Éireann. We are a not-for-profit organisation run entirely by volunteers. We offer lessons in Fiddle, Bodhran, Accordion, Concertina, Tin Whistle, Flute, Banjo, Mandolin and Guitar (accompaniment), from beginner to advanced level for adults and children (from 5 years old). Our teachers have extensive experience and our lessons are relaxed and informal. Classes are held in the Educate Together School on Monday evenings.
In mid-September, we will be opening registration for newcomers for the next semester of classes in traditional Irish music, running from October to January. Our classes are excellent value at €120 for 12 classes, plus €20 for annual family membership. We have a rental scheme for some instruments. In addition to lessons, we also run Groupaí Cheoil sessions on Friday evenings twice a month in the recently refurbished Parish Hall, where the newly installed acoustic panels, as seen suspended from the ceiling in the photos, have greatly enhanced the sound especially for playing music. These sessions provide a fantastic opportunity for our members to practice together the tunes they have learned at the lessons. When weather permits, we run a Gig in the Gazebo in the grounds of the Parish Hall. Leithinis Donabate Portrane CCÉ was delighted to receive a Mayor’s Award for 2022 from the outgoing Mayor of Fingal, Seána Ó Rodaigh, “in appreciation of the voluntary service given to the County and citizens of Fingal”. If you would like to take lessons with our branch, please email us at leithinis@comhaltas.net with name, DOB (if under 18), instrument and level and we will get back to you. For existing students and members, we will be in touch in early September regarding registration.

Corina Johnston, Labour Party Area Representative is deeply concerned that the highly significant archaeological find recently discovered in Corballis, Donabate could be undermined by a planning application which is currently with An Bord Pleanála.

Johnston said; “The Environmental Impact Assessment Report for this planning application was submitted in 2021 which was prior to the recent discovery of this archaeological find. It therefore fails to take into account the possible implications of this historic find. Efforts to date to bring this new information to An Bord Pleanála have been refused. The Bord have stated that under the SHD legislation it cannot take any further comments or information on this planning application.”Johnston said; “this archeological find was discovered by locals in fields at Corballis, Donabate, in recent weeks. Duncan Smith TD and I reported this to The National Monument Service who visited the site and confirmed that this can be classified as a souterrain (underground tunnel), a significant archaeological find which has now been added to the online non statutory Sites And Monuments Record. The National Monuments Service confirmed the monument will be noted for consideration for inclusion in any revisions of the Record of Monuments and Places (RMP) which is a statutory record which affords a measure of legal protection under existing legislation.” Johnston continued; “ Fingal County arranged for an archaeological survey to be carried out on the Corballis lands in 2007. An Enclosure was discovered that also found the remains of copper, charcoal and bones. The recently discovered souterrain was not discovered at that time. Johnston added; “ In view of the position taken by An Bord Pleánala Duncan Smith TD and I have written to the Minister for Heritage outlining the significance of this find and appealed to him to ensure the protection and preservation of this site including placing a temporary preservation order on the souterrain and extended site. Johnston concluded;” it has been brought to my attention by an independent archaeologist in recent days that the writing on the ceiling of the souterrain maybe Runes from the Norse Futhark Alphabet rather than the Ogham script. He also stated “that stones with runic script on them are even rarer than Ogham stone”. In view of the implications of the find and this latest information it is vital that a temporary preservation order be placed on the souterrain and a thorough examination of the extended site be carried out. This is the least we can expect as we commence National Heritage Week.“