The weather may not have played ball with us, recently but it was great to see the return of the Beachy Cup to Balbriggan after a three year Covid induced absence. This Leinster North East competition, named in memory of John Beachy McCreanor took place at Balbriggan RFC. Teams from Ardee, Ashbourne, Balbriggan, Boyne, Navan and Ratoath took part. Despite the heavy rain the day was a great success. Balbriggan won the Beachy Cup, Boyne won the shield and Ashbourne won the bowl. The competition was played in great spirit with old friendships renewed. Thanks to Beachy’s family, Tanya and daughters Kasey and Iona who were on hand, with Kasey and Iona making the presentations.Thanks to our North East referees who officiated over all the matches that took place. Thanks also to Area President, David Rowland from Ratoath and Chairman of the Leinster Junior Committee, Pat Carolan from Wicklow who were also present. Finally, a special thanks to North East Hon Sec Cathal Myles for all his work in organising the Beachy Cup this year. It simply would not have happened without all his efforts. Here are some photos from the day including the traditional North East Group photo of all the players and match officials.

Well done to all three Fingal groups in the 2022 Pride of Place Competition which took place on September 13th & 14th. Our very own Balbriggan Men’s Shed have been selected. Also Oldtown Community Council and Mountview Community & Youth Centre in Dublin 15. Each group represented Fingal County Council in three different categories for the judging team to adjudicate. This year, Balbriggan Men’s Shed competed in a new category which highlights the best in Community Wellbeing and what better group to represent us than these men,.Well done to all concerned with the Men’s Shed.

HSE Foróige Youth Health Initiative aims to enable young people who need and deserve access to good quality youth work to get it, through educational and developmental programmes. We are looking for volunteers to help run Foroige Clubs across Balbriggan.Volunteers will receive full support and training from Foroige. Help make a difference to the young people’s lives living in your community. Contact Lorraine on 0860123078.

For our next talk on October 26th in the Bracken Court Hotel Balbriggan and District Historical Society are delighted welcome Cllr Grainne Maguire who will speak about the fascinating history of Balbriggan Dramatic Society and we will also have short presentations from the local history students from Lorreto Secondary school who were winners in a competition the Society is proud to sponsor.In August Colm Timmins gave a very interesting and informative talk on Genealogy and Balbriggan How to trace your own family and advised on the records to check.Some sites of interest are registers.nli.ie buriedinfingal.ie .genealogy.irelandcemetaryrecords.com or the Thoms Directories. We also joined with other Historical Societies to celebrate Heritage Week with the Heritage Network event in Malahide where Anne Collins spoke about the fantastic source that is the 1930s Schools Collection which can be searched on duchas.ie. In September we commemorated the centenary of An Garda Síochána with an event in the Bracken Court hotel which included a talk by Jim Herlihy. For further information see balbrigganhistory.com.

We had 3 very special guests at the club this afternoon in Reese Brassington, Coach at Leeds United Academy, Craig Robinson, last years u12 All Ireland winner with Cork schoolboys league, and Micheal English, Lead Coach for Mayo schoolboy league. The 3 lads were fantastic doing Q&A’s with multiple teams about the culture, standards and requirements within the English academy system, and our players asked plenty of questions about the level of commitment required to win an All-Ireland championship. Reese was also kind enough to take our u12’s for a session, which all the lads really enjoyed, after all its not every day they get pointers from a Leeds United Academy Coach..Thanks a lot lads, it was a pleasure having you down and you’re more than welcome back anytime. Also,

RiverValley junior parkrun were delighted with the success of their first event last Sunday having moved the junior parkrun from Holywell to RiverValley. A combination of regulars and new recruits led to a great turnout that they hope to repeat now every Sunday morning at 9.30am. There is now the very well established and successful senior 5k parkrun every Saturday morning in RiverValley, followed by the 2k junior parkrun every Sunday morning for 4 to 14 year olds.New members are always welcome for this free event, and you can register for your free barcode at parkrun.ie/rivervalley-juniors/ to track your times and number of runs for reward wristbands.The Mayor of Fingal, Councillor Howard Mahony and Minister of State for Gaeltacht Affairs and Sport, Jack Chambers T.D. were there to help launch the event along with Councillor Darragh Butler, a regular volunteer, Councillor Brigid Manton, Councillor Joe Newman and Duncan Smith T.D. River Valley junior parkrun would also like to thank the Fingal County Council Parks and Operations Departments for their support. Sinead Davy, Sunday’s run Director stated “Our inaugural junior parkrun in Rivervalley Park was a massive success as the local community came out to support us. It was a festive atmosphere as Personal trainer Sean Carrigg led the children through the warmup and local band The Sidegaters kept everyone entertained at the finish line. A total of 88 juniors completed the 2k route and 40 of these were new recruits who had never taken part before. We were also delighted to welcome back all our regular juniors from Holywell junior parkrun. Thank you to all the volunteers and the parents who helped make our first junior parkrun such a success”. We would encourage everyone to sign up and print out their bar-codes so their times and number of runs can be recorded.

By Ken Duffy

The 2022 Fingal Horticultural Society Business Frontage Floral Trophy was jointly awarded to Swords Tidy Towns and Fingal County Council for their stunning floral displays on Main Street Swords. Accepting the award on behalf of Swords Tidy Towns were Teresa Cosgrave STT Sec and Noel Cosgrave , Rose Brennan and Mary Maxwell accompanied by fellow members Gerry Brennan, Matt Cullen and George Mongey. Accepting on behalf of Fingal County Council were the Mayor Cllr Howard Mahony and Cllr Darragh Butler. Sharing the Tim Clarke trophy with FCC has meant so much to our volunteers. To be recognised and complimented by your peers, is one of the biggest compliments that could have been paid to our hard-working team.Let us hope that this triumph can be repeated when the final results of the 2022 National Tidy Towns competition are published in early September. These past twelve months in particular, the volume of hard work put in by our group has been nothing short of phenomenal. Out in all weathers, and when the good weather arrived, out nearly every day, and as you can see, Swords has definitely reaped the benefit of all their hard work. As always we rely on grants and donations to carry on our work, every penny is ploughed back into maintaining the high standard of work we have set ourselves. You can contact us through our email address at swordstidytowns@gmail.com

An event has been organised for 23 September by the Swords Donation Centre for Ukraine to raise money for the people of that beleaguered country who are suffering under the Russian invasion. The organisers are delighted to invite you to a night of live entertainment until 2am and fine dining at Kettles Country House Hotel. They say they are working closely with charities in Ukraine to help them with much needed medical equipment such as sanitisation fluid, bandages and equipment for an underground maternity hospital. This fundraising event will give the organisers the opportunity to send over as much as they possibly can to help them where it is so desperately needed. On the night they will also have spot prizes including Hotel stays, family days out, cinema tickets and so much more. Tickets are available from Kettles Hotel or by contacting Natalie 0851305238 or Lorraine 0863485473. Ticket price €50pp

Many times over the last 20 years our sub editing team have spotted typos and other small grammatical errors among the thousands of pages and millions of words we have published in the 5 Local magazines across Fingal. During those times we have laughed at most, queried others between us and even spotted errors at the last minute prior to sending it to the printers. However there is an old saying, ‘The man that never made a mistake never made anything’ and boy did we make a big one last month when a heading said Malahide United had won the AFL ..eh duh ..wrong code of football and wrong pics (The pics were of Syls GFC) so I suppose the only thing we got right was it was two Malahide clubs. So our sincere apologies to Malahide United and to Syls however we were pleasantly surprised with the hundreds of messages we got pointing out our mistake and we promise to do our best to ensure that doesn’t happen again. So here is to another 20 years before the next one and thanks to our readers for pointing it!

The award winning writer Cecil Allen is the grandson of the famous actor and writer IrAllen. Cecil is the author of the hugely popular novels ‘The Actor’ and ‘Constructing Alice.’ He is a retired college lecturer from the Dublin Institute of Technology and holds a BA from Indiana University and an MFA from the University of Minnesota. He was a broadcaster with RTE for over twenty years and represented Ireland twice at International Toastmasters Competitions.He is the father of two sons and lives in Malahide with his wife Julie. Cecil writings centres on our common humanity and ability to function in times of stress. His writings explore our vulnerabilities and the often forgotten reserves of strength and intelligence we can marshal when required. One of the short stories from ‘The Avenue,’ Mr Dunnock’s Day was featured in a new anthology of short stories which was published in September 2022. About the book - The Avenue - The year is 1950, World War II is over, food rationing is nearly finished and the word teenager has just been invented. There are nineteen identical yellow-brick terraced houses on one side of the Avenue and twenty on the other yet each house is a world of its own and as different from the next as the people who live in them. The people of the Avenue include a woman who defies convention, a man who confronts a despotic clergyman, an inquisitive woman who never leaves her bed, a long-lost father, a woman with a disturbing secret and a man with an empty box of chocolates. Told with insight and humour these tales of growing up, religion, marriage, emigration, mental health, widowhood and old age reminds us of the small but important moments of everyday living.‘The Avenue’ will be published and launched in the Malahide Library on the 5th October. Admission is free and open to all.