Well done to our U9 Boys who played in their first ever 7v7 blitz recently. They reached the Final of The Shield narrowly loosing out to Beechwood FC after some extremely competitive games against Belvedere, Templeouge Utd, St. Kevin’s Boys and Leicester Celtic. Huge thanks to Crumlin Utd for hosting a fantastic event.
St Colmcilles is your local GAA Club, offering Gaelic Football to the community of Swords. We have fully trained coaches, who are all garda vetted and ready and waiting for the coming season.Based just on Glen Ellan Rd, close to Applewood Village, Millers Glen and Glen Ellan area, we are close by for everyone.We offer Gaelic Football to children aged 4 years +. Also junior football for men and Gaelic for Mothers and Others. Our Club Lotto Jackpot resumed online (clubforce.com) Monday, January 17th. 2022. If you or any member of your family are interested in joining the club then call Marian 0876819540. We also want to notify you that Training recommenced for the juvenile players over 6 yrs on Saturday 22nd January at 10.30am and continues each and every Saturday. Follow us on Facebook for further updates “Naomh Colmcille CLG”
As we enter 2022 the hard working team of Swords Tidy Towns will carry on doing what they do best, keeping our town looking the best it can, and that is no easy task mind you. Unfortunately, there are individuals who continue on a daily basis to litter and deface our beautiful town with a total disregard for others. These are the mask discarders who litter the length and breadth of Swords, the litterers who daily throw their rubbish onto our streets, there is no excuse for this, bin it, or take it home. Irresponsible dog owners, who don’t clean up after their pets with total disregard for people’s health and safety. Then there are those dog owners who bag their pet’s poo and throw it into the nearest bush or worse hang it on whatever is nearest to them. What is the point in you doing this guys it is a disgusting and unsightly habit. If there is no bin nearby, again please take your dog poo to the nearest bin or take it home with you, your dog’s poo is your responsibility nobody else’s. When pet owners take responsibility as do the vast majority of them, it benefits the whole community and makes our work that much easier.We would ask local Residents Associations to consider adopting a patch in their area and plant it up with species that are wild life friendly. We would be happy to advise any Residents Association wishing to do so, just email us at swordstidytowns@gmail.com.Swords Tidy Towns has been successful in the last four National Tidy Towns competitions winning a silver medal on each occasion, we are in the large urban area category. This is testament to all the hard work and dedication that has been put in over many years by the group. This success didn’t happen overnight, it has been a long slog since being designated a litter black spot in 2004, coming in bottom of the table in that years IBAL report.If you see our members when you are out and about say hello, they enjoy a chat, it’s nice to know that people notice and appreciate their hard work.We have many outstanding projects in the pipeline for completion this year, hopefully we will get them finished. We are always looking for new volunteers to help in our efforts, hopefully one day we will win that elusive gold medal, we think Swords deserves one don’t you.
Operation Transformation Leader and Swords resident Katie Jones along with the Mayor of Fingal, Cllr Seána Ó Rodaigh, joined enthusiastic walkers on Saturday January 16th in Holywell Park to complete a 3k walk organised by Fingal County Council Sport Office in conjunction with Operation Transformation. The annual walk is supported by Sport Ireland in association with the RTE TV show and provides an opportunity for people to get more physically active. Mayor of Fingal Cllr Seána Ó Rodaigh said: “This was a perfect opportunity for people to kick start their ‘get fit’ New Year resolutions with a short fun walk and to hopefully use it to start exercising on a regular basis. It was fantastic to have Katie here today to show her our support as she embarks on her journey on Operation Transformation” Holywell park has seen a number of upgrades in the last few years, including the addition of fitness equipment and provides an ideal location to get those steps in around the 800m path. If you want to continue walking or running in 2022 many GAA clubs are taking part in the ‘Ireland Lights Up’ initiative by turning on their floodlights and opening their walking tracks to the community for exercise. Fingal’s many parks and 88km of coastline provide great locations to enjoy the outdoor lifestyle and there are also 6 adult parkrun events (5km) and 5 junior parkrun events (2km) in Fingal offering free weekly timed runs, for information see parkrun.ie. For more information on getting physically active check Fingal County Council Sports Office on social media or learning.fingal.ie
Courtesy of Malahide Historical Society
The Grand Hotel has been at the heart of Malahide for well over a century and a half and we wish the Ryan family and staff well during these difficult times for hospitality. But here is one occasion when the Grand Hotel appears to have been relieved to see a booking cancelled.101 years ago on 4 January 1921 someone booked a subscription ball in the Grand Hotel on behalf of a company of the RIC Auxiliaries but, on security grounds and on push-back from the manager of the hotel, it was decided to change it at the last minute to St. Patrick’s Hall, Dublin Castle. In his book “The Last Days of Dublin Castle” senior civil servant at the Castle Mark Sturgis gave an account of this strange event in these diary entries:””I got hold of Darling who discreetly discovered that these gentlemen intended to trail their coats and themselves from Dublin to Malahide, armed to the teeth, in Government cars. Jonathan wished the whole circumstances put – unofficially as far as the Under Secretary was concerned – before (General Sir Henry) Tudor who expressed disapproval and the ball was off”.”Spooner interrogated is slightly comforting as to safety as he says it is arranged for Auxiliaries to be on guard at the Gate to scrutinise their own guests – but the cheek of the whole thing is incredible”.”Officials who work, and many of whom have lived in the Castle for months, must now have passes with photographs to get into the place at all, yet these beauties can almost without by your leave or with your leave import a pack of women of whom nobody, with the possible exception of themselves, knows anything at all. Interesting to see when I get back tomorrow whether the Shinns have got in disguised as buxom wenches or whether, failing this, the whole place has been fired up by the festive ex-officers themselves”.The Irish Times of Jan 5th 1921 reported that there were 400 people at the ball and that an excellent buffet supper was served during the musical intervals by the DMP band. The dancing continued until 5am on January 5th.
Darragh O’Brien Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage has thanked Malahide Rugby for supplying the venue for a Vaccination Centre and Dr Stan for running it. Minister O’Brien said, “ I want to say thanks to Dr Stan and the entire team at Salus Medical Clinic in Swords for mobilising so quickly and opening a vaccination centre in Malahide Rugby Club again.” He said it has proved crucial to the booster campaign in North County Dublin. He added, “ A massive thank you also to Malahide Rugby Club for once again offering the facility. A huge amount of work goes into getting a facility like this ready for vaccinations and it’s great to see the sense of community with Salus Medical teaming up with Malahide Rugby Club to ensure the optimum rollout of booster vaccines.”
Recently Junsa Taekwondo held their first grading of 2022 in their new training venue, the Lusk Scout Hall. The new hall is a fantastic venue for our sport and we were made feel very welcome by everyone in the 153rd scout group.The club grading was a fantastic success with all students passing and attaining their grade with some double grade’s on the day. Our photos show some of our students on the day. Junsa Taekwondo would like to thank all their members and friends for the support during the last two years. We train at the Lusk Scout hall and are always accepting new members.
Lusk Athletic Club are looking forward to an exciting 2022 with all our adult and juvenile members with plenty of new PBs and more “Real events” to take part in. 2021 ended with a charity run on St Stephens Day where the club raised €700 for the local Lusk Community Unit. We then had two club races on the 28thDecember, the Holly Berry 10K won by Daniel O’Brien and the Turkey Trot 5K won by Sheila Bourke. Thanks to all who turned up to run or volunteer, we had a great turnout including a large group of friends from Balbriggan Runners who took part. On the 9th January 2022 the Dublin Master cross country championship races took place in St Annes Park, Raheny and Lusk Athletic Club were well represented in both the men’s and ladies’ races. Great running by all our athletes against the best master’s athletes from all the other Dublin athletics clubs. Lusk Athletic Club started another Fit4Life and Fit4Youth training programme on Tuesday 18th January. Our friendly coaches will continue help you to complete a Parkrun 5K after just 8 weeks training in a fun, relaxed environment. New members always welcome to the Hub, Rathmore Road any Tuesday or Thursday 6.45 PMregistration is now open at luskathleticclub.ie and on the Myrunresults website. We hope yo enoy or and photos highlights from 2021
The second phase of the Fingal County Council development plan is open and we encourage the community to engage with this. The document is very comprehensive so we will bring attention to areas of interest to Lusk on Facebook to make it easier to understand. This is a very important phase, and one of only a couple of opportunities to effect important change for Lusk. Very disappointingly, our plans for a biodiversity garden have had to come to an end for now. Unfortunately the access was deemed not suitable by Fingal County Council and to rectify this would have entailed using capital which, at the moment, is destined for other priorities in the town, as Lusk aims towards delivering the 2030 plan. Monday the 7th March will be our AGM. At the moment, it seems likely that this will have to be online. Please email us at luskactiongroup@gmail.com or call us on 0863017842 if you wish to attend. We also welcome new members at our AGM so if you are interested in joining our Lusk Action Group committee, get in touch
Pat Kelly LTTA
Lusk Tidy Towns Committee are delighted that our markings in the National Tidy Towns Competition went up by 5 points despite all the building works in Lusk. Thank you to everyone who supported our Christmas Card Launch and to those who purchased the card and calendar. It is now 30 years of producing cards, and a book will be produced of the cards and verses written by local residents and photographers. Wishing everyone a very happy healthy new year..
Also this month Lusk Tidy Towns are very proud of the work they carry out on behalf of this community. However In order to appreciate the extent of change in our environment, snap-shots of old and new can be very helpful. The photo of the square in Lusk was taken in 1980.
