By Mike Power

At this time of year, we often take a nostalgic look back on how things panned out for us and for our families, in the year gone past. We’re certainly older but are we any wiser? Looking at how some former residents of Swords lived their lives before us here, might provide some clues as to what the future holds for us.

Whenever someone sinks a spade into Swords, they often uncover dead remains! This happened in 2010 when archaeologists digging where Butlers stands in the Pavillions today, found 68 ancient bodies at a place called Mt Gamble. These folk lived in Swords from 600 - 1,000 ad and were pagan and Christian people buried together. Some of these men suffered a violent death having been hacked to death with swords, many of the women prematurely aged with arthritis. The Swords of that day was violent, and unpredictable, a population tiny compared with today, of maybe of 50/60.

All these people had dental decay, many having actual abscesses. Imagine living your life every day with constant, unremitting toothache- no dentists for them! These folk had grindingly hard lives, their children inadequate food and suffered premature death as a result. To them, our lives today in Swords would be like living in paradise. Life-Lesson? Appreciate your life.

Later, in medieval times, most people in Swords lived on allotments called ‘burgages’. These radiated off main street on both sides. The houses we see here today stand on exactly the same sites as these old medieval wooden, thatched houses did. What a continuity of over 1000 years of history in our village!
These tenants paid one shilling rent to the authorities, and were also expected to carry swords, bows and spears to defend our town when danger came. The whole area of the East side of main street from the Arches up to the Malahide Road was laid out in 122 of these plots. Forster road runs right over these ancient gardens. These settlers were the first freemen/women of Swords and would have been mainly of English stock. Our village then would have been enclosed by defensive walls, the main gate of which stood right where the Malahide and Dublin roads join today outside of Weatherspoon’s. Life Lesson? An investment in land always pays off!

Our final bit of nostalgia concerns the medieval abbey which was destroyed to build the current St Columba’s church by Francis Johnson in 1811. Only the tower of this gothic church remains to be seen today. The noted historian John D’Alton visiting Swords in 1838 commented on the fine towers and walls which surrounded this important church, one of the finest Irish gothic abbeys of that day. Like much of ancient Swords, we need imagination to conjure up just what an important and historic place both ecclesiastically and politically, our little village was in times past.

Life Lesson? Love the place you grew up in and stand by the kids you played with then.
This makes the child , which makes the man , which in turn , makes the family. Is anything more important…?

Wishing you and your family a prosperous, happy and flourishing 2025 !

2024 will go down as one of the best years the club has had since COVID.

Along with our regular weekly schedule of classes, we also found time to fit in monthly Squad training sessions to prepare members of JKS Ireland for the World Karate Championships which were held in Japan in July 2024. Along with this we also crammed in multiple fund-raising activities to help fund the cost of travelling to the World Championships.

We had a total of five members selected as part of the twenty strong Irish team trained and guided by Dermot Sensei 7th Dan JKS for these World Championships and it was a fantastic experience for everyone who travelled.

We hosted several JKS Ireland National Training events with visiting JKS Japan Instructors. We had a visit from Toyama Sensei in January. We had our annual seminar with World Chief Instructor Kagawa Shihan 9th Dan JKS in May and in October Yamaguchi Sensei visited at the beginning of the month, with Watanabe Sensei visiting at the end. All these Japanese Instructors delivered exciting and dynamic sessions, inspiring attendees to develop their Karate Skills further.

We participated in several competitions during the year, Piltown Open Championships, The Kanazawa Cup, the ONAKAI National Kata Championships and the Murakami Open Sheild. We had a mixture of participants at each event, some novices, and some more experienced competitors. We did well at each bringing home medals and competition experience to the club.

We held two club gradings, in early July and mid-December, where club members showed off what they have been studying during the year and all members who took the grading examinations progressed to their next coloured belt.

2025 promises to be another exciting year for the club as we prepare to take part in the European Karate Championships in Denmark in September. We will have our usual schedule of classes plus additional Squad training sessions, and we will have more visits from Japanese Instructors to help us in our training.
Our membership is growing but we are still looking for new members (Children, Young People & Adults). Contact Dermot on 087-8073885 for details on how to join. You can also contact us on Facebook: JKS Swords Karate Club or on Instagram: @jks_swords_karate_club

Congratulations to Brian O’Connell from Swords who was recently named as the winner of the Industry and Community Partnership Award for Maker of the Year, sponsored by Thomas Finn & Co. Sheffield. Brian graduated from Atlantic Technology University BSc in Furniture Design and Manufacture in Letterfrack, Connemara. He is now running his own company called Top Dog Tables.

As part of Fingal County Council’s Town Centre First Initiatives in Rush, we are currently inviting residents, community groups, businesses, and other stakeholders within the town to take part in the attached online survey to have their say on the benefits of living in Rush, and how the town could potentially be improved. This short online survey is now open for completion until Friday 03 January 2025.

Town Centre First is a government initiative which aims to create town centres that function as viable, vibrant, and attractive locations for people to live, work and visit, while also functioning as the service, social, cultural and recreational hub for the local community. Town Centre First recognises that every town is unique. It lays the foundation for each town to develop, at a local level, their own plan led path forward. This initiative will build upon the Urban Framework plan of 2018, in order to build a town which functions for all of its users and residents.

Please visit https://arcg.is/0nPuva0 or scan the QR code in the accompanying picture.

At the recent general election took place on the 29th of November, the Dublin Fingal West Constituency returned three T.D’s, Deputy Louise O’Reilly (Sinn Fein), Cllr Rob O’Donoghue (Labour) and Grace Boland (Fine Gael), with all three candidates passing the quota of 7,530 votes.

Deputy O’Donoghue received a 16.7% of the first preference vote, the highest percentage for his Party in the Country and was deemed elected on the sixth count.

Speaking on his securing of the second of the three seats Deputy O’Donoghue stated, ‘It has been the most draining campaign that I have ever been on and I am thrilled with the results. I would like to thank everyone who helped me during this campaign, from canvassers, leafetlers, posterers and for the amount of time that my team of volunteers gave up to help me over the last two to three months, without their support we would not have taken a seat and I will be forever grateful to each and every person who helped me, it doesn’t matter if it was one day or the entire campaign, it would not have been possible without the team.

‘I would also like to thank everyone in the constituency that came out on the day to vote for me. It has been a privilege to serve as the Councillor for the Rush-Lusk Local Electoral Area for the last seven years and I appreciate the trust that has been placed in me by the people of Fingal West to represent them at national level. I will do my best for the constituency in the coming

Rush Free Stuff
Unwanted Christmas presents? Having a clear out? Then why not join our 5,000+ members who use the “Rush Free Stuff” Facebook group. In this group you can offer or ask for ANYTHING as long as it is free. This is a sustainable way of getting rid of unwanted items around the house or avoiding buying new unnecessarily. Check it out today.

Christmas Jumper Swap and Repair Café
Thank you to everybody who attended our Christmas themed clothes repair cafe and Christmas jumper swap event in Rush Community Centre in November. Special thanks to Paula Lopez and Anna Maguire who along with our committee ensured we had plenty of happy customers. Another great example of the circular economy in action in Rush.

Rush Tidy Towns AGM
Rush Tidy Towns AGM will be held in January in the Community Centre, please check our Facebook page for the date and more details.

Rogerstown Birdwatching
We had a nice crowd at our Rush Tidy Towns Birdwatching event one December morning at Rogerstown. Thank you to Linda Mellon from the Fingal Branch of BirdWatch Ireland for the expert guidance.

Fingal County Council in partnership with An Garda Síochána, the NTA, Dublin City Council, Northside Partnership, Dublin Fire Brigade, the HSE and other community stakeholders, hosted a magical inclusive Christmas event for community groups in Malahide Demesne on Wednesday 11th December.

The event was a huge success, with over 1,700 children from different areas attending.

All the children got to attend the Wonderlights experience, followed by a meet and greet with Santa, goodies, and a stroll through the Stakeholder Village, which included interaction with all the community stakeholders, a fire tender, Garda motorbike, Garda horses and special Elf DJ!

Malahide Lions Club had an excellent response from local primary schools to its international peace poster competition for 2024 with the presentation of prizes taking place recently. The theme of this year’s competition was Peace without Limits. One hundred and ten entries were received. The posters were very colourful and the entrants clearly engaged with the theme of Peace without Limits. It was a tough decision for the judges to choose a winner considering the quality of the entries.

The overall winner of the competition was a pupil from Ms. Farrelly’s class in Pope John Paul’s Primary School. The poster depicted peace written in sign language which greatly impressed the judges. The winning poster will now go forward to the Lions International peace poster competition. All the winners received their prizes from Malahide Lions Club President Stephen MacDonagh.

It was clear that all these young people have strong ideas about what peace means to them. Malahide Lions Club is very proud that we have been able to provide them with the opportunity to share their vision of peace.

Recently at Junsa Taekwondo we held our annual belt grading and graduation

When you start taekwondo, you start as a white belt and as time progresses and you learn new skills and new Poomsae’s (a set of moves that must be performed as part of your training) that range from basic to advanced. We use the grading system to set our students goals and improve their skills.

The grading is full of many different aspects so that if one individual is not as good at one skill but is better in other aspects, then this can give them a great sense of accomplishment.

Firstly, we would like to congratulate our newly elected TDs, Louise O’Reilly, Grace Boland, and Rob O’Donoghue. A special congratulations to Rob, who has supported and represented our community for the last five years as a councillor. Rob has been an integral part of LAG’s committee since its founding and has been central to Lusk’s progress. His success in the general elections is testament to how hard he works for our community, and we wish him every success at a national level, and look forward to having his continued support. We thank all our outgoing TD’s, especially Joe O’Brien, who gave such support to our community during his time in Dáil Eireann.

Following on from a recent meeting with community, An Garda Siochana, Fingal County Council and Foroige, Lusk Action Group is looking to support the set-up of resident’s associations in all Lusk estates. Just 2 of our 12 estates are active as associations. The benefits are many, including proper representation in Fingal County Council, access to funding for community days or improvements within estates etc and a great structure in which to have informal sports events for kids and teenagers, to name a few. It is a tool to create positive change in your estate, to find solutions to issues and is a place to create friendship and strong community. This will be supported by Fingal County Council and set-up will be made to be as simple as possible. Having properly formed associations is an advantage for FCC and an advantage for the residents and the wider community.

At least 6 people would be needed to form a committee. Ask your neighbours to get involved. Lusk has a wonderful and strong history of volunteerism. It is the thing that sets us above other communities and is what recently won us the prestigious Pride of Place award.

Get in touch with us by email at luskactiongroup@gmail.com