“During these dreary days of winter, the joy of receiving a Christmas Card is needed and looked forward to. The Lusk Tidy Towns Committee has been producing Christmas Cards and Calendars for over 28 years. We began by producing 6 postcards and these proved to be most successful. Then we produced our Christmas Cards and Calendar, all depicting scenes of Lusk. These cards are sent all over the world to friends and relations.This year’s card and calendar launch will be on Friday 25th Nov 2022 by Minister Darragh O’Brien in Murray’s Bottom Shop. All are Welcome. The thought and act of sending a Christmas Card is part of an exchange of esteem, long cherished by Irish people. To send a card with a sight and sense of Lusk makes anyone’s friend feel worthwhile ,thank you most sincerely to our sponsors and Contributors. - Pat Kelly”

On 10th October 2022, Lusk Community Council took charge of the new Cultural Centre on Church Road following 17 months of construction works by Pat Fitzgerald Construction. With the support of an extensive team of professional experts, craftsmen and the backing of Fingal Leader Partnership, Fingal County Council and the Founding Friends for the project, we have transformed a derelict site to an iconic vernacular building in the heart of Lusk. The project has not been without its challenges, initially the project was delayed due to the COVID lockdown which meant that we could not get on site till 4th May 2021. Once on site we still had to deal with the risk of Covid and a number of project workers succumbed to it. The combination of Covid, Brexit and the war in Ukraine delivered supply problems and cost inflation for a range of construction inputs. Thankfully Pat Fitzgerald worked through all these problems to deliver a project that will deliver new opportunities for our community, our town and for visitors to our town. On Saturday 22nd October the 1943 Vernacular Buildings of Lusk was opened to the public. While this exhibition will run into 2023, a different temporary Exhibition will run for Fingal Inclusion Week starting on 14th November.

by Aidan Arnold

The Lusk Heritage Group was founded by Pat Kelly and others thirty two years ago. The Group are unique in being the most prolific producers of local heritage videos in Ireland. Their Lusk Heritage Group website at luskheritage.com/ contains more than 130 videos on Lusk and Fingal. It also contains a substantial Audio Collection, capturing fascinating stories of people and places, local history and folklore, that otherwise would be forgotten. Their website is a veritable Aladdin’s Cave for future social historians to feast upon. It has achieved over 200,000 hits not only from local interest but from all over the world. Lusk Heritage Group can also be found on Facebook with a simple search for “Lusk Heritage Group.”Their selection of books about Lusk and Fingal include “Lusk through the Ages,” The Story of Lusk,” and “Thomas Ashe Community Group 100 Year Commemoration 1917-2017” a joint production with Lusk Round Towers GAA Club. Last year Lusk Heritage Group published two excellent books entitled “Forgotten Evidence on the Sack of Balbriggan” and “The Life and Times of John Rover McCann,” celebrating the rich history of Balbriggan and Rush. They have embarked on a major programme of work for the coming year. This includes a new book on the history of the Anglo Norman Barnewall family, owners of what was Turvey House, Bremore Castle in Balbriggan and also tenants of Baldungan Castle for some time. The Barnewall family owned vast tracts of property throughout Counties Dublin and Meath. Well known Lusk man Jim Monks, one of the Lusk Heritage Group founders, is at an advanced stage of publishing a book of short stories that are both entertaining and steeped in local characters, folklore and history. Aidan Arnold, another founder member of the group, has just completed a fascinating book for Milverton School, Skerries. Called “The Schools’ Collection, as written down for us by our Ancestors,” this is the first in a series of booklets about local folklore and history that was collected by the Irish Folklore Commission in the 1930s. Lusk Heritage Group have ambitious plans to extend this wealth of folklore information to the 5000 schools throughout Ireland that contributed to this major historic folklore collection. He has already almost completed his Lusk booklet which he intends to published soon.

Recently we witnessed a truly wonderful thing. In October our community came together to fight for what was right for Lusk. Lusk Action Group (LAG) is extremely grateful to everyone who got behind our campaign to fight against re-zoning motions being lobbied for by councillors from outside of Lusk. Our community has shown just how powerful it can be when we all work together to achieve a common goal. When we act together as one, we can’t be ignored. Many of the councillors who spoke in support of Lusk at the recent Development Plan meeting commended the people of Lusk for their efforts and reiterated their support for the Lusk Vision 2030 report. We can now return our focus to the implementation of the Lusk Vision 2030 goals which is a big priority for the town. LAG has taken responsibility for the delivery of the Multi Use Games Area which was one of the recommendations of the report. We look forward to working on the delivery of this project with Fingal County Council (FCC) as part of the implementation committee. The Christmas lights will go up on Saturday 26th November. This is our third year of having the lights and they have gotten bigger and better each year. Anyone who would like to help with the lighting up please get in touch with us.Following on from the great success of our inaugural Summer Festival earlier this year we are delighted to announce that our second Summer Festival will take place on Saturday 24th June 2023.LAG has recently completed a submission on road safety and maintenance in Lusk and has sent it to FCC. It is hoped that this document will serve as a valuable reference tool for FCC and that our roads and paths can be made safer for us all. As always, we are on the lookout for new members of Lusk Action Group. If you have drive, enthusiasm, care about the future of our town and have some time to spare, please consider joining us. You can email us on luskactiongroup@gmail.com.

Lusk Athletic Club athletes have taken part in lots of races recently such as the 21st World Mountain Running championships held in Ireland for the first time, The Portmarnock Beach 5K, The Ratoath AC and Dublin Half Marathons and the Dublin 5K road race championships.Two outstanding achievements by Lusk AC athletes were Stephen Brennan completing the Ultra Trail Mont Blanc and Ann Robinson winning a silver medal at the 21st World Masters Mountain running championships.Lusk Athletic Club also hosted the 1st round of the Dublin Juvenile cross-country league on Sunday 18th September. Thanks to all who organised this event and to the many club and community volunteers who helped us to put on what was a very successful series of races. Great running by all our juvenile athletes in their 1st race of the season.We also welcomed Irish Olympian, Mick Clohisey to the club where he put on a coaching session for our Dublin Marathon training group and passed on key marathon training insights. Lusk AC have approximately 50 athletes in training for the eagerly awaited return of the Dublin Marathon set to take place on Sunday 30th October. New members are always welcome at Lusk AC and our Al certified coaches will help you improve whether you are a runner or you prefer field events such as Discus, Hammer, High Jump, Shot Putt, Javelin. Training every Tuesday & Thursday from 6.55pm at the Hub on Rathmore Road.

05/09/22, Lusk, Co. Dublin – Lusk Junior Parkrun hosted its first Teddy Bear Picnic on 28th August to mark the end of summer. Despite the Irish weather, it was a huge success with 50 children taking part in the 2k course. For the picnic afterwards; Children brought blankets and their favourite cuddly toy and enjoyed a large spread of fresh fruit and delicious treats. We also had some music and bubbles which added to the atmosphere! The adults and siblings joined in the fun too! We wish to thank Country Crest for providing a very large fruit hamper and drinks, Fyffes for providing bananas for all the children and Keoghs for providing large boxes of crisps. Your donations were above and beyond our expectations and nothing went to waste. Our volunteer group also baked and donated additional drinks, fruits and treats. Thank you to everyone involved for making it such a huge success.Lusk Junior parkrun started on 22nd May and is going from strength to strength. We currently have 121 children registered of which 111 have completed at least 1 junior parkrun, and 15 children have already been presented with wristband (11/21/50 runs). There is always a lot of excitement on arrival to see what music we have selected for our warm up and who is next to receive their wristband! Lusk Junior Parkrun is a free event held every Sunday morning at 9.20am at Lusk Sports Hub, Rathmore Road. Run by local volunteers, it is open to all children from ages 4-14 years and can cater to children of all abilities, as we like to say, “it’s a run not a race; just do it at your own pace!” Anyone interested in joining us simply needs to register for free in advance at www.parkrun.ie/register then bring along the barcode you will receive by email. Parents are free to join their child in running, however, only children will be recorded. For more information, please contact Siobhan Connor (Event Director) by email or through Facebook page: Facebook:acebook.com/lusksportshubjuniorparkrun or our Email: lusksportshubjuniors@parkrun.com or the Website:.parkrun.ie/lusksportshub-juniors/

The first exhibition to be featured in the Lusk Community Cultural Centre will be a time-capsule of Lusk village in 1943. This exhibition explores the materials, craftsmanship and design details of vernacular houses surveyed in Lusk in 1943. It forms part of a wider collection of the Folklife Architectural Archive conserved by the National Museum of Ireland. This archive constitutes a very special time-capsule of the vernacular buildings in Lusk in the 1940’s. Lusk Community Council is particularly proud that this is the first exhibition to be hosted in the newly developed Lusk Community Cultural Centre, an iconic vernacular cottage that has been redeveloped and repurposed as a cultural centre for Lusk. Lusk Community Council wishes to acknowledge the support of Creative Ireland and the National Museum of Ireland in bringing this exhibition back to Lusk.

The new Fingal Development Plan has moved into its next phase of Councillors Motions seeking to alter the development of Lusk between 2023 – 2029. Once again Councillors from outside of the Rush and Lusk area are bringing forward motions that seek to alter the development of the area. Speaking at a community meeting Cllr O’Donoghue outlined the potential changes brought forward on the agenda for Development Plan. He stated, ‘I find our current planning system absurd. Councillors from outside of our area, with no planning expertise, can bring forward motions to change the face of our area, permanently, without reference to the community and in contradiction of the professional FCC planner’s advice, planners who have at previous rounds of the development plan have recommended the rejected such proposals.’He explained, ‘the red areas on the map, seek to change rural land (RU) for residential development (RA). These would add potentially 1,300 – 1,800 units to an area that already has ample land zoned for residential requirements. The blue area, which is 2.5 times the current size of Lusk, seeks to have the area scoped for future usage in contradiction to the Fingal Policy of not allowing the self-sustaining towns of Rush and Lusk coalesce together. The sustainable development of the area should be done through the forthcoming Local Area Plans which allows the community, Councillors and professional planners to craft a planner-led development of the area. This potential diktat by motion, without community input is unfair and unsustainable.’ O’Donoghue continued, ‘in the coming weeks (Sept 20th – Oct 14th) these motions will be debated by the Councillors in FCC, I would encourage members of the community to write to their 40 Councillors opposing these motions, whose numbers are referenced in the map. Contact details are publicly available at : https://www.fingal.ie/council/councillors’

The Lusk Mens walk and talk group meet at the Hub car park at 7:00pm every Monday for their weekly walk. This is open to all men and it’s an opportunity just get out of the house, have a nice walk, clear the head and have a chat if you wish. You can do it as a once off or every week, no joining necessary, just turn up. This group is organised by Ciaran Russell, so if you want to introduce yourself to him and before long you will find you have made new friends. So why not let any friends or neighbours know about it as new members are alaways welcome