Lusk Tidy Town Committee have been busy planting up flower tubs, watering and generally keeping Lusk Tidy despite all the building development. Thank you for your support. “Keep Lusk Tidy”

After 19 months of pandemic closure of our Community Facilities, Lusk Community Council is delighted that we are gradually reopening the Carnegie Library Community Hall, The Cottage Community Centre and Saint Macullins Centre. While attendee numbers have been restricted due to social distancing, the return of dancing, judo, Foroige, music classes and drama as well as our public representative clinics has been a great boost. In addition the Community Council is plan-ning the ongoing communication and roll out of the Lusk Vision 2030 for the town. November will see further briefings and engagement with the community of Lusk on how we progress the project.The recent restoration of the bandstand on the Green is a really important improvement to one of our most important public realms in Lusk. Many thanks to Fingal County Council for mak-ing this investment in the Green.

The time has nearly come for us to resume indoor training again. It’s been a very tough year for all indoor sports but the time has come to do what we do best. Even through the restrictions we trained safely and following the guidelines we were able to manage for our members to have fun training and for two of our members to make the Irish national team for the European championships in Estonia.In the pictures you can see what we were at.A huge thank you to everyone who supported the club during the tough times we all had to endure,but the end is in sight.

It was a fabulous day for Lusk AC at the Irish Life Health Masters Championships at Morton Stadium on Sunday 5th September. There were medals galore across track and field events with great excitement in the relays. Congratulations to all who participated as well as the club coaches and volunteers. Well done also to Ian Cortina who took on the 58km challenge of the Kerry Way UltraLite finishing in 11 hours 58 minutes. Wishing the very best of luck to all our distance runners who are taking on Marathons in October. First up is the Belfast City Marathon on Sunday 3rd October and then the Virtual Dublin Marathon on the bank holiday weekend. You’ve done the training miles so now enjoy the race.

Our Under 19 ladies hosted Ashbourne United F.C. in the Lees Brothers Cup Final at Rathmore Road recently. After a strong start Ashbourne scored on a counter attack and a very tight struggle continued. Ashbourne scored from a corner and went in 2-0 at half time. A really brave effort saw Lusk dominate the second half and Anna Murphy struck the cross bar with a cracking shot. Ashbourne pinched a third and then Anna scored a deserved goal that set up a frantic last 5 minutes. Lusk gave everything but it was just not to be and the match finished 3-1 to Ashbourne. Hailey Clark was our player of the match.The ladies would like to thank everyone who turned out on the night. The huge crowd and the support shown was really appreciated. The hospitality provided by the club post match to both teams was fantastic.Congratulations to Ashbourne on their win but credit to our ladies for showing great heart and commitment. As always, thanks to Graham and Tom for all their hard work.

Cara McNally represented Ireland once again in the Irish Schools International Team which competed in Derbyshire England late last month.Cara is pictured here on her way to winning the Girl’s 1500 metre Steeplechase during the Irish Life Health Tailteann Schools’ Inter-provincial Games at Morton Stadium on Saturday 11th of September. Congratulations Cara!

Lusk Community Council has been working with Fingal County Council over recent months to deliver super fast Free Public WiFi zones at The Green open space and The Square / Church Road/ Main Street/ Station Road. The WiFi technology has been installed on the Carnegie Library Community Hall and the Cottage Community Centre. The project is part of an EU funded initiative to extend free public access to WiFi in our towns and villages. It is an important part of the Fingal County Council Digital Strategy which aims to make Fingal the place of choice to live, work, visit and do business in Ireland. Free public Wi-Fi will be a huge asset to residents, visitors and businesses in Lusk, Fingal and other towns and villages.This digital iniative is in line with the Lusk Vision 2030 recommendations for the creation of new public realm spaces in Lusk to meet the changing needs of our community. Lusk Community Council is delighted to be part of this progressive digital project for the town and will be seeking to extend the scope to other locations over time. Accessing the Free WiFi is simple, click on WIFI4EU in your settings menu of your digital device and follow the access instructions.

We have begun a lovely project for the community this month. Over the next year, we will be developing a biodiversity garden, with the support of Fingal County Council and with the guidance of multi award winning gardener, Barry Kavanagh, who is famed for his wild gardens. The site, beside the Round Tower, already has some diversity, as most unused areas have. However, we will be enhancing the area using native plants and flowers and creating an even more diverse area for our wildlife. Fingal County Council are very interested in the project and are making a short film of its progress, as an example of best practice. This will be used on their website and social media. We are relying on ourselves and the goodwill of the community to do this work, so if you are a keen gardener or have an interest in biodiversity and you don’t mind a bit of hard work, please get in touch! We are hoping that within a year, we will have developed this enough to complete it with seating areas and a bin so that it can be enjoyed by the whole community. We opened up an online fundraiser for the Christmas lights last month which was a huge success. We have also secured funding from FCC, so we will be able to add to our lights from last year and bring even more sparkle to our lovely Lusk! We set up an organising committee for “Lusk Summer Festival 2022” and have begun the early stages of planning for this. We are hoping to make this a yearly event, held in June, for the whole community, young and old. Watch this space! If you would like to get involved in this, contact us at luskactiongroup@gmail.com or you can call on 0863017842. We would like to congratulate Lusk Community Council on the delivery of the “Lusk Vision 2030” document and plan. We look forward to being able to assist in the implementation of this plan over the coming years.

At the September Operations Meeting Councillor Rob O’Donoghue warmly welcomed the update on the over €350k in funding to be spent on road infrastructure in the current calendar year in Lusk. He commented, ‘In a year that has been challenging for the delivery of projects within the Programme of Works due to covid-19 restrictions, I am happy that the works that have been included in the Programme are being moved on and some of which have been delivered. I will be pushing for the delivery of all works listed under the current programme and be pressing for the inclusion of other areas in the town that need attention for 2022 Works Plan including the upgrading of the surfacing of the R132 as you leave Lusk from the Ministers Road .’ A breakdown of the Updated Programme of Works for Lusk can be seen below:
Thorigne Fouliard Lane - €55k - Surface Dressing & Macadam Overlay – Contractor to commence works September.
Treen Hill - €36k - Road Reconstruction - Contractor to commence works September.
Dun Emer/Ministers Road - €68,000 - Road Reconstruction – To be surveyed and tendered in the coming weeks.
St MacCullins Close - €31k - Road Reconstruction – Tendering closes in September.
Lusk to County Garden R127 - €40k - Footpath Kerbing – To be surveyed then opened to tender.
Lusk By-pass at Sports Hub - €65k - Pedestrian Crossing – Works completed.
Ministers Road on approach to Dun Emer Estate from the R132 junction -€4k – VAS Speed Reader – Contractor onsite in September.
Chapel Green Open Space - €15k - Replace Concrete path that links to and surrounds the Bandstand – Works planned for October.
Orlynn Park Tennis Courts - €8k - Replace Fencing surrounding existing tennis courts– Works planned for October.

What an amazing achievement for our club, 3 young athletes selected to represent Ireland at the Under 21s and Cadet European Championships In Estonia. Robbie will fight in Under 21s while Nicole and Tosia will fight In the cadets. Our thanks to everyone for sticking with us over the hard times of Covid and everything is starting to look a bit brighter. Junsa is always welcoming new members , so if you want to train for fitness, fun or become an aspiring athlete you are welcome to try your hand or should I say foot ! at our great martial art and sport.