The Dublin City Marathon is almost upon us and as usual there will be a big contingent of Lusk athletes taking part. The hard miles have been run so it’s almost time to enjoy the taper and reap the rewards of your hard work. Enjoy the day and best of luck to everyone. Welcome to all recent new members and well done to all who have joined our latest Fit4Life or Fit4Youth groups. Thanks as ever to all club coaches and other volunteers who’s continued commitment and hard work enable our club to go from strength to strength.

On the 30th August all the Lusk ladies got together and organized a wonderful Garden Party, in Maria Bairds enchanting back Garden. We danced all evening to the boogie-woogie sounds of the Donabate Portrane Men’s Shed music group Gerry and The Plonkers.

How thrilled everyone was to support our President Rosanna Darby representing Lusk ICA in the recent Fingal Pride of Place competition displaying photos of all the activities of our members, and the beautiful Pride Of Place flower arrangement by Jacinta Connolly.

We had a gorgeous night in NCH listening to the The Sound of Hollywood - The Best of MGM.
The Lusk Guild will now meet on the 1st Thursday every month after the Scouts Beavers at 8.15pm. And we would be delighted for new members to come along.

Last month, Lusk took part in the national Pride of Place awards, where we were given the opportunity to showcase the best of our community. It was a privilege to be part of this and gave us an opportunity to look back at all that we have achieved as individual groups and as a community over the last few years. Lusk is in a unique position in Ireland as the only town to have a town centre first plan already in place and in the early stages of being implemented, with cooperation between our town centre first committee and Fingal County Council.

On the day, we presented a strategic overview of what has already been achieved in Lusk and our plans for the future. We presented how volunteerism shapes our community, and the strong influence of heritage that exists here. We presented our local growers, and the judges even had an opportunity to taste locally produced wine, Lusca Wines!

We showcased our plans for the sports hub, visited Lusk National School and the amazing new autism unit in Rush and Lusk Educate Together National School. Our community groups represented themselves and our town so well and they should all be proud of what they have achieved individually. We have an amazing community, that is hugely and selflessly committed, and deeply rooted in volunteerism and we now look forward to the awards ceremony in November. Watch this space!

In advance of a meeting with An Garda Siochána and Foroige, we invite you to email us at luskactiongroup@gmail.com with any current issues of concern.

LAG have engaged with public representatives and authorities over concerns regarding the effect of new train timetables and noise issues from low flying planes on a flight pathway from Dublin Airport that is in breach of its planning permission. We will update on our Facebook page as information becomes available.

We will be submitting a road safety document to Fingal County Council soon. If you have any particular concerns, please get in touch with us at the above email address.

The success of the Pride of Place on 3rd September was about how every community group came together to explain how each group was making a special contribution to our growing town. The Lusk For Life Town Centre First plan was central to our Pride of Place presentation to the judges. Lusk For Life provides the roadmap to address the community and sports infrastructural challenges that the town will face over the coming decade.

We can all see the current explosion in housing in our town and this is the forerunner to significant increased population, so the pressure is on to get new and additional facilities to serve our town. Minister Joe O’Brien recently announced €77,000 expenditure towards designing a skatepark project and undertaking a feasibility study for farmer’s market project for the town. While these are welcome Town Plan project steps, we need to maintain the pressure to deliver more community facilities, faster and in line with best practice sustainable principles. If we do not, we will not stay on target for what our increasingly diverse and expanding community needs.

The lesson of Pride of Place was how the power of working together can deliver a coherent brand for Lusk. Lusk For Life involved coming together to create a Town Centre First Plan. Implementing the plan is a bigger challenge that requires working together to deliver our infrastructure. We need to use our Town Team as well as our Community and Business Pillars to channel our priorities to bring about positive change for Lusk.

Junsa Taekwondo recently attended a Taekwondo event and training session run by Taekwondo Ireland to congratulate and send on his way to Paris, Jack Woolley - our two time Olympian.

This time Jack had the opportunity to meet the young and upcoming taekwondo talent in Ireland as the last time he attended the games it was during Covid. It was a fantastic day and very inspiring for the students and coaches alike, as Jack displayed some of his kicking skills his coach Robert Taaffe explained how they got to such a level in Taekwondo.

Meanwhile on the Poomsae front Junsa’s Ellen attended the national Poomsae squad training with the intention of competing in October’s Korean ambassador cup here in Dublin.

We are looking forward to welcoming all juveniles back to training on Tuesday 3rd September after the summer break. New members are welcome and our latest Fit4Life and Fit4Youth groups will commence on Tuesday 17th September. The autumn marathons are almost upon us so the long runs are getting longer for those who have signed up for one. Good luck to all our athletes who have races coming up and well done to all who have competed in the Race Series, Graded meetings or any other events over the summer. We held the Man O War Round 7k race in mid August. Thanks to all who took part and to everyone who helped to make it another successful event.

Lusk local Katie Seaver may be only 16, but the budding novelist has already stepped into the literary world after publishing her first ever book: The Melancholia of the Grotesque.

The book is a gothic horror short story collection centred around women killing people, eating people, and losing sense of reality. These stories are atmospheric, woefully written pieces on solitude, girlhood, existentialism, derealisation and misery. They detail the journeys of different women, all isolated and miserable in their own ways as they navigate the utter horrors that occur both in their bodies and in their minds.

Described on www.goodreads.com, as ‘The Melancholia of the Grotesque explores philosophical ideas about identity and women’s place in the world, while detailing gruesome scenes of body horror and excruciating feelings of solitude. This collection contains 20 short stories written by Irish author Katie Seaver, with influences such as Bram Stoker, Franz Kafka, Edgar Allen Poe, Mary Shelley, Albert Camus, Julia Armfield, Sayaka Murata, Mieko Kawakami, Vladimir Nabokov, Simone de Beauvoir, Junji Ito, Clarice Lispector and Oscar Wilde.

“I feel my soul slipping away from the only vessel I possess that connects me to this world. I am living in a hell of my own making, forced to relive my own lonesome life forever.”

The Melancholia of the Grotesque is available for download on amazon.com and on goodreads.com.

Lusk Athletic Club has been chosen winners of the Dublin County award in this year’s Texaco Support for Sport initiative with the club receiving €5,000 to help fund 100m of tartan track to allow juvenile athletes to train in all-weather.

Lusk AC is a growing club with a wide and varied membership base of over 750 adult and youth athletes, participating in all athletic disciplines. From ‘Little Athletics’ sessions and ‘Fit4Life’ programmes, all the way to senior competitive events and ‘Masters’ programmes, the club prides itself on providing something for everyone.

Congratulating the winners on what he termed ‘the invaluable contribution that sports clubs make to the heart of community life in Ireland’, James Twohig, Director of Ireland Operations, Valero Energy (Ireland) Limited praised the unstinting work of club officials and volunteers, stating that “since its inception, in excess of €500,000 has been distributed to a variety of more than 100 sports clubs under the Texaco Support for Sport initiative”.

Overseeing the judging process was Texaco Support for Sport ambassador, former Irish rugby international and well-known broadcaster, Donncha O’Callaghan. Describing the North Dublin club as ‘a very worthy winner’, he went on to add: “For such a young club to have already established so many athletes, coaches and, most importantly, volunteers, is very impressive and shows just how important Lusk Athletic Club is to its community. Their energy and enthusiasm leap off the page and I’m looking forward to seeing future Irish Olympians emerge from Lusk Athletic Club.”

Entries for the 2025 Texaco Support for Sport initiative will open in the Autumn for all clubs, including those whose application may have been unsuccessful previously.

What a great day we had at the Fingal Vintage picnic in Swords Castle dancing to Gerry & De Plonkers and Ronan Collins and his band who played all our favorite songs.

It’s our summer break now but our members keep in touch and meet up every Monday for lunch and a chat in the Belfrey & Co Cafe and Shop.

We remember the family of Millie McGuinness a former member of Lusk ICA, who sadly passed away recently.

The Black Raven Pipe Band from Lusk travelled to Glasgow in Scotland to compete in the World Pipe Band Championship in mid-August.

The Raven’s competition season started in May of this year and competed and won the Leinster Championships, United Kingdom Championships, East of Ireland Championships, All Ireland Championships, Ulster Championships, Heart O’ Down Championships Newcastle Co. Down, leaving the band travelling to Glasgow full of confidence.

With an early start on the Saturday morning the Band were in the competition park at 8am to prepare for their heat at 10am. At 1pm it was announced that the band had qualified for the final which was around 3pm. The band played their best performance of the year and then the agonising wait for the results began. It is worthwhile to mention that in the qualifying round there are four adjudicators and all gave the band first place. Furthermore, in the final al four adjudicators gave the band fist place. That’s eight different adjudicators giving the band first place, such was the quality of their performance.

At approximately 7pm it was announced that Black Raven Pipe Band were World Champions overall as band and World Drumming Champions and so the celebrations began late into the night.

The band’s home coming parade took place on Monday 19th August through the streets of Lusk in front of hundreds of people and that gave them a tremendous reception. The band treated the crowd to selections of their music including their competition selection.

The band was founded in 1910 by the late Thomas Ashe and local man John Rooney and has been active ever since. They have competed in sixteen World Pipe Championships, and this is the first time they won the World Championships.

Black Raven welcome new members and in particular young people who wish to learn the art of piping and drumming and can be contacted at blackravepipeband@gmail.com