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
Lusk Summer Festival in June was a fantastic day for the whole community and Lusk Action Group would like to thank Fingal County Council, Progressive Credit Union, our amazing organising committee and all the people who helped to make it happen, once again.
Lusk was nominated by Fingal County Council for the Pride of Place awards, which will take place in the 3rd September, and we hope everyone will do their bit in helping to have Lusk looking its best. You can join the Tidy Towns and Lusk Community Cleaning Group in their efforts, or just clean up outside your own patch. Every little effort helps. It is quite an honour to be nominated and we will be using the day to showcase the best of Lusk and its wonderful community.
Enjoy the rest of the Summer! All in Lusk Action Group
As part of the Afro-Irish Festival and Africa Day celebrations, children from 6th class and 2nd class from St. Catherine’s NS performed in The Lark, Balbriggan. They performed some African drumming, African chanting and danced to Waka Waka This is Africa. The school band also performed Massive Attacks’s Teardrop!
On Friday 24th of May, St. Catherine’s NS hosted an extremely successful Multi-Cultural Day, organised by the school’s PA! This is only a sneak preview of some of the Country’s tables, the foods and the activities of the day!
A 3rd annual football friendly took place between St Caherines and St Brendan’s Loughshinny. The games were very competitive and played in the right spirit with St Brendan’s just about having the edge
Absolutely superb performance by the St Catherines boys and girls
A lot of friendships exist between children on opposing teams made for a great banter filled occasion. Roll on next year!
Earlier this summer Lusk was chosen as the town to represent Fingal in the Pride of Place Awards. The Pride of Place is an all-island competition that recognises improvements made by local communities to create civic pride in their area. The competition focus is about people coming together to shape, change and enjoy all that is good about their town.
Lusk will be competing against 25 other towns from other Local Authority Areas in the category of towns between 5,000 – 10,000 people in their population with the judging taking place on the 3rd of September this year. The committee set up comprises many of the community groups in the town including the Community Council, LAG, Men & Womens Shed and Tidy Towns/Cleanup Group.
Councillor Rob O’Donoghue commented on the ongoing work that, ‘I have attended the committee and it is working diligently to put Lusk’s best foot forward for when the judges arrive in September. The community groups have coalesced successfully and are planning a number of initiatives to put Lusk in the best light possible. Everyone involved are volunteers and they deserve a great deal of thanks for giving their time and energy to what I hope will be a winning entry.’
In other Council news, the period for observations on the application for the Lusk Sports Hub, to An Bord Pleanala ended in early July. The application will now be evaluated by the Bord in the coming months. O’Donoghue stated, ‘I made a submission myself endorsing the application and it my fervent hope that the application is swiftly granted by the Bord so we can start looking at the tendering and building phases of this game changing facility for Lusk.’
There has been plenty of action during the summer months with our club athletes taking part in numerous road races as well as track and field competitions. A few club members have also taken the opportunity to visit parkruns in other countries while away on holidays.
Training plans are available for all distances and many have commenced the long road towards the Dublin City Marathon in October. Our next race is the 7k Man O War round on Thursday 15th August at 7pm. Official return to training is on Tuesday 3rd September and new members are most welcome.
While the young students of JUNSA Taekwondo are on their summer break, our more advanced students are still upping their game for an upcoming tournament in Ireland.
The Korean ambassadors cup will take place in Dublin after the summer.
Junsa Taekwondo will be recruiting for the start of September classes.
June and July were very busy month for the ladies in Lusk ICA.
Summer Festival
For the Lusk summer festival held and in Orlynn Park in June we set up stall showing off samples of arts and crafts. Rob O Donoghue Labour councillor for Fingal visited Caroline O’Malley and Maureen Aupy at the stand.
Pitch&Putt
Congratulations to Mary Shorthall and Teresa Kilmurray from Lusk ICA are through to the ICA All Ireland P&P in Seapoint 14th September, good luck in the final ladies.
Farewell party
A Big Thanks to the fabulous refreshments at Fr George’s farewell celebration on 2nd July. It was a really lovely Parish occasion and great for ICA to be involved.
Flavours of Fingal
With stiff competition Lusk ICA were awarded lots of prizes, at the horticultural tent in the Flavours of Fingal. Teresa Kilmurray got first prize for her soda bread and scones also an award for her embroidery. Teresa Killoran and Alma Farrell for their paintings, Mary Hagan for her apple tart and Caroline O Malley for her picture frame.
Annual ICA Party
The ladies enjoyed a wonderful day out at ICA Annual Summer Garden Party on 6th July in An Grianan in Termonfeckin, Co. Louth.
Congratulations to Teresa Kilmurray who was our proud winner of the best dressed lady! We also wish to remember the family of Josie Doyle who was an active member of Lusk ICA, may she rest in peace.
Lusk Community First Responders have been extremely busy since we went live on 12 June last. In the first 24 hours, we responded to 4 calls in the community. Our members have been delighted to be able to put their last few months of training to use and provided assistance to patients while they are waiting for an ambulance to arrive. Remember – you don’t need to call us, we will be immediately dispatched by the National Ambulance Service when a call is made for certain types of incidents.
We were also thrilled to attend the Lusk Summer Festival. We were overwhelmed by the level of support, enthusiasm and encouragement received from the public. We spent the day chatting to people about what we do, hearing stories of people’s experiences with other first responder schemes, and demonstrating how to provide CPR, with queues of people young and old waiting to have their go. It was brilliant to see so many people of all ages giving it a go, and while we hope that no one will ever need to use that skill, if it is ever needed someday, they might remember what they learned on a sunny windy summers day in Lusk! Many thanks to the Summer Committee Festival for making space for us at such a wonderful event.
Lusk CFR is actively seeking more volunteers, and no prior medical experience or training is necessary as continuous training will be offered to all recruits.
If you still want to help but are not in a position to volunteer, you can donate securely towards our running costs by visiting our website www.luskcfr.ie or contact us directly at info@luskcfr.ie. You can also donate via our QR code. All our members are volunteers and the costs go directly towards purchasing and maintaining equipment.
