Christmas Jumper Swap
Following on from the huge success of last year’s Christmas Jumper Swap it will return this year on Saturday 23rd November in Rush Community Centre. The premise is the same as last year, bring a preloved jumper to the event to drop off for someone else to enjoy, and pick a new one to wear for this year’s Christmas season. Details are on the flyer.
Circular Economy in Action
Thank you to everybody who came along to our three big events mid-October in Rush Community Centre. We had a seed and plant swap, a clothes repair cafe and a small household item recycling event where we filled three large wheelie bins. Thanks to Anna McGuire for excellent guidance in the clothes repair cafe and Mary Ryan for her tips at the Seed and Plant swap. Anna is planning another repair café on Saturday 23rd November, details on the flyer.
Bird Watching Rogerstown
Thank you to everybody who turned up to our Bird Watching event at Rogerstown in October. The conditions were perfect, and we certainly saw a huge variety of birds on the mud of the Estuary under the excellent guidance of Linda Mellon from the Fingal branch of BirdWatch Ireland. Keep an eye on the Rush
The future of Knockdrommin House remains uncertain after it was revealed at the Rush&Lusk October Area Committee meeting that the property has now been withdrawn from the market.
During the meeting, the Council stated that they had submitted an offer to the Vendors in January this year but it was not accepted, and it had been understood that the sale had been agreed with another bidder, however the Council was then informed the sale is now not proceeding and that the property has been withdrawn from the market.
Cllr Rob O’Donoghue tabled a question in regard to the potential acquisition by the Council of the circa 30 acres of land at the Knockdromin House site on the Rush to Lusk Road at the October Area Committee Meeting in FCC.
“I am well aware that there has been attempts to change the zoning on the Knockdrommin site in the last two development plans, twice it has been rejected by planners and councillors, given its relative isolation it was not considered to be sound or sustainable planning. If I need to, come the next plan, I intend to lead the charge, again, on maintaining the current zoning on the site.
“Only the Council have the necessary resources and expertise to really develop the site in the communities interest. I would implore the management to have another look at the site should it come to market again, particularly as the alternative bidder decided not to go through with the purchase. Acquiring the lands would go some way to softening the loss of Kenure House to the town of Rush nearly 50 years ago,” he added.
Every year the Christmas Lights Committee, which is a sub-committee of Rush Community Council, work extremely hard to raise the funds necessary to pay for putting up and taking down the wonderful display of Christmas lights on main street and also organise the switching on of the Christmas lights event which this year will take place in Echlin Court on 30th November.
The Christmas Lights Committee have launched a GoFundMe page which can be accessed using the QR Code.Chairperson of the Christmas Light Committee Pat Sweetman explained, “We’ve already had some very generous donations from the community but we really need the people and businesses of Rush to dig deep and to help us to meet the target to fund the Christmas lights for this year. We know that things are more expensive all around, but it would be great if everyone could support the efforts to light up Rush at Christmas.”
It takes seconds to donate to the GoFundMe page using the QR code and there will be a street collection and raffles before the big day itself.
Rush Christmas Lights Committee are organising a spectacular event on 30th November for the switching on of the lights as their Chairperson explained, “We have groups of local musicians performing, there will be mince pies and Christmas treats and who knows maybe even a visit from the big man himself.”
The Millbank Theatre are delighted to announce another talented music act coming to our stage. The award winning “The Breath” come to the Millbank Theatre Sunday November 10th.
The Breath is Manchester-based guitarist Stuart McCallum and singer/flautist Ríoghnach Connolly. They met on the city’s gig circuit in the late noughties. An unlikely pairing though it was, he an acclaimed guitar whiz, ex long-time member of The Cinematic Orchestra and a softly spoken Manchester urbanite, she a folk singer with a larger-than-life personality and a powerful voice to match.
The Breath have released three albums on Peter Gabriel’s Real World label.
‘Only Stories (Let the Cards Fall Revisited)’ reimagining previous work (alongside two new songs) took the music back to its acoustic roots. This new direction would see Ríoghnach Connolly receive an RTÉ Folk Award nomination for Best Folk Singer and win Folk Singer Of The Year at the 2019 BBC R2 Folk Awards for which the duo were also nominated as Best Duo/Group.
In readiness for the spooky season, St Catherine’s National School Parents’ Association held a Halloween Costume Swap on Saturday 5th October in conjunction with Rush Tidy Towns. It was a very busy morning as many visitors to the St Catherine’s school hall brought and swapped their costumes and were entertained by games provided by Let’s Play Rush. It was great to see the circular economy in action as over 80 costumes were swapped on the day.
The next similar initiative will be the Christmas Jumper Swap in Rush Community Centre on Saturday 23rd November.
Rush Community Council will hold it’s 2024 AGM in the Community Centre at 8pm on Wednesday the 20th of November. All are welcome to attend. The AGM will hear presentations from the Community Council and it’s sub-committees Rush Tidy Towns, Rush Heritage and Tourism, the Community Development Group and the Christmas Lights Committee on the great work that they have done throughout the year.
Rush Community Council Chairperson, Brian Doherty said that the Community Council are particularly keen for people to attend who wish to volunteer to assist with the Community Council and its subgroups.
“The lifeblood of any community is its volunteers and in Rush we are truly blessed with a strong culture and history of local people donating significant time and energy to give back to the town. Whether it be the Rush Tidy Towns army, the Let’s Play Rush events, the great work that Rush 38th Scouts do, or the annual harbour festival a lot what you see around Rush in any given year is fuelled almost entirely by volunteer energy. But we need more of it, we need new volunteers for all of our local groups and for the Community Council itself in order to achieve even more in the coming years. We are particularly interested in meeting those people who are new to Rush and may wish to get involved,” he said.
If you are interested in volunteering, please come to the Community Council AGM and find out more about how to get involved.
The Rush Multipurpose Youth Facility (RMYF) held a very successful open day on the 3 of Oct at the newly refurbished Facility (Martins Shop) Millbank Rush.
The Open day was put together by the board of the RMYF and was held to promote the activities of the facility to the local community. The refurbishment of RMYF has transformed the building into vibrant welcoming space that will benefit of the youth in the surrounding area. Many of multipurpose rooms suitable for, music, drama, dancing, after school services, youth support, yoga, Mindfulness and many other activities.
We are keen to here from people and groups that would like to utilise that space, we meet everyone with an open mind and are there to help our users grow and develop their programmes. We had a very successful open event there was huge interest in the new facility, and we had many enquires.
More importantly it was great fun on the night, with refreshments, music and networking with people from the area. The Facility in already very busy with new users and enquiries. RMYF (Martins Shop) will be a great asset for the youth in our community. Its refurbishment represents a significant investment in local development and will offer high-quality spaces for various activities. The facility will offer enhanced resources and opportunities for youth and community groups alike. RMYF is proud of this vital initiative and looks forward to seeing the facility flourish as a cornerstone of community life in Rush.
We are looking for people to help with the running of the building and would love to here from anybody who would like to give of there time to support this community project. Please contact RMYF at: info@rmyf.ie or go to our website at www.rmyf.ie
The Millbank Theatre and Rush Pantomime Group are busy preparing the theatre once again this Christmas for another fun filled Panto for all the family!
Barry Kavanagh directs the production again this year with a dream team in place of Eimear Sheridan as Choreographer and Colin Sloan as Musical Director. Script by Ritchie Smith.
Rehearsals kicked off nice and early in September, (oh yes they did!!!!) with a very talented youth troop from the area who are now ready to wow audiences with a nice variety of singing, acting and dancing to entertain throughout the festive season. Please note, The oldies on stage are very talented too!!
Hilariously Funny, Colourful and Filled with Christmas Cheer, Rush audiences will be brought on a journey from The Millbank Theatre to the Kingdom Of Scandinavia.
Frozen Solid runs from December 5th -29th at the Millbank Theatre. Book online at www.millbanktheatre.ie
With Last year’s Jack and The Beanstalk proving a sell out success it is advisable to get booking as soon as possible!
Leonard Cohen would have celebrated his 90th birthday in September this year. The event was marked by a “Leonard Cohen Birthday Bash” as part of the “Meet Me At The Altar” 2024 music season at Rush Library. Curated by Pat Burke, these performances have been running since July 2022 and have become a fixture in the local calendar with shows on Saturday afternoons from July to December.
Pat conceived this latest idea having seen various Cohen tributes in Dublin and felt that there was ample local talent to stage a similar performance Leonard’s birthday was actually September 21st, but this coincided with the launch of local man Eoghan Fyne’s art exhibition at the library altar space. So, the event was a belated birthday celebration. Eoghan was there himself (a long-standing Cohen fan) and kindly offered to mount a Leonard Cohen framed poster on his (much spattered!) easel as a backdrop to the performance.
Pat kicked off the event himself, performing “Dance me to the end of love”, the opening song for many Leonard Cohen concerts in the later years. This was followed by Ed Byrne who travelled from Kildare just to perform, and he delivered “Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye” and “Who by fire” on his trademark jazz guitar. Louise Emerson gave us an unaccompanied sung version of a Cohen poem titled “Song to make me still”. Then it was back to the songs and Ciarán Saunders sang a lovely stripped-back version of the classic “Hallelujah”.
The O’Donovan clan were there in force; Ritch performed “First we take Manhattan” and brothers Robbie and James gave us “Take this waltz”. In between, we had a tender version of “If it be your will” by Seán De Burca and Laura Bissett. On then to Adrian Leonard, who gave us a brace of songs; “Famous blue raincoat” and “Bird on a wire”. Finally, Tess Doherty ably backed by dad Brian on 12-string guitar, sang a Boygenius cover called “Leonard Cohen”, a quirky and delightful song that only goes to prove Leonard’s enduring popularity and influence on contemporary music. The show came to a rousing end with “So long Marianne” with everyone back on stage and the audience joining in for the chorus.
Meet Me At The Altar is delighted to announce that Chien Buggle will be performing solo in the library on Saturday 30th November, at 3pm. Chien is a member of the Dublin Guitar Quartet, a group formed in 2001 and which specialises in the performance of contemporary classical music, particularly music associated with minimalist composers.
Rush Eco Group
We were delighted to be invited by Fingal County Council as part of Rush Eco Group, to speak at a Dublin-wide Climate Action conference in the Mansion House in September. We got to share the background to setting up the group, discuss the projects which we received €59.5k funding for across the town, and learn from other like-minded people on their drive to sustainability.
Let’s Play Rush
What a fantastic day we had at the Let’s Play Rush free family fun and sports event at Tayluers Point in Rush on August 17th. Well done to all the medal winners. Thank you to Minister Joe O’Brien TD for Dublin Fingal and Cllr Robert O’Donoghue the acting mayor for presenting most of the medals and thank you to the volunteers from Rush Tidy Towns, the 38th Rush Scout Group and Rush Community Council for making the day happen. Finally thank you to Fingal County Council for providing grant funding for this event.
Calendar photos
Calling all budding photographers. You have just a few more weeks to submit your photos for our 2025 Rush Tidy Towns Calendar. We are trying to cover all aspects of Rush from the gorgeous views we have to the sports we play and everything else in between, and in all seasons. To enter your photo(s), please send all shots by e-mail only to dianaodonohue14@gmail.com. Each photographer featured in a month will be invited to a launch event and receive a free calendar. Please bear in mind that that submitted images must be of adequate resolution to print out on A4 size. Good luck and get snapping.
