Huge turnout at the official launch of Swords Memory Cafe. Forget me nots choir sang wonderfully for our guests and volunteers. Gorgeous renditions of old-time classics. A wonderful and emotional morning for all lucky enough to be there. Thanks so much to the lovely wildemeadowflowers for the beautiful bouquets and also to bainnebeo for the milk today. Once again Deirdre brought her beautiful baking. Thanks so much to the army of volunteers from Fingallians GAA club, Carechoice and our very own community who give of their time one morning a month for a wonderful community initiative.

One Voice Singers - Swords, the new community singing group based in St Colmcille’s GAA started back recently . New members are welcome to come down and sing! The group welcomes adults of all nationalities, bringing people together with a special emphasis on community integration, diversity, and respect. It’s a great chance to meet new people and learn new songs, promising to be plenty of laughs, entertaining and above all fun. If you would like to sing your heart out, please register online at eventbrite.com/e/one-town-one-voice-singers-swords-tickets-486869137697 or come along to St. Colmcille’s GAA in Swords on each Tuesday at 7.30pm. For more information contact Jacinta at community@fingal.ie The One Voice Singers are supported by Fingal Community Development Office and the One Town One Voice initiative. More information at onetownonevoice.ie.

We were privileged to host the head of JKS Worldwide, Kagawa Shihan 9 th Dan JKS,recently for a training seminar. Over 10 hours, Kagawa Shihan gave masterful karate instruction in kihon, kata and kumite. Over 100 JKS members from across Ireland attended Applewood Community Centre to take part. The attendees ranged in age from 6 to over 60 years and Kagawa Shihan was mindful to cater to everyone who was training. We hope to have him visit next year again. It is great to offer our students the opportunity to train which such a high calibre karateka. Congratulations are in order for all the JKS Ireland students who completed their belt grading examination at the National Grading including those who took the Black Belt Dan grade under the watchful eye of Kagawa Shihan. All of these karateka were dedicated in their training to achieve their new grades through tough examinations. Regular training continues weekly in Applewood Community Centre. All classes are enjoying being back to a regular schedule after the long Easter break in April. The next event for members is the 3 rd JKS Inter Club Competition which will be held in Tyrrelstown in June. We hope to have some medal winners on the day. We take new members (Children, Young People & Adults) all through the year. Contact Dermot on 087-8073885 for details on how to join. Contact us on Facebook: JKS Swords Karate Club or on Instagram: @jks_swords_karate_club

By Ken Duffy

It’s that time of the year again when Swords Tidy Towns are very busy putting together their 2023 submission for the National Tidy Towns competition. The submission team which is led by our Sectary Teresa Cosgrave are in the process of putting their different sections together, this is by no means an easy task. When each member of the team completes their section, they forward it on to Teresa for final proofing. It is Teresa’s job to put what she has been sent into an acceptable winning submission which we hope will produce a Gold Medal this year, or at least another Silver Medal. I would like to extend a massive thank you to our hard-working submission team who do so much are: Teresa Cosgrave, Grace Dunne, Rose Brennan, Ramune Kuzminiene, Melanie Van Der Linde, Noel Cosgrave, George Mongey and Billy Mc Clean.We would ask the public to be very vigilant litter wise especially during the months of June, July and August as this is when the judging takes place, no specific dates are given as to when they will visit our town so we must be constantly be on our toes. Swords has been under attack of late by indiscriminate tagging, one individual appears to have no respect for anyone’s work, who goes by the tag name ASTA, if anyone knows who this individual is, please ask them to stop what they are doing. Swords Tidy Towns volunteers give up their free time each week to make Swords a better place for us all to live, while some individuals give up their free time to make Swords a worse place for us all to live. Any help with the resolving this matter would be sincerely and gratefully appreciated by our hard-working tidy towns volunteers. If you would like to get involved with the Tidy Towns team just turn up on the day and introduce yourself, we meet each Saturday in the Colourtrend car park opposite the Garda Station, look forward to seeing you there. You can also make contact by email at swordstidytowns@gmail.com or by calling Ken on 0866008313.

Swords Meals on Wheels were recently delighted to receive an extremely generous donation of €1000.00 from Swords Lions. We do have a long and excellent relationship with Swords Lions and appreciate this help. This will go a long way to cover our ongoing day to day expenses and allow us to concentrate on our core activity to meet increasing demand for our services in the greater Swords area. We remain fully committed to ensuring that no one has to pay for our services, donations like this allow us to maintain this commitment.

Open Squad training recently for all members of JKS Ireland. Over 2 hours, we covered Kihon (basics), Kata (forms) and Kumite (fighting). Everyone worked hard and trained diligently. The class was split up into groups by grade and the JKS Ireland Instructors taught each separate group. We hosted National Brown 7 Black belt training also. Students preparing to take the Black Belt examination in the near future were put through their syllabus and kata by Dermot O Keeffe Sensei, 7th Dan JKS. We welcome new members all the time. Our classes are as follows: Tigers (5yrs – 7yrs) Thursday 4pm & Saturday 10am. Juniors Tuesday 6pm and Thursday 5pm. Seniors Tuesday 7pm and Thursday 7pm. The first class to try out is free. Contact Dermot on 087-8073885 for details on how to join our club. Or do feel free to contact us on Facebook: JKS Swords Karate Club or on Instagram: jks_swords_karate_club

Congratulations and our very best wishes for the future to Andrey Pricop on recently becoming Dublin champion. We are delighted for Andrey who works hard day in and day out down the club. Brilliant work Andrey and congratulations once again from everyone at Swords Boxing Club.

Fine Gael’s Local Area Representative in Swords, Luke Corkery, has called on Fingal County Council to find a suitable site to build social and affordable homes in Swords, on a similar scale to the developments under construction in other towns across North County Dublin. Speaking following the announcement of 62 new social and affordable homes for Rush, Luke said: “The construction of this development in Rush is obviously really welcome given the urgent need for new homes – particularly social and affordable homes – in this region. However, there is no sign of anything like that in our county town of Swords; one of the fastest growing towns in Ireland. As a young person, living in the Dublin commuter belt, I am hugely conscious of the difficulty in finding affordable homes to rent or buy. The Council-led construction of purpose-built affordable housing would be a priority for me. House prices in the Lusk affordable housing development are expected to start at €166,000 for two-bed apartments, from €206,000 for three-bed duplexes, and from €258,000 for three-bed semi-detached homes. Fingal are now starting to build badly-needed social homes in Swords and that is very welcome; we need more social housing. But what if you want to buy a home in Swords at an affordable price? There is absolutely nothing at the moment, and at that, there have been no announcements of affordable housing developments either. There are a number of sites Fingal could use in Swords. Much of it is already Council-owned. For example, the Fingal County Council staff car park, facing onto the R132 at the end of Seatown Road, strikes me as a no-brainer. It is a large piece of land, which is already zoned. It’s in a central location, within walking distance of Main Street. It’s directly adjacent to the MetroLink route. The lack of affordable housing in Swords is dire. That’s why I’m calling on Fingal County Council to fill that gap in the Swords housing market and to prioritise the construction of affordable housing for our town”, Luke concluded.

Local Swords councillor, Joe Newman has slammed the DAA and demanded that a new airport be developed close to the capital to manage the huge increase in demand for airline travel. “Improved management of the Irish aviation sector is crucial”, he says.Newman describes the North Runway project at Dublin airport to be a catastrophic failure. Currently, the management of the new North runway has caused a huge discomfort and annoyance to the residents of the Fingal region, and he warns that potential health risks must be taken much more seriously. The local councillor has called on officials at Fingal County Council to insist that the DAA comply with the planning conditions as agreed by the authority. “The DAA are showing limited regard for people of Fingal and their very poor management of airport growth is becoming the norm” Newman said. Further, he questioned why ANCA (Airport Noise Competent Authority) were based at the offices of Fingal County Council. Newman insists that ANCA should be based in offices at arms distance from both the airport and the local authority. This is not simply a question of policing the DAA but matters in protecting the public. Councillor Newman says that the residents of Ridgewood and Boroimhe estates in Swords who live just one kilometre or so away from the new runway have had their privacy shattered with this huge noise disturbance invading their homes.He went on to point out the significant noise disturbance at St. Margaret’s, Kilsallaghan and Oldtown. These towns are under the flight path where planes make a sharp turn which is in contravention to the original flight path promoted by the DAA in previous consultations on the noise contours. And for the residents of some estates in the Rivervalley area in Swords, who have for years put up with a lot of noise from airplanes taking off from the South runway, they now must deal with an increased amount of noise from the north runway and the fact that planes are taking off at much lower altitudes. Councillor Newman is demanding that the DAA are instructed to return immediately to the original planning conditions as set out by Fingal County Council, and that the ANCA decision to allow the erosion of terms of night flying hours be reversed forthwith. “The ANCA decision to increase the night-time flying hours is simply the thin edge of the wedge to all night flying” he said. Newman concluded “We need another airport to limit the growing pressure on Dublin Airport”.