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”.

By Ken Duffy

Swords Tidy Towns hard-working volunteers were out on the Well Road pruning and chopping the overhanging branches and hedging, they also trimmed back the ground vegetation. The area was very overgrown and the low hanging branches and hedging were a hindrance to pedestrians using the footpath. This urgent work needed to be completed before March 1st as this date is the national deadline for this type of work to be completed pre nesting season. Swords Tidy Towns once again took part in the Swords St Patrick’s Day Parade, the theme for the parade this year, was “Going Green”. Once again we held our fund-raising Bucket Collection at the end of the parade and we thank you for your generosity. All donations are ploughed back into the town of Swords to the benefit of its community. We had a sell-out night at our Table Quiz in Peacock’s Bar Rivervalley on Thurs Feb 9th. A big thank you to the management and staff for setting out the room so well and for taking such great care of us on the night. The craic was mighty, our Quiz Master and STT volunteer Noel Cosgrave gave an outstanding performance, and not forgetting our hard working Quiz Night committee, Georgy Hughes, Teresa Cosgrave, Isobel McClean, Billy McClean and Ken Duffy. There were raffle prizes galore thanks to the generosity of local businesses and individuals for which we are very grateful. We would also like to thank all those who came out on the night to support us, we hope you enjoyed the evening as much as we did. The total for our fund-raising quiz was 2,015 euro, a fantastic result. Once again, a big thank you to everyone for your support, all monies raised will benefit our future projects for Swords. The Table Quiz winners on the night were - 1st place (who were very appropriately named) “And In First Place”, the 2ndplace competitors were “The Last Of Us”, and in 3rd place were “Go Leir” meaning – All. Many congratulations to the winners and hard luck to those who didn’t win, and thank you all for supporting us on the night.

The Mayor of Fingal, Cllr Howard Mahony, has opened three public amenities in Swords which represent an investment of €6million in the county capital. They were the first phase of Swords Regional Park in Oldtown, Swords Archaeological Park in Miller’s Glen and Ward River Recreational Hub in Rivervalley. The Mayor was accompanied by the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh O’Brien TD, and the Chief Executive of Fingal County Council, AnnMarie Farrelly, at the first two openings and they were then joined by Minister for State at the Department of Transport, Jack Chambers TD, and the Chief Executive of Dublin Airport, Vincent Harrison, at the opening of the Ward River Recreational Hub which was funded by the Council and the Dublin Airport Authority. Speaking afterwards the Mayor said: “The parks and outdoor sports and play facilities we opened today clearly demonstrate Fingal’s continuing commitment to the provision of high-quality open space amenities.” The 20 acre park at Oldtown represents phase one of the Swords Regional Park which will eventually develop into a major new park extending to more than 250 acres along the banks of the Broadmeadow River between Miller’s Glen and Lissenhall and linking to the Estuary stop on the proposed MetroLink. The nine acre Rathbeal Archaeological Park in Miller’s Glen brings to 40% the amount of public open space in Fingal that is located in designated heritage landscapes. Evidence of human activity in the park goes back as far as the early Neolithic period, almost 4,000 years BC. The Ward River Regional Park Recreational Hub is part of the 200 acre Ward River Regional Park and features newly developed grass pitches as well as a Third Generation all-weather sports pitch with innovative LED floodlighting. The new car parking provided as part of the Hub will also benefit general park users and provides a foretaste of the improvements to the park which will be included in the Ward River Regional Park Development Masterplan which will be the subject of public consultation and a planning application later this year. The Chief Executive of Fingal County Council, AnnMarie Farrelly, said: “The opening of these three amenities, in different parts of the town, represents a six million euro investment and shows Fingal County Council’s commitment to ensuring Swords grows sustainably and develops into a well-designed county capital.

Aer Lingus Bowls club is an inclusive club. We welcome all abilities, ages, and genders. Are you interested in trying lawn bowls this Spring/Summer? Do you know someone who might be interested? Would your club, Men’s/Women’s shed, Active Age group, organisations for individuals with additional needs, or school be interested in trying Lawn Bowls? All equipment will be provided for taster sessions. Please contact Des Walsh on 087 0678903/ Sandra McCarthy 0863114540 for further information or send a message on Facebook messenger Aer Lingus Bowls Club. We look forward to welcoming you. You will be assured of a warm welcome.