If you have 4 hours per week to join our team in Swords please drop in to us or give us a call on 018400752 for more details contact: Vincent’s Swords.1 Castle Shopping Centre, Swords

Recently we held our first night back training since Covid lockdowns and we settled into our new training facility. It was great to see new members join our team and get hands on experience with our medical and trauma scenarios. This training is essential for our members who are back on duty in our community.Exciting news for Swords Division. We have a new training premises for our weekly training.HSE EVE Estuary Centre, Lissenhall Great, Swords, Co Dublin. Our Members weekly training is a very important part of what we do, ensuring our members are up to date on knowledge, skills and abilities. This veune offers us space, facilities and excellent storage. Cadets meet Wednesday evenings from 7pm-9pm.Adults meet Thursday evenings from 8pm-10pm. Thank you to all the staff in the Centre for facilitating us and we are extremely excited about our new venture.While some of our Cadet units have been around for a long time, we are always looking to open new units where there is a group of young people eager to learn First Aid in a fun and relaxing environment. Our Cadet unit in Swords opened its doors in April 2019 and, after enrolling their first group of Cadets, had to close its doors in March 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. As the restrictions start to ease, the volunteers in Swords are ready to reopen their doors and welcome both new and returning Cadets. In their short existence, Swords gave some of our older Divisions a run for their money with their Cadets attending public events to provide pre-hospital emergency care alongside the adult volunteers, taking part in our national competitions, and also being part of the World Record Attempt at Croke Park.

by Swords Tidy Towns

Once again, Swords Tidy Towns in conjunction with Fingal County Council have entered The Rock Garden on the Rathbeale Road into the Green Flag Community Award for 2021.The Rock Garden has worn many masks over the years, it was the local quarry up until 1940’s when it was closed. After its closure it became the local dump, when the dump closed various shanty type constructions were built there, then it was turned into a playground, this fell into disrepair over the years attracting anti-social behaviour. After a successful enquiry to Fingal County Councils Operations Dept by our Chairman Ken Duffy as to the possibility of turning the vacant space into a community park we put a committee together to draft a plan for the new park headed by Matt Cullen. When our draft plan was completed, we presented it to FCC’s Operations Dept. After tossing around a few ideas at this meeting they offered and we agreed that they draft up a plan using some of our ideas. If you have not seen the Rock Garden yet, pay it a visit and view the result, you will be pleasantly surprised.

Congratulations to our Swords Celtic 11 Premiers who won the Kells Cup recently. They beat St.Kevins in the last 16 and Cherry Orchard in the Semi Final on their way to victory. Well done boys! Here are a few pics taken on the day of the brillant victory.

‘An Ghaeltacht’ came to Swords between the 9th and 13th of August 2021 when Fingallians GAA hosted their inaugural Irish language summer camp or ‘Club Samhraidh C.L.G. Fhine Ghallainn’ (Fingallians GAA Summer Club). 124 primary school children participated in the sports camp that was conducted exclusively through the medium of the Irish language.The club’s Irish language officer Liam Ó Culbáird said “We were taken aback by the demand that was there. All available places on the course were taken up very quickly. We had 124 youngsters playing football and hurling go h-iomlán trí Ghaeilge. The demand shows the success and popularity of Irish language education and Fingallians GAA are very happy to be able to support that by providing services through Irish. We had a mix of kids from both Gaelscoileanna and non-Irish language schools. This added to the camp in that some participants were learning through immersion and others were delighted to share their knowledge. The camp’s popularity reflects the surge in recent years of interest in the Irish language in Dublin. All the coaches and helpers on the course were Gaeilgeoirí from within the club. For 2022 we intend to expand the Club Samhraidh to cater for children across the Fingal region.”Coaching supervisor Donagh Williams said “As an Irish language speaker, it was a privilege to be able to offer this service to the young athletes of Swords. It was a great achievement to run the Club Samhraidh with such large numbers in our first year. We are grateful to the coaches, helpers, parents and of course the participants themselves. Next week is ‘Heritage Week’ and our sport and language are central parts of Irish heritage. We look forward to being “níos mó agus níos fearr” (bigger and better) next year.Fingallians GAA have received clú agus cáil (fame) within the GAA and further afield for their promotion of the language and sports areas of Irish Heritage.

The Town of Swords has grown a lot in the past few years and Swords Tidy Towns has grown along with it. We were lucky at the start to have had such great mentors to guide us on our way who have sadly since passed, Margaret Thorpe, Joan Hunt, Des Becton, Margaret O’Reilly to name but a few.We have managed over the years to knit together a fantastic enthusiastic bunch of people who are eager to get stuck in and share their particular skill sets. Individuals have even taken on particular Liaison Officer positions in the areas of Resident Associations, Bio Diversity, Schools and Clubs, Planting Planning, Fund Raising, Poly Tunnel Maintenance etc.For a number of years, we have worked with the Fingal Leader Partnership and The Valley Project on their back to work job experience initiatives. We currently have two from each scheme working with us at the moment, our chairperson was invited to sit on both boards which he does in a voluntary capacity. Swords Tidy Towns has over the years worked closely on local projects with Fingal County Council (particularly the Operations Dept), Dublin Airport Authority, SuperValu Boroimhe, Nulty Landscaping, SK Biotek, MSD Biotech, Hertz, The Pavilions SC, The Castle SC, Peter O’Brien Landscaping, Swords has benefited greatly from each of these joint initiatives and will do so we are confident into the future.We would ask people to respect the trojan voluntary work our members put in keeping your town looking as beautiful as it does by binning your rubbish or taking it home if bins are full or unavailable. The judges are watching, we are seeking our first gold medal in the National Tidy Towns Competition, you don’t have to be a member to be a part of the Swords Tidy Towns team.

Have a look at our pictures which show some recent events at which we have been providing/assisting with event medical cover. If yo are involved in any organisation and need medical cover for an event, email us swords@stjohn.ie or call 0830943324 or 0872559417.We can provide: Ambulance, First Aid Tent (Small), Cycle Response Unit, First Aid patrol, EMT, Paramedic and Nurse. Why not make a note of our contact details in case your group needs medical cover in the near future.

Well done to Joanne Fulham and the Glasmore residence who were out in force prepping the Rathbeale Rd entrance to their estate for a Frontline Workers Commemmorative Garden. With €3000 worth of plants, shrubs and trees on order it should look the business. We also want to recognise and thank Alla who takes care of our poly tunnel and recently took advantage of the good weather to work on our patch on North St. Great work Alla well done. Not forgetting our members Billy, Grace and Georgy who were out weeding at the Malahide roundabout recently, played a scorcher guys if you will excuse the pun.

St John Ambulance is an international humanitarian organisation with over 500 000 volunteers in over 20 different countries. We have been providing First Aid cover and First Aid Training Courses in Ireland for over 100 years. For further information on our organisation, please click the images below.In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have developed an Instructor-led ‘First Aid and COVID-19 in the workplace’ online course. Swords Adult Division meets every Thursday evening from 2000-2200, Cadets meet every Wednesday evening from 1900-2100, both in Holywell Community Centre in Swords. We operate 1 ambulance, First Aid tent and a Cycle Response Unit. We cover many events, including Croke P ark, Dublin Zoo, Motorcross, RDS, Aviva Stadium, Local football events, local races and more. We also provide first aid courses in First Aid Response , Emergency First Aid, Baby and Toddler First Aid and more. Swords Division was established in 2014. Since the we have grown and have One ambulance, first aid tent and a Cycle Response Unit (CRU). We have 25 adult members from basic first aid, EMT to Nurses. In 2019, our cadet division was formed. Our division is lead by our Officer in Charge Mr Jamie Bollard MStJ, assisted by our senior NCO’s Michael, Noel, Jock and Claire (cadets).Our Cycle response unit was donated to us in 2019 by One4All gift cards.We are a very active division with a wide area to cover in North Co. Dublin.We provide professional event medical cover for any event, providing our Ambulance, CRU, Tent, First aid patrols and more. Our division provides First Aid courses, demos, talks and more, with our experienced instructors Noel, Jamie, Michael, Gerard and Declan. Our training equipment is of the highest standards including our full body CPR, Airway and Trauma manikin. If you want to know more please contact: St John Ambulance Ireland, 29 Upper Leeson Streeet, Dublin 4, Ireland | Tel: (0)1 668 8077.

The Swords Cultural Quarter has taken a major step forward with the appointment of the integrated design team which will be led by award-winning architects O’Donnell and Tuomey.The announcement was made recently at a meeting of Fingal County Council by County Architect Fionnuala May when she gave councillors an update on the project.With the design team now in place, the project, which was launched in 2016, will now proceed at pace with the Council intending to initiate a Part 8 planning public consultation process in May 2022. The project is expected to go to tender in April 2023 with construction works scheduled to commence in Quarter 3 of 2023. The Civic and Cultural Centre will be the first part of the project to be constructed and is expected to take 24 months to complete.The Swords Cultural Quarter will be located in the civic heart of Fingal’s County Town and will be a major new public and civic space with the new Civic and Cultural Centre and a Hub Building sitting alongside the existing Fingal County Council Offices and historic Swords Castle at the junction of North Street and Seatown Road.The Civic and Cultural Centre will be at the core of the Swords Cultural Quarter and will include a library space, performance venue and arts venue with a number of support facilities that can be utilised for artistic, cultural and community needs.The Mayor of Fingal, Cllr Seána Ó Rodaigh, said: “This is great news for Swords and Fingal as this is a flagship project for the county. The objective of the Swords Cultural Quarter project is to energise this area of Swords in order to make a balanced town that provides places, buildings and spaces for both cultural and economic activity for all its citizens and to create a new sense of place.” Established in 1988, O’Donnell and Tuomey is an award-winning architectural practice led by Sheila O’Donnell and John Tuomey, with studios based in Dublin, Cork and London. They have received over 120 national and international awards for their completed buildings.