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Carlingford Community Newsletter
NOVEMBER 2021 EDITION No.91
This newsletter is jointly produced by the bodies representing the Carlingford Community, namely:
Coming this December, we have some wonderful events to take us into the festive season. Starting with The Christmas Castle Tour with Ghan House, the first tour will be on December 11th and the second on December18th. Booking for these tours is essential. https://carlingfordheritagecentre.com/events/festive-castle-tour-with-ghan-house/
On December 12th, Roisin Bradley and Brian O’Connor will return to the heritage centre to perform a wonderful concert of Christmas songs. Guest musicians on the day will be Bronagh Cahill from the RTE concert orchestra. Tickets available online. https://carlingfordheritagecentre.com/events/december-songs-concert/
Carlingford Shop Front exhibition will be launched on December 16th and run over the Christmas season. * All events are subject to Covid protocols & restrictions.
The first public consultation for the Rural Regeneration Project took place in the Four Seasons Hotel on Tuesday November 9th. The opportunity to respond continued until November 25 by means of an online portal set up by Louth County Council. This gave individuals and community groups a chance to engage with the process at an early stage. Topographical surveys will now be carried out in the next phase.
The work on the Fáilte Ireland initiative Carlingford Vision ‘31 Gateway to the Cooley Peninsula continued on Monday November 8th. There are four key Pillars to the plan, Public Realm. Best in Class Activity. Destination Exploration. Sustainable Tourism.
These areas will be further developed to feed into a plan for the North East region.
The next meeting takes place on December 15th.
The now traditional Discount Shopping Day will take place on Tuesday Dec.7th., circumstances permitting. It has become synonymous with the start of Christmas in Carlingford. It gives us an opportunity to support the local economy following a very difficult period of lockdown. It is worth engaging with the individual businesses as customer shopping can be facilitated in various ways.
For individual reports from the participating organisations see elsewhere in this Newsletter.
Another little bit of history was made this month as Carlingford Knights played their very first girls youth Rugby match.
In a rugby 7s game against Ardee. Ardee came out on top, but the young knights side took a lot of heart and look forward to their next fixture against Newry in a few weeks. The youth girls are a combination of players who have come through our mini section, with players who have literally taken up the sport weeks ago, thanks to our “give it a try” rugby course. With the skill set of rugby and GAA so similar a lot of the new players have adapted to the game within weeks, we welcome all new players to training as we grow our youth girls’ section alongside our boys’ section.
November has been another action-packed month at the Carlingford Heritage centre. As members of Louth Volunteers some of the Trust team were invited to visit O’Connell GAA clubrooms for Louth Volunteer awards. Patricia Morrissey was nominated in recognition of the excellent work she does as a volunteer leader. Although we didn’t win, it was a great opportunity to meet and learn about the work of other organisations within the county.
On November Monday 8th we held our volunteer’s coffee morning as part of National Volunteers week in the Heritage Centre. We were spoiled with some delicious scones from Ghan house. The morning was full of great engagement which is key for the trust as a volunteer-based organisation.
This month we worked alongside DKIT to help host the 10th anniversary of the Thomas D’Arcy McGee summer (in autumn) school. The event this year was a hybrid event of online and in person all based in DKIT. We were delighted to welcome the Canadian Ambassador Nancy Smyth to Carlingford Heritage Centre on November 16th 2021.The ambassador was greeted by committee members, and given a Town tour of Carlingford by Sheila Boyle. We were very grateful for some sponsored gifts from Garrett Mallon and Lush Boutique. The morning ended with coffee and chats; we hope that we will see the Ambassador again during her time in the Irish Embassy.
We are delighted to welcome two placement students from DKIT. Stephen and Oisín who are studying TV and film production. If you spot them around town filming and capturing the sights of Carlingford do say hello or maybe even give them an interview?
Abu Media productions visited the centre to film a documentary about St. Colmcille, our musicians in residence Zoe Conway and John McIntyre featured in the documentary. We had great entertainment watching this production company filming for TG4.
“This project is supported by the Department of Rural and Community Development and Pobal through the Community Services Programme”.
Carlingford Tidy Towns are delighted to be awarded a Bronze medal Category C in the National Tidy Towns Competition. We are up 12 points this year with 338 points. Congratulations to our neighbours in Louth who also won several medals- Blackrock got Gold in Category D. Ardee got Gold in Category E. Drogheda and Dundalk got Gold in Category H. Knockbridge and Tallanstown got bronze in Category B. Dromiskin also got bronze in Category C.
Judging this year was based entirely online from the application form sent in digitally. The following are some of the adjudication report extracts:
‘Your online community survey was a great way to overcome the restrictions imposed by Covid restrictions and to further you plans for the future. You also developed a new website and added a YouTube page for videos.’
‘It’s good to hear of businesses in Market Square and Newry Street updating their shopfronts and painting schemes. ‘
‘Hopefully you will receive funding for the upgrading of the playground as it will encourage many new visitors to your area and be of business benefit to the community’
‘Your photos really capture the colourful nature of your streets and buildings’
‘Your carry out a lot of maintenance projects on existing green areas and you are obviously aware of the benefits of pollinator friendly plants.’
‘Please don’t overstretch your resources and try to keep high quality maintenance program in place’
‘Your redesigned nature garden has a good range of different habitats such as woodland and wild grass and water. Things are obviously working as newts have taken up residence in your pond.
‘Your water refill station has been a fantastic success with over 10,000 views on Facebook.’
‘It is unfortunate to hear of volumes of litter created in April 2021. I can feel your frustration at the situation and please keep up the fight against litter. Hopefully the resources necessary will be provided to you. There are bins available which compact the litter as the bind fills and hence can take a larger volume of litter and doesn’t have to be emptied as often. These types of bins may be more suitable for areas where there is a potential for high litter volumes.’
Concluding Remarks- ‘One of the downsides of living in such a beautiful area is that it attracts people from far and wide who may not treat it with the same respect that you do. Keep up the good work and continue to find suitable solutions to enhance and improve your area.’
We have to say the Garda Station is looking fabulous in blue. Well done to the Garda for arranging painting of the iconic building which has its 100th birthday in 2022.
This month volunteers have been preparing a site for a shed to centrally store the ride on lawn mower. We have now completed planting of the last of the 4500 Spring bulbs! And moved onto adding some winter colour to the pots with Cyclamen and Violas.
We look forward to Louth Looking Good on Wednesday 1st December in The Crowne Plaza Dundalk.
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