Carlingford Community Newsletter June Edition

CARLINGFORD COMMUNITY NEWSLETTER 

JUNE 2020 EDITION

This newsletter is jointly produced by the five bodies representing the Carlingford Community, namely:

Carlingford Lough Heritage Trust     CLHT

Carlingford & Cooley Tourism Assoc.     CCTA

Carlingford Tidy Towns               CTT

Carlingford Community Development     CCD

(The Foy Centre)

Carlingford Residents Association     CRA

Carlingford Community Forum News

As we emerge from lockdown and reflect, we appreciate the huge efforts made by our community and potential visitors to respect the guidelines put in place for our own protection. 

We are indebted to the many organisations, public bodies, community groups & individuals who pulled out all the stops to make us feel cared for and supported. We were all touched in one way or another! 

For those who lost loved ones during this time we express our deepest sympathy and hope that we will at some future time have the opportunity to again acknowledge their grief and together celebrate the lives of their loved ones!

A big thank you to all the businesses who facilitated us with home deliveries and who put social distancing and hygiene facilities in place for those who visited their premises.

A big thank you also to all the eateries who changed their work practices to facilitate the community with takeaway meals and home deliveries. All the renewed interest in home bread making and other culinary delights still left us missing out on the human interaction with friends and neighbours so those extra efforts meant so much! 

In moving forward, we hope the much-anticipated spike will be kept at bay but we must continue to be vigilant in following the advice of the professionals, react quickly when advised to and above all to stay safe! 

Forum items ongoing renewal scheme. We are still hoping for completion of this project on Strand and Old Quay Lane as soon as possible. 

Litter control in Carlingford. Representation by the Forum on behalf of Carlingford Tidy Towns to Louth County Council will hopefully see services made available at weekends.

Carlingford Tidy Towns

Our group have been planting up the Steps to King John’s Castle, the flower bed formed from the Old Railway walkway, and around the Pine tree on the Village Green.  

112 people filled in our Online Community Survey and the results are published below.  There were also very many comments concerning issues which are not within our ability to solve. These issues have been forwarded to Local councillors’ and Gardai for their attention and to The Carlingford Forum.

We will use the survey to form our new 3-year plan and to help us carry out projects prioritised by our Community.  

We have been appealing for more volunteers in this survey and will shortly contact them.  If you would like to help out Tel 0429373686.  We need people to help with planting and to do daily litter patrols.

Our Summer ‘Spring Clean’ is scheduled for Saturday 4th July 10am.  We would ask everyone who can please help out on this day.  Bring gloves and a litter picker if you have them.  Please meet on The Village Green. 

Ongoing great work has been done by various Resident’s groups and some photos of Abbey Court and Clós na Manach are shown.

Litter has been a very big problem.  The bins cannot contain three days of rubbish at weekends.  We have appealed to Louth County Council again to empty bins at weekend.  The current schedule is emptying Mondays, Wednesdays, Friday’s in the morning. We were delighted to hear that the bins will now be emptied each Saturday and Sunday morning in Carlingford and on the Cooley Peninsula. We believe this will go a long to solving litter problems.  It is exactly the support we had been seeking.  We would like to thank Antoin Watters and Erin Mc Greehan for raising these issues in recent weeks.

We are appealing to Takeaway food outlets to minimise the amount of packing used to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill.  Bulky boxes and large bags are a particular problem.  We congratulate the Wildwood Café for its compostable packing supplied by ‘down2earth’.  The 2-minute beach Clean board has been moved home to the promenade and please feel free to do a litter pick when out for your walk.  You can leave the litter just inside the gate of the tennis courts.  Please use the bags provided.

Survey Results

Carlingford Lough Heritage Trust

The Carlingford waterfront has changed a bit since Henry Brocas painted his watercolour around 1800, when high tides lapped against the walls of Taaffe’s Castle. By about 1820 a small quay – Wood’s Quay – had been built directly in front of the castle (where a stone house now stands). It was financed by Archibald Mateer, a merchant who owned the fine house known as Catherine’s Grove. According to a fisheries report of 1822 it was used by up to 40 half-decked smacks, most of them in the thriving herring trade (Mateer charged them 4d apiece for ‘quayage’). When famine arrived in 1845 the Carlingford relief committee proposed that a pier be built ‘for the relief of the fishermen and unemployed poor of the locality’. Work began on the pier running out from Carlingford Castle; this was followed up in 1855 with a second pier on the Ghan Road side.  Both piers were extended to their modern length in the 1880s with government funding.
Much greater changes to the waterfront took place in the 1870s when the Newry and Greenore Railway arrived. First, a deep cutting was made through the rock at the Castle and it was bridged over, and the area of shore between the railway line and Taaffe’s Castle was reclaimed. The closure of the railway in the 1950s left room for the wide promenade we have today.

Good news!  Carlingford Heritage Centre re opens to the public! 

We are reopening to public visitors on Monday 29th of June.

Our opening hours for July August and September are Monday to Friday 9.30-5pm 

Saturday and Sunday 2-5pm

We look forward to seeing you if you would like to drop in for a chat and to renew your interest in Carlingford’s heritage and history! Come and say hello to the new team who have been working behind the scenes since March to make the Heritage Centre a welcome attraction for summer visitors. And we have all the necessary COVID -19 Protocols in place to help to keep visitors safe.

Summer Tours – Visitors can discover more of medieval Carlingford.

Carlingford Lough Heritage Trust will be operating medieval Town Trail Tours this summer daily. 

Each day at 11am and 3pm, we will meet in front of the Station House. We will be there 15 minutes beforehand to sell tickets which will also be on sale online. The tour will feature the main medieval sights of the town starting at the Heritage Centre and featuring the Friary, Tholsel Street and finishing at the Castle grounds. We are still waiting for access to the Castle from OPW and hope to have that before long as we have impressed upon them the need for the Castle to open to attract more visitors to the town.

Tours start on Saturday 4th of July and will run daily subject to demand until October

Tour price Adult/Senior/Student €6.00 Child €3.00 Family ticket for 4 €14.00.

Book online @ www.carlingfordheritagecentre.com 

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Superb Civil Wedding Venue

If you hear of couples looking for an attractive civil wedding venue…. Do tell them about Carlingford Heritage Centre.

Now that venues will be extra busy in 2021 because of the postponement of so many weddings in 2020, you may hear of couples having difficulty finding a suitable venue. Why not suggest Carlingford Heritage Centre which offers a wonderful atmospheric venue for a civil ceremony and can be partnered with hotels and restaurants in the area or further afield. As people plan smaller wedding celebrations, more restaurants will start to offer wedding receptions. So, for a boutique style wedding, we are ideal. Add the spectacular backdrop of Carlingford Lough, the Castle and the Mourne Mountains to set the scene and we are magnificent! 

To arrange a visit contact Sheila on 042 93 73454 info@carlingfordheritagecentre.com 

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CCTA

Carlingford Cooley Tourist Association

AGM 2020 was held on 26th Feb.

A working Group was agreed by those present and it was established to ‘Consider the challenges facing tourism in the future’.  The Agenda the Group -Inclusiveness, Name, Funding, Committee Structure, Grant Applications, Mission Focus, Website, Relaunch.

It was hoped deliberations would take 2-3 months.  Unfortunately, these have been delayed by 

Covid 19 restrictions. It is hoped now with restrictions relaxing discussions will re-commence.

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Carlingford Community Development 

(The Foy Centre)

Terry Brennan   1942- 2020

The recent history of Carlingford is the life story of Terry Brennan.  A Carlingford man for life, he never lived anywhere else nor did he ever want to.  We share a team photo of Carlingford National school team 1952 as winners of the school league when he was 10 years old, the year his mother died.

A few years later he was a young man about town in his stylish Triumph Herald which was always immaculate.  He was a stalwart of an emerging Cooley Kickhams team in the 1960’s and captained that team to be Louth Senior Champions in 1972. 

About that time, he also showed an interest in local affairs where a group of young locals were attempting to revive community spirit which was at a low ebb.

A Community Council was formed to encourage all things Carlingford.  It even had a Newsletter entitled “Carlingford Contact”.  Terry, now newly married, was a member and at some stage became Chairman. 

 He had the dream of Tidy Towns and rolled up his sleeves, lifting litter and using his own lawnmower.  Gradually he gathered other stalwarts around him such as Maggie Murphy, Rosemary Long and Pat Donnelly.  Year by year Carlingford’s Tidy Towns score crept up and the County award was won on a number of occasions before the big one, the National Award, was achieved in 1988.

It was a very proud moment for Terry when the President of Ireland, Patrick Hillery presented him with the National Award on the Station Green.

Winning that award was the catalyst for Carlingford being designated a Heritage Town and becoming eligible for major funding.  As a result, the Heritage Trust was formed and Terry was a founding member.  

He was elected to Louth Co Council on the retirement of PJ O’Hare and held that position pushing Carlingford’s interests until he was elected to Seanad Eireann in 2011 where he continued to serve the interests of his native place until he retired at the last election.

Terry certainly made his mark on Carlingford.  We share his loss with Aileen, Tania, Bobby, David and his extended family.

Ar dheis De go raibh a anam dilis.