Fingal Joint Policing Committee
Notice of Public Meeting
A public meeting will be hosted by
the Fingal Joint Policing Committee
for residents of Howth,
Sutton and Baldoyle
at The Racecourse Inn,
Racecourse S.C.,
Baldoyle, Dublin 13
at 7.30 p.m.

Wednesday 25th November, 2009
Residents of the above areas are invited to attend the meeting to make observations and address questions to the members of the Fingal Joint Policing Committee on matters relating to crime and anti-social behaviour with a view to improving public safety within local communities.

Any queries in this regard
should be addressed to:
Fingal Development Board,
P.O. Box 174, County Hall, Main Street, Swords, Co. Dublin
or by emailing jpc@fingalcoco.ie

The high amenity park due to open in Baldoyle in January 2010 needs a name. Can you suggest one. The land was once owned by Frank Dunlop (who claimed he bribed six county councillors to rezone it for him) what was once the world famous Baldoyle Racecourse. The land was rezoned in the 90’s as local councillors gave way to allow development on this green belt that now has stages of the Coast development built upon it.

It has had a working title of ‘Millennium Park’ for about 13 years but due to its extreme late delivery it is deemed inappropriate to call it Millennium Park TEN YEARS into the new millennium. Baldoyle badly needs amenity lands for its expanding young and old population (Baldoyle is the only area of the old Howth Ward with and expanding population). Comments & suggestions welcome. With a few suggestions I may run a poll.

View Larger Map

The sponsorship was organised by PE Teacher, Robert Fennell with Maura Cassidy, Manager Community Affairs from the DAA.

Basketball is a very popular sport in St. Mary’s and one in which they have enjoyed great success over the years.  Winning the SSA Under 16 Division 2 Championships in 2009 and were runners up in the SSA Under 16 Division One Championship, both finals being held in the National Basketball Arena in Tallaght.  St. Mary’s has won the Under 16 Division titles on 6 previous occasions from 2002 to 2007.  The Under 19 Senior 1 team have been SSA Basketball Finalists in 2004, 2007 and 2008.  A great achievement for a small school like St. Mary’s.

Maura Cassidy recently made the presentation of the newly sponsored sports kit to Ms. Siobhan O’ Connell, Principal.  Hopefully, this will be the start of a very fruitful partnership.  Ms O’ Connell thanked the DAA for their generous sponsorship while Ms. Cassidy wished St. Mary’s the best of luck in their future matches.

more photos here.

reblog: from www.irishpostalworker.com
BALDOYLE SORTING OFFICE

After serving the hinterland of Baldoyle in a most effective manner for over thirty years now, the Dublin 13 Sorting Office is to close at the end of May and its function transfer to an industrial unit at The Baldoyle Industrial Estate.  Perhaps this is a timely opportunity to look at the site on College Street (formerly known as “Back Street”) and its tenants heretofore.

The building in 1960s

Mrs. Isabella Duff had a public house in College Street before 1885. This was known as Seaview House (as late as 1925) and later The Cyclist’s House (my 1960’s memories in above sketch as I have not been able to locate a photograph!).  It was an elaborate spacious premises with a large ballroom, snugs and parlours and an assortment of outbuildings. Seaview House which was on the site of the present postal sorting office, also doubled on occasion as a morgue, for the law relating to death in the streets dictated that any persons found dead on the road or washed up on the beach be brought to the nearest tavern, there to await identification or post mortem examination.

So it was that Bella Duff was obliged to receive a few corpses in her time and these were invariably placed on a couple of stout planks supported by two barrels in the corner of the ballroom. A constable of the R.I.C. had to attend guard over the body, and was wont ? when the body was a decomposed one – to “bless” the victim with liberal and regular sprinklings of a mop which stood nearby in a bucket of Jeyes’ Fluid. 

It often happened that a corpse and his or her guard rested in the ballroom while a dance was in progress but as neither the corpse nor the dancers took offence the revelry went on.  The late Joe Burns once told me that he had attended a wedding there and that there was a corpse in the corner ballroom all the while the wedding was in progress.

The premises were used extensively for weddings and socials and were especially busy on days on which the Baldoyle horse races were in progress.   

Mrs Duff also had the privilege of having a seven day licence when the other inns in the village were limited to 6-day, Monday to Saturday trading.  In the 1960’s after Paddy Carroll had purchased both the “Trigo” (now Grainger’s) on Main Street and the “Cyclists’ House” he opened the latter on Sundays only until he went through the courts to have the licences exchanged.

A Baldoyle lady has told me that as a young child she often witnessed fights at night as people left the “Cyclists” and a not uncommon sight was people helping drivers of horse drawn vehicles onto their seats as they were too intoxicated to mount the carts.  No breathalyser in those easygoing times.

After the inn closed down completely a school friend of mine came to live with his mother in the ballroom.  They divided the spacious, albeit draughty room into sections for sleeping, dining, and cooking and I went there frequently to play after school. 

It was like going in to a modern Irish Bar to see the elaborate brass beer and porter pumps on the magnificent mahogany counter, and the  array of advertising mirrors on the walls.  Valuable antiques were they around today. Christy Kane and his family continued to live in the northernmost part of the premises for another twenty years until this too was demolished and a modern house built on its site.

What remained of the building in the 1980s

The last remaining portion of Duff’s Cyclists’ House about 1980 with the name of the inn just barely legible on the gable of the next house along.

About Michael J Hurley

Was born in Baldoyle in 1950, and went to local national school. Published the following books :Where Came Dark Strangers – A View From The Grandstand – The Train To Howth – Tales of Old Baldoyle – Baldoyle The Racecourse Village

Two DVDs: Dark Strangers – Baldoyle, Faces and Places.Most books had all proceeds donated to local charities.The only items stilla available are Faces and Places DVDThe Racecourse village,both available from Michael at 48 Abbey Park. Baldoyle

Following the Socialist Party public meeting (30/04) to discuss the abandoned depot & Seagrange park, council officials met with Dubh Ghall reps at the site. Unfortunately the council departments have still failed to offer the use of the building to the club.

The bigger picture is the councils intent for the Brickfield lands under the review of the next development plan. We continue to work closely with the community thorough residents associations & sporting organisations to halt any plan to build on the flood plain at Seagrange / Parkvale.

The depot has been is use for 30+ years I lived in Parkvale for 12 of these years, and it really became an issue when the council stopped using the compound 12 months ago when they left the gates wide open for serious anti social behavior. 

Brian Greene pictured outside the depot with local Dubh Ghall players after the medal ceremony at the recent Easter camp.

From malahide howth

Fianna Fail & the Green Party are responsible for the following routes to dropped. 15x, 27c, 31c, 49x, 50x, 51a, 65x, 79x, 86, 115, 117, 129, 172, 201, 202, 206 These low level services were already in areas of most need and little service and now they are dropped. 

The following routes have have had service reductions (less buses) 14, 14a, 18, 27, 27x, 37, 37x, 38/a, 39/a/c, 39x, 41/a, 46c, 46d, 47, 48a, 51, 51d, 51x, 77, 77a, 77x, 84x, 84x, 116, 118, 128, 150, 161, 210
 

Dublin Bus Serving the entire community

The Socialist Party believes that a public transport system that is publicly owned should not be let run down by this FF/GP government. We stand shoulder to shoulder with communities fighting for services and also with bus workers fighting to protect services, their working conditions and their jobs. 

Dublin Bus is cutting 120 buses from the fleet. Some deluded members of the Green Party believe that bus routes would not be cut while the buses were scrapped and jobs lost. They can not call for jobs and public transport on the Northside and preside over this disaster. 

Dublin Bus Severing the entire community

APRIL 30th 8pm
Boys National School, Brookstone Road.

DERELICTION: DUMPING : DRUGS
ABANDONED COUNCIL DEPOT
A SERIOUS PROBLEM

over the past 10 months the abandoned council depot at Seagrange Park has become more derelict, has experience increasing fly tipping and has now been raided by Gardaí with dogs looking for drugs. The perimeter wall has been broken and security compromised. What is surprising is that this is a Fingal County Council facility that has been left unattended and unlocked for the majority of the time.

We are seeing serious planned dereliction by the council, creating a security risk and a health hazard and an eye sore. Use of depot compound was promised to local GAA club Dubh Ghall as far back as last summer but provision of the site to the club has not materialised. The depot is on land which I am told is leased by the council and sits on an area of land that is zoned open space / recreational adjoining the Brickfield land and Seagrange Park that is prone to flooding and forms part of the flood plain.

Previous plans by the council and developers to rezone the land for development of high rise have be set back by the action of the community, local residents associations and the assistance of the Socialist Party Councillors and local rep. Brian Greene.

Their running down of this facility and the failure to date to see it put to better community use (which would help secure it) asks serious question for the councils intent for this area.

The Socialist Party is continuing to working with local sports associations and residents to put maximum pressure on Council and local Councillors to see that this depot is properly maintained cleaned & secured and put to better community use in keeping with its zoning.

From malahide howth

From malahide howth

From malahide howth

the IrishTimes reports 

Two other public projects – Dublin City Council’s pumphouse facing the end of Vernon Avenue in Clontarf, and Fingal County Council’s Baldoyle Library and Local Area Office – have merited inclusion in the shortlist for dePaor Architects and FKL Architects, respectively.

Finally, Gilroy McMahon Architects have been shortlisted for the spectacular redevelopment of Croke Park, which the jury hailed as “a landmark in the historical, cultural and architectural landscape of Dublin . . . with the necessary sense of occasion and grandeur”.

Cash stolen in raid on Howth post office

[20/03/2009] Gardai are investigating a robbery at the post office in Howth, North Co Dublin, this morning. Two men entered the premises shortly before 10am and smashed the glass partition at the counter. They then escaped with an undisclosed sum of money.

The raiders were in their late teens and early 20s. Gardaí are appealing for anyone with any information to come forward.

Under Section 36 of the Garda Siochana Act 2005, Joint Policing Committees were established to provide a forum where a Local Authority & the senior Garda officers responsible for the policing of that area, with the participation of Oireachtas members & community interests can consult, discuss & make recommendations on matters affecting policing of that area. And sometimes they meet in public. It just happens that they are meeting down the road from the Howth Post Office in the Marine Hotel Sutton on next Wednesday March 25th at 19:30pm.

from the press advert: 

Fingal Joint Policing Committee Notice of Public Meeting

A public meeting will be hosted by the Fingal Joint Policing Committee for the Howth/Sutton/Baldoyle area: The Marine Hotel, Sutton Cross, Dublin 13 at 7.30 p.m. Wednesday 25th March, 2009 

Residents of the Howth/Sutton/Baldoyle area are invited to attend the meeting to make observations and address questions to the members of the Fingal Joint Policing Committee on matters relating to crime and anti-social behaviour with a view to improving public safety within local communities.

Written questions may also be submitted in advance by residents of the Howth/Sutton/Baldoyle area to: Fingal Development Board, P.O. Box 174, County Hall, Main Street, Swords, Co. Dublin or to jpc@fingalcoco.ie no later than Friday 20th March, 2009 at 5.00 p.m.