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

Donaghmede Inn 9th November 8.30pm
Speakers Cllr. Clare Daly / Brian Greene
map: http://url.ie/2rsn
Meeting organised by Socialist Party Dublin North East.

Posted via email from web lab

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.

A previous application for 205 units had been granted permission by Fingal County Council but the revised application sought to build 214 units.

In its decision to refuse permission, the county council considered that the additional units had been added at the expense of the previously well designed groupings of houses.

more

Despite the fact that the hiring of lifeguards has a derogation from the recruitment ban, Fingal County Council has yet to employ any lifeguards for June or July from 11am to 7pm Monday to Friday for any of its beaches.

“With children now off school at secondary & primary level it is a very dangerous situation to find the beaches of Fingal to have NO weekday lifeguards on duty. Fingal has not one beach with a blue flag, now the yellow & red flags wont fly for July as Lifeguards are only retained for weekend duties” according to Brian Greene public representative for the Socialist Party in Dublin North East

The Fingal County Council website says “The public are advised not to swim when the beach is not guarded. Due to staffing restrictions some beaches may not be guarded during the season.” and “week day cover may commence from the 3rd of August 2009 until the last week of August. This will depend on staff levels and weather.” So there is no guarantee that August will have lifeguard cover either.

The cuts in staff levels has already angered beach goers as the litter problems of May mounted up. “Now life saving duties on our beaches are being scaled back because of the savage cuts from central government. It is high time the Minister for the Environment and green party leader John Gormley reinstated the funds the council requires to provide essential services to the public” Mr. Greene said.

In previous years Fingal County Council has staffed the beaches with life guards Monday to Sunday in July. “Having lifeguards stationed on beaches in one on the criteria in getting a blue flag for a beach. Stationing lifeguards in July 2009 can only assist in the regaining of blue flags for Fingal where we now have none.” according to Mr. Greene

Issue explained in latest podcast 13/09/2009 [MP3]

Earlier this year Meteor’s attempts to site a mobile phone antenna at Bayside Square were stopped by prompt and vocal opposition from local residents. The application had attempted to claim exemption from planning permission, but this was refused by the Council following residents’ objections. The Council refused the exemption on the grounds that a childcare facility was operating from the same address.

During the campaign spearheaded by Socialist Party public representative in the area Brian Greene, it emerged that for a number of months a second Vodafone mast had been operating above the building at Bayside Square without the knowledge of most residents.

For almost four months we have had to push and encourage the Council to take action on this matter. Initially they indicated that this second mast did not have permission. Later they said that it had an exemption from years back and was not operating without permission! Now Fingal County Council’s Planning Department has finally informed us that Vodafone will be instructed to take the mast down.

The Socialist Party welcomes this decision as a vindication of the stance taken by the local community and as a tribute to all who played a part in keeping up the pressure. However there are many important lessons for the future which should not be forgotten.

This mast and many like it show that the community does not get sufficient input into the sensible siting of phone masts and that many breaches and irregularities are taking place without adequate control or action. That a mast can operate for almost 12 months with Site IDs and be advertised on the ComReg website while in breach of planning law shows the total lack of any proper enforcement and monitoring.

Phone users need signal, but it is very important that communities are protected by adherence to the precautionary approach of planning phone masts. The Bayside antenna had a Microlink Dish connected to a residential dwelling above the shops, disguised as a chimney flue to hide over 2000 micro watts per metre squared of elecromagnetic radiation. This is a disgrace and cannot be allowed to happen again.

Only community vigilance and public pressure insured that the mast at Bayside will now be removed. Our communities deserve regulations and enforcement that puts the health of residents above the convenience of the phone companies.

Information issued by Socialist Party local representative Brian Greene-

web http://www.HowthMalahide.com

email brian@socialistparty.net

Congrats to Joe Higgins MEP and thanks for voting for him on the European ballot paper.

Joe Higgins is standing for the Dublin Constituency in the Euro Elections to be held on Friday, June 5th, to give people throughout Dublin an opportunity to strike a real blow against this governments attacks on working people.

Joe is well known as a fighter for working people for the last thirty years, and as being the real opposition when in the Dail from 1997 to 2007. Now more than ever we need to elect fighters like Joe.

Two key reasons to vote Joe Higgins No. 1
- Wipe out Fianna Fail, & strike a blow against the entire political establishment
- Elect a a real fighter for working people – a workers’ MEP on a workers’ wage who will lead the fightback

For more check out:
http://www.joehiggins.eu/ideas

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