Parish Lotto Draw results

The numbers drawn in the Kilcullen and Gormanstown Parish Lotto Draw held on 1 July 2025 were 8, 15, 27 and 31. There was no Jackpot winner and next week’s main prize will again be €20,000. The value of the follow up draw stands at €15,000.

The winners of the €50 Open Draws were Taylor & Shane (Promoter Kay Dixon), Breda Kelly (Berney’s Chemist), and Elizabeth Donegan (Berney’s Chemist).

The winners of the Promoters Draw were the Parish Office and Vanessa Clarke, and the winner of the Draw for those in the Parish Centre on the night was Breda McCormack.

The Parish thanks all who support the Lotto. 

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Kenya HIV treatment 'thrown back two decades': Maintain Hope

A successful HIV treatment campaign in Kenya has been thrown back by two decades following the Trump-Musk closure of USAID last January, writes Brian Byrne. That's according to the Kilcullen-based Maintain Hope charity founder, Gerry O'Donoghue.

Most of the families supported by the small charity, in Ngong outside Nairobi, are in a community ravaged by HIV. When Maintain Hope was established in 2006, that was a highly stigmatised situation, with women dying because they hid the disease, resulting in many orphaned children.

"But gradually, workshops in the slums and the availability of retroviral drugs helped these women to manage their condition and live full family lives," Gerry O'Donoghue told the Diary at the recent Coffee Morning hosted by Esther Reddy and Joe Dooley and their family. However, 90 percent of the retroviral medicine came through USAID, and with their programme 'fed into the wood-chipper' by Elon Musk on behalf of President Trump, literally overnight the clinics were closed. 

Maintain Hope was able to step into the gap and provide money to provide the medicines to their families, but there are countless others who don’t have anybody to turn to. "It’s going to lead to a lot of unnecessary, preventable deaths," Gerry O'Donoghue says. "They’re now going back to that original cycle where children become motherless and fatherless and will be farmed out to various unsuitable accommodations.”

Maintain Hope currently supports 82 Kenyan children within their families to ensure they are healthy and can continue education through primary, secondary and even third level. In the coming month a dozen Kilcullen area volunteers are going to Ngong to help and assess how best to advance the charity's work. It’s a revival of Maintain Hope’s early days volunteering programme which helped to build facilities at the original Ngong children’s home. “This time it’s about capacity building, liaising with the local people to see how future volunteers might best help out the children and the communities.”

Maintain Hope is funded by many small initiatives and helps a very small number of people in the larger scheme of things. But for every child aided to learn and live a fuller life, the beneficial ripple effect for the future of their families and community is beyond measure.

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Kilcullen doctor highlights locum shortage for rural GPs

Shortage of locum cover for GPs, especially in rural areas, has been highlighted by Kilcullen doctor Deirdre Collins, writes Brian Byrne. Speaking on RTE News last evening, she said cover for annual leave and maternity-paternity leave is one of the biggest issues in the sector.

The chairperson of the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP) made the comment following yesterday's publication of General Practice in Ireland: An Analysis of Supply & Demand by the Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill. The paper was produced by the Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service (IGEES) at the Department of Health. Among other matters, the document addresses GP numbers, retirement and succession planning, productivity, and capacity constraints in medical general practice.

Dr Collins noted that there are shortages of GPs in a number of urban deprived areas as well as in widespread rural general practices which are 'under pressure all the time'. "These would be, for example, in Clare, Galway, Mayo, up to Donegal, and also down in Tipperary, Wexford, and even Westmeath and in my own county of Kildare."

She said the big problem for many areas is that there are well-established and well-loved single-handed general practices where a significant number of doctors will be retiring. "Twenty-five percent of our GPs are over 60, so that tells the tale. We need to look at ways of handing those practices onwards to a newer generation of GPs." She said that providing cover for times that a GP in a single-handed practice needs to take off is a key support requirement.

Dr Collins said that the ICGP has been sending the message for a long time about the need to ensure that rural practices are an attractive proposition. "We know the value of life there. Many of us also know that it's wonderful to live there and so we need to ensure that our general practitioners, the trainees coming out, and those who are setting up in practice, want to go there too."

Saying that the value of a good general practitioner can never be underestimated, she also highlighted what she termed as the 'joy' of the work. "General practice is about taking care of somebody from before they're born, when they're born, and the whole way down to when they pass away in our care. That's what makes us all want to be general practitioners. I get to care for people who remember me when I was a child, and I remember others when they were children, and I would take care of my older neighbours and friends as they go on through their illness."

Dr Collins added that with 350 new doctors coming into training every year, it is 85 percent more than was the case ten years ago. "But it's not all about the numbers, but about keeping those doctors in general practice and giving them specialty training to deliver excellent healthcare for their people."

She also commented on the financial pressures on GPs and their staff in the busy commuter belt areas. "If somebody is going to work and live in any of those areas, it's going to cost a lot of money to buy a house, and to buy or rent a practice to work from. So we would look to the Department of Health, to the HSE, to look at ways of supporting that bricks and mortar investment in general practice."

Dr Collins is a founding partner in the Kilcullen Family Practice.

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Coffee Mornings in Irish

Image by Alexa via Pixabay.

An As Gaeilge Coffee Morning will be held in Kilcullen Community Centre every Wednesday morning through July and August. It will run from 10am until noon.

Beidh tae agus caifé ar fáil le roinnt cácaí le ceannach le haigh €4.

All interested in the language are welcome to drop in.

Further information from Susan on 085 1792117.

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CES jobs at Kilcullen Community Childcare

Several positions are open as Community Employment opportunities at the Kilcullen Community Childcare & Education Centre. They are operational through the KARE Community Employment Scheme.

KCCEC provides a caring, progressive and inclusive environment for the children who attend, and the staff who work there.

The Community Employment Scheme enables participants to gain a funded, recognised qualification whilst they gain valuable on-the-job experience.

No experience is necessary. The jobs are advertised on JobsIreland.ie. They include Assistant Cook (#CES - 2392685).

For anyone interested or with any informal questions, contact: Mairead or Deirdre 045 448700.

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Kilcullen News Update

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Little Irish language in 19th century Kilcullen

Images: VRTI and Chris Bellew/Fennell Photography.

Just three people were recorded as being able to speak both Irish and English in Kilcullen in 1871, and there was nobody who spoke Irish only, writes Brian Byrne. Two of the three were males. That's just one local nugget in a newly released trove of recovered documents which have been digitised and made public in the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland. 

The documents cover some seven centuries of Irish life from the Anglo-Norman conquest up through the 1798 Rebellion and 19th-century censuses. They were recovered from copies of material destroyed in the burning of the Irish Public Records Office at the Four Courts in 1922 during the civil war. In all, there are 797 references to Kilcullen.

The VRTI project was initiated in 2022 on the centenary of the burning, led by Trinity College Dublin and involved a global collaboration of academics, historians, computer scientists and other specialists to digitally recreate parts of the lost archive. The work included searching for duplicates and transcripts of the destroyed documents, in libraries and archives in Ireland, the UK, and other parts of the world.

The results are three dedicated portals — The Age of Conquest, The Age of Revolution, and Population — along with 16 'Gold Seams' of documents including a 1766 Religious Census, and 16 curated collections.

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First Responders seek new members

Kilcullen Community First Responders are looking for volunteers to join their current cohort. The group's volunteers work alongside the National Ambulance Service, responding to emergencies in the local area.

You may have met them already, they may have helped you or those close to you, but now they need your help to keep doing what they're doing.

If this is something you may be interested in, email kilcullenfirstresponders@gmail.com or message on their Facebook page, and they'll get back to you.

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Bord Pleanala appeals on Oakway Homes New Abbey permission

Appeals have been lodged with An Bord Pleanala in relation to the planning permission granted to Oakway Homes for their proposed 180-home development at New Abbey Road, Kilcullen, writes Brian Byrne. The case is due to be decided by 6 October 2025. 

A first-party appeal by the developer takes issue with 13 of the conditions attached by Kildare planners to the permission, while a third-party appeal by residents of Sunbury Close objects to both the overall design of the development and to the proposal to introduce a pedestrian-cycle link through their estate. A third appeal by Liam and Maureen Keogh was deemed invalid by the Bord. 

The Oakway appeal submitted by David Mulcahy Planning Consultants refers to conditions which the applicant describes as 'very ambiguous, unreasonable, or entirely unworkable or enforceable' and which should be omitted or amended.

They include the requirement to lower the height of a four-storey commercial block, which the consultants submit is contrary to national planning policy on building height guidelines for urban areas.

A condition on the phasing of the development and provision of childcare facilities is described as ambiguous and unclear.

A tree and hedgerow bond of €50,000 for a duration of eight years is 'excessive and unjustified', according to the submission.

The developer wants a condition that includes a €1.5 million special development levy contribution towards the design and cost of a Relief Road objective to be removed entirely, being 'wholly unreasonable and unworkable' and 'legally impossible' to impose on the applicant.

A condition requiring the provision of a two-metre footpath towards the cemetery at McGarry's Lane, at an estimated cost of €325,000 to the developer, is described as 'unreasonable'.

A requirement to provide footpath works between the two New Abbey Road entrances to the estate, at an estimated cost of €141,000, is considered unfeasible both because of the road geometry and requiring access to lands not in the ownership of the developer.

The applicant also takes issue with the condition relating to the design of proposed permeability link(s), as being both 'highly ambiguous' and 'unreasonable', and that the 'highly likely' position of agreement with affected residents not being possible, will 'hold up the entire development' as the condition requires that the issue be resolved before any occupancy of the development. The developer also says that a further condition requiring them to liaise and cooperate with the local authority and third parties in the creation of safe routes for cycling and walking is 'unclear, vague, and ambiguous'.

The submission also says the developer should not be required to pay the full estimated €280,000 cost of an upgrade of the signalised junction at Main Street, when a similar financial requirement was not imposed on the planning permission given to Cross & Passion College for their school extension, a project that also recommended upgrades to the junction.

A condition requiring the developer to provide two new Toucan crossings on the R448 is claimed to be 'entirely unreasonable' on the basis that these are part of the overall Active Travel design for the Cross and Passion school, and that one is already in place as the existing pedestrian crossing at the Daybreak shop.

The developer also wants clarifications on two conditions requiring Road Safety Audit, and change to one about Surface Water Run-off. The removal of a timeframe in a Taking in Charge condition requiring a €360,000 bond lodged with the council is also requested because other conditions imposed make such a timeframe outside the applicant’s control.

The applicant also takes issue with the calculation of €1,407,471 as a Development Contribution, saying it did not take into consideration a 33 percent exemption for lands zoned Town Centre.

There's also a request to replace a condition on electric vehicle charging points, to remove ambiguity.

The third-party appeal by Sunbury Close residents was submitted by Marston Planning Consultancy. It states an opinion that the overall design of the development is 'poor' in position, size, and orientation, and amounts to an overdevelopment of the site. The submission raises issues with poorly considered phasing and inadequate public space, and seeks an overturning of the permission given by Kildare County Council, on the grounds that the development is contrary both to policies and objectives of the Kilcullen Settlement Plan and to proper planning and sustainable development of the area. If the Board is favourably disposed to granting the permission, the Sunbury Close submission asks that conditions are attached to reduce the number of units and provide a more appropriate layout, so as to achieve the required public space requirements of the County Development Plan, and that the pedestrian-cycle link to the estate be omitted.

The full appeals documentation can be accessed on Kildare County Council's planning portal.

READ: All posts on the Oakway development here.

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Start Your Own Business course

A Start Your Own Business course is being run by the Kildare Local Enterprise Office over two weekends in July. The in-person programme is designed to help people develop their ideas into actual businesses.

The fee is €50 and bookings can be made at this link. 

The course takes place on one Friday evening and two successive Saturdays.

Kildare LEO also offers an eight-week online Start Your Own Business course — details here. 

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Cricket summer camp programme

The Smash It! and It's Wicket! cricket summer camp programmes hosted by Halverstown CC will run on Friday evenings from 11 July to 23 August at the club's grounds in Brannockstown. Smash is for boys and girls aged 5-9 and Wicket is for girls only aged 12-15.

The sessions will be from 7pm to 8pm, and the cost of €70 includes a participant equipment pack.

Registrations can be made at this link until 10 July. 

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Féile Nás na Ríogh today

Féile Nás na Ríogh is taking place in Naas today with lots of free family fun. The festival runs from 10am to 8pm.

Music from the Ballymore Eustace Band, The Raspberries, Sonas agus Siamsa, Celtic Allstars, The Druids, After Dark, and a Tribute to ABBA.

The venues include the Nás na Ríogh Plaza, the Farmers Market, and the taxi rank area on South Main Street.

All is free; the event is supported by Kildare County Council.

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