Forms for joining the Kilcullen Garda District Text Alert scheme are available from The Grocery in Calverstown, Kilcullen Garda Station, Kilcullen Credit Union, and scheme committee members. Please encourage neighbours and friends to join.
There's something very Christmasy about the smell of fresh cinnamon and oranges, and that's what you'll get from Dave Clancy's seasonal door wreaths, writes Brian Byrne.
These handmade decorations are among the suggestions florist Dave offers for Christmas, as presents to family and friends or just to give one's own home that special Christmas feeling.
"I'm also doing table centre decorations, festive bouquets, and plants which always make a nice seasonal gift," says the popular Main Street businessman, who moved earlier this year from his original Hillcrest position to the prime spot beside The Vincents.
Dave has been six years in business in Kilcullen, a town where he has made his home and in which he has become very involved.
And nobody can pass buy his shop without getting a cheery 'hi', and if you're lucky, a couple of home-baked teacakes, as he's also a dab hand at the baking.
This is part of the Diary's pre-Christmas showcase of local enterprises. Remember, shop local and keep your town in business.
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Christmas treats are the current fare at Armelle's Kitchen on Main Street, writes Brian Byrne, with highlight choices being Yule Logs, edible tree decorations and cake-sized macarons.
But if you want your own cakes and breads for Christmas time, do get your order in as soon as possible. "We're inundated with orders at the moment," Armelle says. "We really don't want to disappoint anyone who orders late for Christmas."
Armelle and Kenny celebrated the shop's first year of operation in September. Before that Armelle had begun cooking in their home in Newbury, Castlemartin, selling in the local area from her website. Many of her recipes come from her family home in northern France, where she used to help her father cook Yule Logs for all their extended family at Christmas.
Now that recipe is a treat for many Kilcullen homes this Christmas.
This is part of the Diary's pre-Christmas showcase of local enterprises. Remember, shop local and keep your town in business.
Click on the ad for more information.
With an eye on Christmas, there are some really lovely traditional ideas for presents at The Dresser Store, operated by Brendan and Mairead Talbot since March of this year, writes Brian Byrne.
Even in these days of high-tech electronic stuff, it is hard to beat a really good 1,000-piece jig-saw puzzle, and the store has a wide range from The House of Puzzles, for both adults and children.
And a dream present for a little girl is the big doll's house made by Brendan himself, a vertible three-storey mansion in this case.
We were particularly struck by the selection of Beatrix Potter character prints, which brought back many childhood memories from far too long ago. Beautiful, delicate pieces, ideal for a bathroom or a child's room.
In their delftware lines, there's a new range from Stripes & Spots which would grace any modern table for many years, and the V&A flowered pieces have an evergreen attraction.
This is part of the Diary's pre-Christmas showcase of local enterprises. Remember, shop local and keep your town in business.
Click on the ad for details
Click on the ad for details
Still on the prowl to find suitable and not-expensive Christmas presents? writes Brian Byrne.
Well, make them sustainable too and invest in local. That way, as the late Pat Dunlea always said, you'll help to 'keep your town in business by keeping your business in the town'.
The event will offer a showcase to a number of local enterprises, including The Good Food Gallery, Dave Clancy Flowers, Nolans' Butchers, The Cottonwood Tree, Armelle's Bakery, Slate Creation, Nanci Design, Mary Cahill Knitwear, The Suas Knitting Group, Bare Essentials, and Richard Wixted Christmas Wreaths.
That lineup alone indicates just a part of an amazing level of business activity in a village/town with just one main street.
The date, 8 December, has its own significance, being the traditional day when 'country people' went to Dublin for their Christmas shopping. With the advent of local shopping centres providing most of what Dublin used to have to offer in our own regions, that's not such a big deal any more.
But at our village level, we have businesses and craft artists trying to make a living against the might of those same shopping centres. Think about it—they're also offering us their services in the place where we all live, pumping a life's-blood of commercial activity through our streetscape.
So, help them to keep the lights on that show Kilcullen is alive and well. And popping in to Thursday's Coffee Morning & Craft Fair is a good start.
Click on the ad for details
Click on the ad for details
Now here's a nice Christmas idea—a plant or shrub as a Christmas present, writes Brian Byrne. And at The Garden Shop in Kilcullen you can get somebody you care for something a bit more than the traditional Poinsettia.
"Shrubs are an ideal affordable Christmas present and a great way of bringing colour into your garden or home at Christmas," says Claire Crudden of The Garden Shop. "We recommend shrubs such as Skimmia, Viburnum, Sarcococca, Choisya, Nandina, Mahonia, and Hamamelis."
Claire can also help with a selection of suitable indoor pots for the chosen shrubs, along with a gift wrapping service.
In addition, there's a seasonal stock of Christmas trees, non-shed and sustainably sourced, in a nice range of sizes at affordable prices. Tree stands are also available, along with Christmas wreaths and door swags.
"This is also a good time for some outdoor planting," says the shop's owner Kevin Noud, suggesting some holly standards as an example that would immediately give a front garden a Christmas appeal. There is also a selection of winter bedding baskets, and there's a special discount on bulbs at the moment.
Finally, a really neat idea for a different present—'The Kitchen Garden' Herb or Salad window box kit, which might be a really good present to get children interested in growing things.
Since opening the shop earlier this year, the operators of The Garden Shop are very happy with how the business is building, and are really looking forward to a busy spring.
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Nolans Butchers have added another accolade to the business's string of awards this year, achieving Runner Up in the 2011 Best Large Retail Store category of the national competition run by Retail Excellence Ireland.
Pictured at the awards event are James and Emma Nolan receiving their Runner Up award from Kevin Jephson, Chairman Retail Excellence Ireland, in the company of Miriam O’Callaghan from RTE and Anton Savage of TV3.
Over 600 retail businesses entered the competition and this achievement follows the eight Gold Medals Nolans has already won this year at the Great Taste Awards.
James Nolan emphasised that the award was due recognition for the all the hard working staff at Nolans and will serve as a great boost in the build up to the Christmas rush—traditionally is the busiest time of the year for all at the shop.
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Our local optometrist Nichola Kennedy is offering a free Sightrisk consultation until November 18 to check how lifestyle might cause vision problems in later years.
The calculator then estimates the individual's level of risk of developing AMD (10 percent being the average risk factor, ie 10 in every 100 will have AMD by age 70).
Following the check, Nichola can give tailored advice specific to the individual on reducing that risk. Call 045-484643 for more information.
Click on the ad for more information.
Keith Garvey, Colorado USA; David Doyle, Punchestown, Naas; and John Dowling, Kilcullen; at the summit of Mont Blanc.
As they say, when the going gets tough, the tough get going, writes Brian Byrne.
And that's just what Kilcullen auctioneer John Dowling and two friends did when attempting a climb on Europe's highest mountain recently.
Along with Keith Garvey from Colorado, USA, and David Doyle of Punchestown, John was climbing Mont Blanc as part of a programme to highlight the work of the Dublin Wicklow Mountain Rescue Team, of which the Kilcullen man has been a member since 2008.
A snowstorm came in and the trio were forced to shelter in the Tete Rousse Hut on their way to the 4,810-metre summit of 'La Dame Blanche' which tops the French and Italian Alps.
The Dublin Wicklow Mountain Rescue Team is a voluntary organisation which is on call 24/7 and 365 days a year. "Our rescue callouts have seen a massive increase over the last two years, and that's going to increase further as Failte Ireland steps up its campaign to market Ireland as an outdoor destination."
Back home to the business of dealing in properties, there's a good reason why John might have a faraway look as he nails up a 'For Sale' or 'To Let' signs across mid Kildare and west Wicklow. He's probably thinking of his next ambitious adventure project.
"My ultimate dream is to cross Antarctica to the South Pole," he admits. "And I hope I can do it in the near future."
This article was first published in The Kildare Nationalist.
Neither are originally from Kilcullen, but Dave Clancy and Armelle Siomboing have no doubt about where their loyalties lie for the weekend's clash between Kilcullen and Lissan in the critical Celebrity Bainisteoir first round.
"We're rooting for The Rags," the two Main Street business people say emphatically. And if you want to show your own colours for the match, Dave is selling the gear produced by the club.
Kilcullen ladies from the Suas Knitting Club recently presented a cheque to Peta Taffe from the Order of Malta, the proceeds of an Awareness Day on Palestine which the group held in association with Transition Year students from Cross & Passion College.
The knitted items on show are newborn baby sets made by the group. These will also be brought to Palestine and given to premature babies and babies in the desert visited by the Order of Malta. (Pic: Hannah Evans.)
Popular local florist and man of many balloons Dave Clancy has opened his new shop in time for Easter.
Celebrating his fifth year in business in Kilcullen, Dave has relocated from Hillcrest to the premises beside the Vincents shop.
We wish him well. Since moving to Kilcullen, he particularly enjoys the fact that he knows everybody he meets as he walks up and down the street.
"I just couldn't go back to the city now," he says. "It's not like that any more there."
Armelle Siomboing's new French-style bakery shop opened yesterday and she was run off her feet, selling out of almost everything.
"It meant I was up very early this morning, baking a restock," she told the Diary today. "It has really been terrific."
We wish her well in the enterprise, which has been a dream ever since she moved to Kilcullen.
Knitting and sewing didn't really die, they just sort of went underground.
That's what Rose Doherty says anyhow, and she's been sewing and making for years, often with friends while hanging around waiting to collect their children from school and sports gigs.
Rose, from Naas originally but living in Halverstown for the last six years, has just opened a new sewing and knitting crafts supplies shop in Kilcullen, beside Nolans Butchers.
It came about from people asking her where she got her materials when they wanted to emulate what she was doing herself.
And in her first week, she has already been very pleased with the level of response to the venture, which she has called 'The Cottonwood Tree'.
Rose worked for 14 years in advertising before making the jump. "So art and design were in my background," she says. "I began making things like aprons and tea cosies and nose boards, and sold them at the Craft Fairs in the RDS at Christmas."
Orders and commissions followed and Rose worked from home while looking after her two young children, now seven and 14. It was in many ways a rerun of her own childhood, where her mother knitted and sewed a lot. "She was particularly good at making Aran sweaters."
In some respects, Rose feels the decline in people making their own clothes or working in the associated crafts is down to schools not giving time to the skills. "We're trying to get them more involved now, encouraging the pupils to do it in their own style, more free-form and mixing and matching between the wool and the trimmings."
In 'The Cottonwood Tree' -- the name comes from a series of American children's books -- Rose offers a wide range of buttons and ribbons and trimmings, wools, fabrics, tools of the craft and books aimed at both adults and children. She reckons there's a 'window' between around 8-15 in which the youngsters can be hooked.
"From about eight they like to make things and have something to show for it. When they get into early teens, they like to be able to make changes to their clothes, to express their individuality."
On one of the displays there are starter kits, ideal as inexpensive birthday presents for children and aimed at easing them into the sewing craft. A universe away from computer games but potentially just as absorbing.
Rose has a big range of patterns too, in some cases they're part of books of beautiful photographs in which customers can see how they work out and be encouraged to have a go themselves. A recipe book for sewing and patchwork, if you like.
A visit to the shop could easily start addiction. But of the nicest possible kind.
Brian Byrne.
(This article was first published on the Kilcullen Page of the Kildare Nationalist.)
(Click above to go directly to Armelle's Kitchen.)
Having had their eye on the location for some time, Paddy and Christine figure its the best site in town for the franchise supported by Galvins of Cork.
Being right beside Paul's Restaurant is another plus, as customers who are into good wines will be regularly passing the door.
But the Carry Out has something for everyone, and Paddy says they hope to get a sense over time of the range of tastes of local people.
Brian Byrne.
