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.
Kilcullen Youth Club (KiYC) may close on short notice if more parents or over-18s don't come along to help with supervision.
All that's needed is a commitment of two hours a month if there are enough people.
Anybody who wants to help should contact Olivia at 089 4484114.
A major fundraiser for Kilcullen AFC is currently in progress, writes Ray Kelly.
The club is running a Clothes Collection from their clubhouse located in the Community Centre area. All used clothes, soft toys, foot wear tied together, curtains and bedding are all welcome. Just note that we cannot take plastic toys or duvets/pillows. Drop them off to us every Saturday from 10 am until 12 noon – if you wish to drop off at other times please let us know – 0872636375 or kafcoffside@gmail.com.
The Clubhouse is located between the Boxing club and The ELMs Montessori school.
The club has another fundraiser, our annual race night, coming up on Friday March 16 in The Spout Bar. In between Cheltenham week and St Patrick’s weekend, a good night out is guaranteed.
Click on the ad for more information.
Kilcullen Flower & Garden Club will visit Terry Smyth's two-acre garden at Clonmore, Hacketstown for their main outing of the year on Tuesday, 17th May.
The garden includes various themes including a Manhattan Roof Garden (patio), Moroccan style garden, a Japanese style garden, and large herbaceous borders.
There is no entry fee but refreshments will be available with donations in aid of the Carlow Hospice Appeal. Car parking is also available.
Members will first meet at the Parish Centre in Kilcullen at 6pm on that evening before travelling to Terry's garden. Transport can be arranged and non members are welcome to attend.
Some €1,300 was raised at Wednesday night's GAA Ladies Table Quiz in Bardons.
The winning team was 'Bardons', comprising Mark Giltrap, Mick Staunton, Chris Harris and Shay O'Mahony. Mick Spencer was the Quiz Master.
A great night was had by all, not unexpectedly.
Kilcullen Ladies GAA are having a Table Quiz next Wednesday, 27th, April in Bardons of Kilcullen at 8pm sharp.
Tables of four are €40, or €10 per person. There will be a raffle on the night with some great prizes.
Support the Ragettes section of the club - contact any member of the Ladies Section or call 086-1940427.
After several years of negotiation and legal work, Kilcullen Boxing Club are now in a position to move into a new state of the art club premises on the Community Centre Complex, writes Brian Byrne.
They will leave behind a building which club members built themselves back in the early 1960s, and which may have been the first building in Ireland named after President John F Kennedy, the JFK Hall.
"President Kennedy was killed just before we were due to open the hall," club stalwart Pat Lynch recalls. "It seemed the right thing to do, to name it in his memory."
Of course, when the club does move, it will be leaving behind a lot of memories too. Not just of boxing activities and boxers, but also of a social centre in Kilcullen.
"We ran discos in the hall twice a week, on Fridays and Sundays," remembers Tony Aspell. "There would be up to 400 people on good nights. It brought a lot of business into the town at a time when it was needed."
The land for the hall was provided by the late Joe O'Connell, in a deal worth £200. With the move to the Community Centre the property reverts to the O'Connell family again, in the person of Brendan.
Building the hall was very much a hands-on matter for the club members of the time. "We all became block layers, plumbers and carpenters," Pat Lynch says, recalling some of those involved: the Aspell and Howard families, the Orfords, Hughie Doherty, Donal O'Donovan, among others. "Christy O'Brien from Calverstown did the roofing. Artie Aspell did a good deal of the plumbing and inside plastering."
Funding the operation was rather an ad hoc affair, with Brennans Hardware willing to run a tab on the materials as needed. "I remember we were stuck for money to do the sewerage, and Ken Urquhart gave us £200 for it," Pat Lynch says. "We got an interest-free loan of £100 from the Kilcullen Non-Stop Draw, and the IABA gave us a grant of £100."
In typical Kilcullen fashion, a dance had been organised on a date to open it, but the day before there was still no connection to the town's main sewerage system.
"We spent all night before digging a trench out to the main road, laying the sewerage pipes," Pat remembers with a chuckle. "It had to be done before the traffic started in the morning, and Mrs Landers kept us going through the night with tea and sandwiches. In the morning we had it done, and we all went off to our day jobs. Though I'd say none of us did much work that day."
Soon after the building was opened, the club realised that they hadn't made provision for a stage. So they quickly added on a 'temporary' structure at the end, sheathed in corrugated sheets. "Fifty years on, it's still there, without us ever going to get planning permission for a proper extension," Pat says. "The wiring for the stage was done by an ESB electrician working at the time on the wiring of the Kent Rubber factory, and he did it for nothing."
Dave O'Brien is the current club chairman, and Ber Dunne is secretary. At the moment the membership is mainly juveniles with no senior boxers in the game for the town at the moment.
Jim Berney, Paddy Aspell and Pat Lynch are the remaining trustees of the original club that built the JFK Hall.
(This article was published in the current edition of the Kildare Nationalist.)
The way has been cleared for Kilcullen Boxing Club to move to its new premises at Kilcullen Community Centre, writes Brian Byrne.
This follows the completion of several years of negotiation and legal work.
The move will mark the end of an era that began in the early 1960s when the club built its JFK Hall.
The full story can be read in this week's Kildare Nationalist.
The Kilcullen Trout & Salmon Anglers Association has opened up membership this year to new members and is actively trying to encourage people to join the club, writes Liam Stenson.
The fishing season is now under way and goes from 1st March right up until 30 September.
Permits & Day Tickets can be purchased in Fraser Oil, of Steve's Daybreak, or an application form can be sent out by emailing kilcullenanglers@gmail.com
An Adult Season Ticket is €15. A Juvenile Season Ticket is €7. Day Tickets are €7 per day.
The KTSAA has a Facebook page at www.facebook.com/kilcullenanglers and a Twitter service at www.twitter.com/KilcullenTSAA
More information on how the river has been fishing can be found on my blog which is www.irishflyfisher.ie
The group was set up in Kilcullen as one of the initiatives from a Positive Ageing Information Day organised last year by the parish's pastoral worker, Hannah Evans. Their tutor is Eva Kavanagh, who also runs knitting groups in other towns in mid-Kildare.
The tapestry is a representation of a church stained glass window, with a garden outside. In addition to the window components, more than 180 'bricks' were knitted individually, along with many flowers and birds.
"Even the 'cement grouting' between the bricks was all knotted as individual pieces," says Eva. "Apart from being the picture that it is, it also represents a community doing many small things to make something big."
The effort was also done 'in the blind' as the 10-strong group weren't shown any picture of where they were going.
The 7'x4.5' tapestry was the group's main project for the last year. For the current session they are working on smaller things, including making socks for charities, a special Christmas project, and in the new year they will be working on knitted caps for new-born children in developing countries.
Brian Byrne.
(This piece first appeared on the Kilcullen page of the Kildare Nationalist.)
There was lots of action at Saturday's games of Feile Chill Dara 2009 at Kilcullen GAA.
Kilcullen Badminton Club has made a change to its weekend timing for Juveniles.
The session is still at the Complex on Saturday mornings but has moved to the earlier time of 10am to midday.
Meanwhile, there will be no Thursday session this week, as the hall is being used by the Blood Donor Service.
(From the club's website.)
A new era in Kilcullen Canoe Club's history got off to a sunny start last weekend when the club's new premises was officially opened.
