Author Archives: Máire Jones

Cycle or walk with us for better active travel conditions in Skerries!

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Cycle or walk with us for better active travel conditions in Skerries!After a summer of monthly evening cycles, now it’s time for the big one:

Join us for the Skerries Light Up Your Bike Cycle and Walk on Thursday 22 September to mark the launch of Fingal County Council’s Skerries Active Travel Consultation, as well as European Mobility Week.Early Option: Come to Barnageeragh Monument (close to the coast road, near the apartments) at 7 pm if you’d like to join us for a coastal walk / slow coastal cycle. At the White Cottages, the walkers will continue up Balbriggan Street and turn right into Dublin Road, then left up Martine Court / Millhill Park to Skerries Mills. The cyclists will take a longer route and meet them there at 7.30.

 7.30 Option: You can join the growing group of cyclists and walkers at Skerries Mill Car Park at 7.30 pm for the main cycle / walk.The walkers will head across the playing fields and towards the Catholic Church to Floraville, while those on wheels will take the long way round to Floraville, where we will all assemble at about 7.45 pm for a final walk / cycle around the triangle of Strand Street, Thomas Hand Street and Church Street.
 Let’s make ourselves as brightly lit up as possible, with bicycle bells in good working order, to create a lively presence!

All children must be accompanied by an adult who will be responsible for them during the event.

Background:
Earlier that Thursday, 22nd September, the Active Travel Feasibility Study for Skerries will be officially launched in Floraville Park from 12 noon to 4 p.m. Drop by during the day if you can!

The public consultation will run for six weeks from then. This will include face to face interviews and surveys (using paper forms as well as online). Everyone will be invited to give their views on how they would like to be able to move around Skerries, whether on foot, on bicycles and tricycles, mobility scooters, skates, private car, go-car, community car as well as taxis and public transport.

There will also be workshops aimed different stakeholder groups including school goers and older residents. Look out for more information in our next blogpost!
 So we hope to see many of you on Thursday night, 7 pm at the Barnageeragh Monument or 7.30 pm at the Skerries Mills Car Park / 7.45 pm Floraville Park. 
Let’s light up our streets and show how much support there is for active travel in Skerries!

Michael McKenna for Skerries Cycling Initiative

Nominations invited for Jim Quigley Skerries Volunteers Award 2022

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Volunteers are the glue of our community!

Every year, Skerries Community Association awards a prize to an individual or a group of volunteers in appreciation of volunteering work they have done for Skerries. 

Your nominee can be a young person, an adult, or a group – the only thing that matters is that they are deserving prize winners!

Please submit your nomination and supporting text with the reasons why you would like this person/group to get the award so that the judges will be in a position to make a fair decision. Please bear in mind that the judge has to make his evaluation on the information in your nomination so don’t hold back on detailing the reasons and citing evidence of your nominee’s work and achievements.

Nominations to reach award@skerriesca.com by 5 p.m 22 July 2022.

Who was Jim Quigley?

He was a champion of community development; a larger than life personality who was a dreamer and a doer; an idealist and an activist.  Jim was born in 1942 and grew up in Toomevara, County Tipperary.  He attended school firstly in Nenagh and then Mungret College, Limerick.  After moving to Dublin he worked initially in the bar trade and subsequently in sales with Eir (then Telecom Eireann).  In 1970, Jim married Brigid Carolan and shortly afterwards the couple came to live in Skerries, purchasing their home in the newly built Hillside Estate. He started up the residents’ association there and joined the SCA. He drove the huge community effort needed to get the Community Centre funded and built and was for many years chairperson of the Association.

To read more about him and see previous winners of the Award visit https://www.skerriesca.com/jim-quigley-award/

Last updated 5th July 2022

Skerries Community Association Accounts 2020

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For information about the AGM on 4th October 2021, and the report for 2020/21 go to AGM 2021: The 2020/21 Report

AGM 2021: The 2020/21 Report

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This year, the annual report about the work of the Skerries Community Association and its committees will not be distributed to every household in Skerries. A limited number of printed copies will be available in the Community Centre, in local shops, in the week before the AGM (4th October 2021) and on request by email to chair@skerriesca.com.

Click on the thumbnail below to see the full report with turnable pages.

Skerries Community Association & Committees 2020/21 Report

And if you’d like the links to be clickable, open the PDF here:

SCA and Committees 2020-21 ReportDownload

Jim Quigley Award 2021

Recognition of couple’s volunteering contribution to Skerries life.

On Saturday 9 October 2021 Skerries Community Association (SCA) and Skerries Town Football Club jointly recognised the immense contribution of Michael (Mick) and Noeleen Bolger to community sporting activity in the town. The occasion was the presentation of the Jim Quigley award for volunteer of the year and it took place in the grounds of Skerries Town FC after the weekly Kids Academy coaching session.

Every year SCA invites nominations from residents for the Jim Quigley Award which are then passed to independent judges for assessment.

This year the Judges selected Mick and Noeleen as the winners of the Jim Quigley Award for their years of dedicated work with Skerries Town Football Club. In their written comments, the judges said, “running Saturday morning coaching sessions (the Kids Academy) for up to ninety under-tens for seven months of the year is not an easy task. To do this for eighteen years coupled with involvement with other sporting and community activities including the Community Games at Mosney and the Special Olympics at Croke Park in 2003 requires dedication and commitment second to none.”

Mick and Noeleen set up the ‘ Kid’s Academy” on Saturday mornings with Skerries Town Football Club in September 2003 to provide coaching in basic football skills for five to nine year olds. They felt that children in the early years of their football life need an environment of non-competitive football to learn the basic skills. The Kid’s Academy, or KA as its better known provides such an environment.

The judges remarked that the real winner is the community of Skerries who get such wonderful benefit from the work done by people like Michael and Noeleen.

Accepting the award, Mick said that many others are and were involved in making the Kids Academy a success.

Michael McKenna presented the Jim Quigley award on behalf of the SCA and Owen O’Brien, Chairperson Skerries Town F.C. made a presentation of flowers and champagne on behalf of the club to Mick and Noeleen.

Jim Quigley 2021 Award Winners Michael (Mick) and Noeleen Bolger, with Michael McKenna (SCA) and Owen O'Brien Skerries Town Football Club
Jim Quigley Award Winners 2021 Michael (Mick) and Noeleen Bolger with Michael McKenna (SCA) and Owen O’Brien, Chairperson, Skerries Town Football Club.