Category Archives: Uncategorized

Lucan Festival needs your help!

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Lucan Festival is a not-for-profit organisation and one of the many ways you can help make this years festival even better  is by volunteering. This is a unique opportunity to be part of this exciting cultural event. You will make new friends, experience a broad range of cultural activities and gain an insight into the organisation and running of the Festival.

Volunteers may be asked to work in one or several areas including: stewarding at outdoor performances, administration, preparing the street, stewarding at visual art exhibitions, audience research, and brochure distribution or collecting at fundraising events.

It’s just six months to Lucan Festival it’s going to be great fun, so! If you’re over 16, sign up now and help us make this a Festival to remember!!

If you’re interested please email:  lucanfestival@gmail.com or phone 086 2505665

Fantastic turnout for our Second Pub Quiz.

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We held our second Pub Quiz fundraiser last Thursday 24th March in the Penny Hill Pub in total we raised €736 towards this year’s festival. There was a great turn out with 22 table’s committee member Shane Moynihan put the participants through their paces taking part as quiz master. In the end “the Graduates” emerged as overall winners, winning a hamper each courtesy of the Penny Hill.

They weren’t the only ones to walk away with a prize on the night however; the raffle was also a great success with participants giving generously. Prizes including a voucher for lunch in the Salamanca Tapas restaurant on Parliament Street in the City Centre, a bottle of Jameson donated by Cllr William Lavelle, cosmetics and bottles of wine donated by members of the Festival Committee were all warmly received.

Next up will be a bucket collection taking place between the 14th to the 17th of April 2011 and the Lucan Festival are looking for volunteers to help out over the weekend so please get in contact if you have a few hours to spare.

Fund-raising pub quiz at the Penny Hill

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Fundraising is key to the success of any event such as ours. Last month saw a large turnout for our first fundraising evening of the year at Kenny’s Bar in Lucan. On Thursday, 24th March at 8:30pm in the Penny Hill Pub, Ballyowen Shopping Center we are holding our second fundraising quiz.

We would really appreciate if you could come along on the night. Entry fee is €5 per person with a maximum of 4 members per team. Great prizes for the winning team, as well as a raffle so loads to play for!!

Play your part at Seachtain na Gaeilge (Irish Language Week)

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Irish Language Week takes place this year from March 5th until March 17th. (St Patrick’s Day) If you’re a traditional musicians, dancers, singers and Irish language story tellers and Poets and have some free time to perform in Lucan Library during  Seachtain na Gaeilge. Could you please contact CATHERINE BRANGAN, at Lucan Library on 01-6216422 in the coming week?

Play your part in helping the growth and use of Irish and have a bit of Craic too,

Thanks to Phil Bebblington for contacting us.

Video Pub Quiz – February 3rd at Kenny’s

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With 2010 and Christmas now behind us it’s now time to ease ourselves back to the planning of Lucan Festival 2011. Festival secretary Tom Dowling said in 2010 “we had an excellent response from traders and the community to the 2010 festival and we hope we can build on them links in our preparation for 2011”. We kick off the year with our first fundraising event, a Video Pub Quiz. The committee is very grateful to Kenny’s pub in Lucan village for providing the venue and the service’s of the video quiz master for the evening. We hope you can come along and support our Video Pub Quiz on Thursday 3rd of February from 9pm -11pm. Entry fee is €5 per head with a maximum of 4 members per team. Cash prizes for the winning team, come along on the night and have a little fun and support your local festival.

 

Thank you for visiting our blog in 2010

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Crunchy numbers!

Thank you! for visiting our blog in 2010, please continue to check in for update in 2011.

Featured image

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 10,000 times in 2010. That’s about 24 full 747s.

 

In 2010, there were 51 new posts, not bad for the first year! There were 431 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 73mb. That’s about a picture per day.

The busiest day of the year was September 26th with 602 views. The most popular post that day was PROGRAMME 2010.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, activelink.ie, twitter.com, mail.live.com, and healthfitnesstherapy.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for lucan festival 2010, lucan festival, adamstown cricket club, sarah o connor fame, and reptile.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

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PROGRAMME 2010 September 2010
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WELCOME April 2010

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FESTIVAL FRIENDS May 2010

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FESTIVAL 2009 May 2010

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A unique cinema event during Lucan Festival September 2010
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Images of Adamstown and Lucan under snow

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I did a walk around Adamstown and Lucan yesterday and captured some great images of the entire area under snow. I hope you like them (all images courtesy of Tom Dowling). 

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The winners of our festival raffle

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Members of the Lucan Festival Committee were joined by some very happy Festival Raffle winners last week to pick up their winnings. First prize of €1,000 went to  Mick Halpin, Tullhall Crescent Lucan, collected by his wife Carmel Reynolds and son Conor Halpin Second prize of €500 went to Imelda Brennan, Hillcrest Green Lucan, (who was unable to make it) and the €250 third prize went to Kieran Mageean, Larahcon Lucan, collected by Carol Megeean on of behalf of her husband. Well done to all the winners!!

Images from Festival Sunday

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If  you didn’t make it along to the festival today, what a day you missed. We had some fantastic entertainment, face painters, stalls , street entertainers, bouncy castles, the Garda open day, choral event at St Andrews, flash mobs, arts exhibition and personally the puppet show was my favourite today the feedback from the audience was just amazing.

The weather was our best friend today and we could not have hoped for better in September. Thanks to all those who attended all our events through out the week. We didn’t get everything right but we will work on that for next year, planning begins tomorrow.

Thanks to our hard working committee who have put in months of preparation, hopefully we can attract some new members for  next years event.

Here is a sample from this years festivities, already looking forward to next years festival, images courtesy of Marketa Puzman, Tom Dowling, Peter Shaughnessy, and Conor Lambert.

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Rory O’Connor at our Market Stalls on Sunday.

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What’s the Story, Rory?

Rory O’Connor, creator of Rory’s Story Cubes®, the multi-award winning storytelling game, will have a stall at this year’s Lucan Festival on Sunday 26th September.

Originally from Lucan, Rory grew up in Beech Park before moving to Esker Lane as a teenager.

Rory’s Story Cubes® is a social non-competitive game that can be played by children and adults, making it a great stocking filler.
Rory is co-founded The Creativity Hub with life and business partner Anita Murphy (originally from Leixlip). Together they design games, tools and training for individuals and organisations wanting to develop their creative thinking skills.

Rory’s Story Cubes® will be available to buy on the day for €12.

Great start to Lucan Festival

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It was a great start to Lucan festival last night at the opening of the arts exhibition work by 15 local artists on display.  There was a good turn out last night some to the exhibition curated by Katherine Sankey, good conversation by all and a little wine courtesy to Power and Smullen. Thanks yet again to Douglas Newman Good for the use of their building for the exhibition. The centre is open between 5pm and 8.30pm Monday to Friday and 2pm to 6pm on Saturday and Sunday. You can also pick up tickets here for all the Cinemobile screenings, Mamma Mia tickets are selling well so book yours before its too late.

Our kids movie at the cinemobile is Marmaduke!

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I hope you will all enjoy the kids movie we have chosen – Marmaduke!  starts at 3.30pm on Thursday the 23rd of September at the Cinemobile in Superquinn carpark. Just watch out for the big blue truck!

Don’t forget you get a meal to the value of €3 at McDonalds when you produce a valid cinema ticket. Booking is essential tickets on sale from tomorrow, contact 086 2505665

Brendan Nolan, talk on his book ‘Phoenix Park a history and a guidebook’ during Festival week.

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Lucan Festival are delighted that local writer Brendan Nolan will give a talk on his book ‘Phoenix Park a history and a guidebook’ during Festival week. Brendan will be giving his talk at Kenny’s back lounge at 3pm on Wednesday 22rd of September,

The Phoenix Park, the largest urban enclosed park in Europe, with a Circumference of 11km (7m) and a total area of 712 hectares , provides a breath of fresh air amid the urban sprawl of modern Dublin. Brendan Nolan’s comprehensive guide to the Phoenix Park covers its origins and history, buildings and monuments, wildlife, literary associations, local lore, military use, sports, self-guided walks, and its future in an urban environment.

Brendan provides detailed histories and descriptions of all of the landmarks in the Park, including the Zoo, Áras an Uachtaráin, Farmleigh, Ashtown Castle, the American Ambassador’s Residence, Garda Headquarters, etc. He touches on such historical events as the infamous murders of 1882, the Eucharistic Congress of 1932, and the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1979. This book will be of interest to tourists and visitors, to locals and Dubliners in general, and to anyone interested in this most historic and scenic park.

Brendan will give his talk on Wednesday 22nd of September at 3pm in Kenny’s back lounge.

Festival launch at La Banca – what a great night!

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Some good photos from our launch night at La Banca Restaurant last Thursday night, featuring a mixture of people from local businesses, sporting, recreational, religious, media and political organisations. Thanks to all who came along!

Photographs courtesy of Peter Shaughnessy www.petershaughnessy.com

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Preperation begins on our week long arts exhibition

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Tomorrow our attentions turns to our week long arts exhibition. With funds scarce many local businesses have come up with many interesting innovative ways of supporting our festival. Douglas Newman Good is one of those companies. They have kindly given us the use of a vacant office space above their premises on Main Street for our week long arts exhibition. Well done to DNG and other businesses who are supporting us.

We have been in contact with local artists for the past few weeks and tomorrow artists will begin bringing their works to the DNG exhibition centre. The centre will be open from 1 pm to 5.30pm and we would ask all artists to kindly to apply a labels to the back of every image stating: name of artist, name of work size in cm, medium and price. There will be one final opportunity to include works on Monday 13th of September between 7pm – 9pm.

Our curator katherine Sankey will then begin the process of selecting works for display in the exhibition beginning on September 20th. Good luck to all artists!

Successful Festival launch at La Banca Restaurant

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Oh what a night! there was an excellent turnout at last nights festival launch which was held upstairs at La Banca restaurant. There was a good diverse mix of people from business, sporting, religious, recreational groups and residents. The evening was opened by Tom Dowling followed by a power point presentation by committee member Sandy McKenna (did wonderful, take a bow). Entertainment on the night was provided by Dancity Ireland and the nights proceedings were closed by Chairman Joe Byrne.

It was good to speak to many after the formalities were over and see how much genuine the support is for our festival. Delighted that Glenda Gilson made a brief appearance a nice treat for the younger member of Dancity to get a photo with here and also some not so young committee members!!! thanks Glenda for dropping in. We should have some photos of the event up on the blog and facebook over the weekend.taff

Thank to the staff at La Banca restaurant for providing the venue, food and drinks for the evening, it was a wonderful setting.

So it full steam ahead from here as we count down the days to September 20th !!

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A historic view of Lucan, by curtor Joe Byrne

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Ballyowen Castle from 1906

Festival chairman and local historian Joe Byrne will exhibit a large collection of historic photographs, documents and other memorabilia on Lucan. The exhibition will take place on Saturday the 25th and Sunday 26th of September at St Andrews parish centre.

This exhibition should prove very popular for both new and old residents of Lucan.
Lucan is steeped in history going back to King Johns bridge which dates back to the 1200’s to the arrival of Patrick Sarsfield’s family at the end of the 1500’s to Games Gandon one of the most renowned architects of the 18th century who build the Custom Hose, The Four Courts and many other prestigious buildings in Dublin, he resided in Lucan for many years and died in Cannon Brook house in 1842.

The Spa Hotel from the early 1900's

The Lucan Spa Hotel has a long history. The site first became a health resort in 1758 when an iron spa was discovered at Chapel Hill. In 1795, the Old Hotel (now the Lucan County Bar) was built incorporating a ballroom built some time earlier. This Old Spa Hotel was a fashionable meeting point throughout the 18th Century, in whose surroundings the prosperous pillars of society then rested and entertained themselves with high social activities such as fox hunting with the Kildare and Meath Hunt. About this time a terrace of fine Georgian houses (The Crescent) were also built for all the holidaymakers who came to the Lucan Spa. At the end of the 19th Century, with the coming of trams and trains, the Lucan Spa went from strength to strength. In 1911 a new hotel and sanatorium were opened on the River Liffey by the Lucan Hydrophatic Spa company.
The first National Census was recorded in 1841. At that time Lucan’s population was 563. It had almost doubled by 1951 (1,297) but between 1971 and 1976, it increased from 4,245 to 12,451. Today its population exceeds 42,000 people.

For lots more on Lucan’s history be sure an visit – A historic view of Lucan at St Andrews Parish centre, see programme page for more. Joe will also be doing historic walks around Lucan village during festival week, see programme page for more information.