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| NEWSLETTER NO. 362 Volume 13 | Márta(March) 2007 |
| March: Originally first month of the Roman calendar. Named for Mars the Roman god of war, crops and vegetation. Beannachtai na Feile Padraig
oraibh go léir Flower:Daffodil |
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| PLEASE CHECK
THIS DATE |
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| www.dalkeycommunitycouncil.com Email: enquire@dalkeycommunitycouncil.ie Published by Dalkey Community Council Ltd. (A Company Limited by Guarantee) |
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| ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING The Annual General Meeting of the Dalkey Community Council will take place on Monday, 6th March in Our Lady’s Hall, Castle Street, Dalkey at 7.30pm. This meeting is open to the public and every resident of Dalkey is both welcome and invited to attend. |
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The
February meeting of DCC was held on Monday 8th in OLH at 8pm. .
As there was no further business the meeting ended |
| The
Community Council Annual collection takes place this month. DCC needs your support to fund the Newsletter, Christmas Tree and many other activities it brings to the town. Please return the brown envelope with your contribution to your Road Rep. or to the post box in Our Lady’s Hall. Please support your community. |
DALKEY SEA SCOUTS
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We would like
to thank everyone who supported us in celebrating our 50th Anniversary,
and especially those who gave us memorabilia from the early days of Scouting
at Bulloch Harbour and St. Patrick's Church. It was a great year for the
Group. |
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Theatre
News
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St Patrick's
Dramatic Society Dalkey swept the boards at the recent Bray One Act Drama
Festival which took place in The Mermaid Theatre Bray, with the play The
Rebel Countess by Ivy Bannister. St Patricks won best group, best producer
for Nadia Quick, best actress for Lorraine Murphy, best supporting actress
for Lindé Hall and runner up best actor for Stuart Hart. The adjudicator
was Myles Purcell. FORTHCOMING THEATRE EVENTS |
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Traffic Matters (3)
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| New EU Child Safety Protection laws are now in force making it compulsory for all children to travel in the correct child seat, booster seat or booster cushion. Every year too many children are killed or seriously injured on Irish roads, often because they are not properly restrained when travelling in a car. Where seat belts have been fitted they MUST be worn. The Law has been changed to afford children greater protection when travelling in cars. Under the new EU law all children under the age of 11/12 years of age must be in an appropriate child seat. There are no exceptions, No excuses. It’s your responsibility as a parent, grandparent, or guardian to ensure that the child seat you buy is not just appropriate for their age, height and weight but that is also conforms to EU safety standards. Understand the new law and give your child the best possible protection. BOOSTER SEAT BOOSTER CUSHION
Rearward-facing car seats must never be used in the front passenger seat of cars which have an active airbag. Ensuring a child is properly
restrained in a child car seat can reduce injuries by a factor of 90-95%
for rear-facing seats, and 60 % for forward-facing seats (Source: AA Motoring
Trust). |
Refresh
the dinner menu this Spring-time - www.tinadunne.com |
| Chicken
noodle stir-fry 200g dried medium egg noodles
(about 3 blocks) Cook the noodles in boiling
salted water according to packet instructions. Drain and refresh under
cold water. Drain again, toss in a little oil and put to one side. Toss
the cashews nuts in a tablespoon of water and the icing sugar. Drop into
a hot saucepan and cook shaking and tossing constantly, until the nuts
turn sticky then golden. Tip onto a baking try to cool, then chop. Heat
a frying pan or wok that is big enough to hold all the ingredients. Season
the chicken with salt and pepper and stir-fry in a little vegetable oil
for 2-3 minutes, until almost cooked. Add the coriander stalks, garlic,
and ginger and cook for a further minute. Add the spring onions and nearly
all the bean sprouts and stir-fry for a few seconds, then add the cooked
noodles and coriander leaves. Keep stir-frying until the noodles are warmed
through, season with the soy and fish sauces and remove from the heat.
Serve in bowls and decorate with the rest of the bean sprouts, gem leaves,
watercress sprigs, if using, and the nuts. Garnish with sliced chilli
and lime wedges. |
MY
GARDEN GARDEN – Philippa Thomas |
Almost all those that I know who love to garden also have lovely minds. They usually are quite willing to share their knowledge and, of course, their plants! Lime green, juicy shoots, buds
and foliage are bursting forth everywhere. I find this time of year totally
exhilarating even more so than the height of summer when plants are fully
flowering with their exotic colours and scents. Sometimes, I wonder if
our grass and trees were blue or orange – would I be as interested?
Not so sure?! ‘Green’ to me says ‘GO’. It is intoxicating,
cool, calm, relaxing and soothing. It is the pulse of life. It is a colour
that never screams at you or fights with you in the garden. Sorry if I
am offending all those ‘blue’ lovers. Obviously, I adore those
electric and smoky greyish blue and mauve tints amongst our greens. Who
doesn’t? Imagine, I was thinking as I write this, there are no two
identical gardens in the world because all living greens, i.e. trees,
shrubs, etc., take on and adopt their own shape, form, etc. depending
on their location, soil, space, shelter, etc. I find this fascinating. Over these past few months while meandering with my dog, I have been admiring three magnificent specimens in their containers. I noticed these plants have now turned straw-like in colour. So, please don’t assume that your darling container or tub will tick away if you don’t water it! This morning, again, on my daily trail I just seemed to catch ‘that moment’ when I spotted a tiny tender self-seeded nettle that had obviously just peeped through in its glory through the pavement. It wasn’t as yet trampled on nor was it dusty so its hues of green, its freshness, its general presence looked nothing other than utterly beautiful. Question: “What is a
Weed?” “Training is everything.
The Peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage
with a college education!” “At the entrance to the
enclosure is a tree from whose branches there comes beautiful music. It
is a tree of silver, which the sun illumes, it glistens like gold.” |
MIND
THE GAP - www.therapy.ie
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Letters
to the Editor |
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DALKEY GOT DUPED! As an Engineering Professional
responsible for Environment, Health and Safety issues it Take Katy Synott for instance. She ridiculed the established medical opinion over the MMR vaccine and preyed on the fears of parents with young children. Unfortunately, 30% of children were not properly vaccinated and are now exposed to a serious health threat. However, Kathy rode the wave of publicity and got herself elected MEP. We could also consider Hans Blix and his team of weapons inspectors in Iraq, who could not find any WMDs. Yet, according to Bush and Blair, the threat to us was so critical that an invasion was needed. They got their invasion and look what happened! In Dalkey local politicians and budding politicians ran a campaign to prevent the erection of mobile phone masts. This technology has been around for several decades and there are hundreds of thousands of such masts worldwide, neither has any scientific study demonstrated the slightest health risk from the masts or the phones. Indeed, from a scientific perspective the energy intensity is an inverse square function such that it decreases rapidly within the initial few metres from the source. Alternatively, I could just point out in layman’s terms that the sun comes up in the morning and we go out in daylight, which is solar radiation at intensities many orders of magnitude greater than any mobile phone network. Unfortunately, nobody wants to let the facts get in the way of a good campaign. However, the reality is that Eircom is unable to deliver the necessary bandwidth by its fixed line system and we will have to rely more and more on mobile systems to provide the speed and traffic density required for our future internet needs, and ‘yes’ Dalkey just got left behind! Pat Swords |
NATURE
CORNER – Michael Ryan |
Dublin Hare Port A very unexpected place to see one of Ireland’s most handsome is in the long term car park at Dublin Airport. It was there late one weekend in November I got as close as I’m ever likely to get to a hare, hopping leisurely between the lines of cars and seemingly undisturbed by my proximity. I mentioned it to a friend and he said he’d had a similar experience getting great close up views though being a very good wildlife photographer he was frustrated by the fact his camera was packed inside his bag. The large open areas of vast grassland around the runways are an ideal habitat for these lovely animals undisturbed apart from dozens of enormous aircraft taking off and landing. Unlike rabbit s which breed and sleep underground in burrows hares dig out shallow hollows in which they sleep and rest lying low in them to conceal themselves and relying on speed to get away from predators. They can reach speeds of 35 mph and can run four miles without tiring. A fiercely impressive rare visitor from cold Northern regions the Snowy Owl has occasionally turned up in Ireland and apparently one of these birds was once taken in to care after being found at Dublin Airport with a broken wing. Their prey in the Arctic Circle where they breed is primarily Lemmings and hares and it was probably the abundance of hares at the airport that initially attracted the bird. There’s a very healthy population of rabbits on Dalkey Island displaying a great range of colour variety from black to white and many shades of brown in-between. It’s said that a lot of these rabbits derived from pets that produced too many offspring and their owners took the surplus bunnies over to the island though I can’t confirm that. Not too many years ago the parkland of the hills of Dalkey and Killiney held very large populations of rabbits and it was more common then not to see them as you walked around the hill any time of the day but especially early morning or dusk. Looking down on what was then Darcy’s field from the path around the quarry you could see lots of rabbits hopping around, often while a fox lay outstretched nearby sunning itself. Sadly the rabbits virtually disappeared off the hills probably as a result of disease. Often, as on offshore islands in the west of Ireland, when the rabbit population has grown so big the habitat can barely support them, they become prone to outbreaks of disease like a form of self imposed population control. Viruses rarely kill all the host species they prey on, leaving a few resistant individuals who will form future generations of host species. There are a few rabbits back on the hill now and rabbits being rabbits there’s likely to be a lot more of them in the future. Let’s hope so. You can get lots of information on Ireland’s native mammals from the Irish Peatland Conservation Council whose website is www.ipcc.ie Booterstown Birds Water Rails, close relation of the Moorhen, are very shy elusive waterbirds which frequent dense reeds at the side of large bodies of water. Smaller and distinctly slimmer than the moorhen, it has chestnut-brown and black upperparts, grey face and underparts and blackand-white barred flanks, and a long red bill. They make a call not unlike the squealing of a pig and that is usually how one encounters them so it was a delight to get great views of one in Booterstown Marsh on a beautiful morning in February. With early morning sun blazing low in the east and light sparkling on the water this bird came out into the open giving us fantastic views as it strode around on long legs. Also in the marsh that morning was a flock of Knot, a small wading bird which moves to Ireland to spend the winter before returning to its breeding grounds in the Arctic Circle. This was the biggest flock of Knot we’d ever seen there and we made a conservative count of nearly 800 birds! Knot have developed a way of sustaining themselves on the long flight to their breeding ground in which their digestive system shuts down and their bodies convert their intestines into energy to fuel their muscles. By the time they reach their breeding ground their stomach will have shrunk to a fraction of what it was on their wintering ground. When they’re here in winter they feed on shellfish and worms but when they reach their breeding grounds they change their diet to feed on the insects and larvae, especially midges and mosquitoes that become profuse as the snows melt. |
DALKEY TABLE TENNIS |
| The
club welcomes more members of all ages, with an emphasis on the male side.
Table Tennis is a great game. Singles and Doubles are not too strenuous
for the 60s age group and everyone is extremely sociable. The club is thriving
but nonetheless we still need more members. We run the occasional competition
which makes it all the more interesting. We play every Wednesday in Cuala Sports Hall at 10.00/10.30 a.m. - 12.30 p.m. with a short break for tea/coffee at approx. 11.15 a.m. So why not join us now and if you’ve never played before don’t worry! Have a ‘go’ now -it’s never too late to start! I know you will be glad you did and if you can’t come every Wednesday, that’s entirely up to you. Marie Byrne |
Dalkey’s
Littering Problems By Naidi McDonnell |
| 2006
saw Dalkey Heritage Town winning the county award for DLRCC in the national
Tidy Towns Competition for the second year running. However, the town achieved
relatively low scores under the litter and general tidiness sections of
the competition. Although Dalkey gives the appearance of being well maintained
and clean, this is mainly due to the efforts of a few dedicated volunteers
and our only waste official, Tex.
It is becoming more evident that we have a growing littering/dumping problem spreading throughout Dalkey. Last month, volunteers collected 20 bags of waste/rubbish from the Castle Street area on one day alone, while the residents of the Hillside estate gathered 30 bags of rubbish around their vicinity. It is unacceptable that certain members of the public feel that they can dispose of their waste on our streets. Our community has become too tolerant of this behaviour that spoils our beautiful town and diminishes the quality of our environment. There needs to be a change in attitudes and an increase in awareness of our waste problems. The Dalkey Tidy Towns Committee encourages local residents to keep their local streets clean; at the moment there are 14 resident groups participating in regular ‘clean ups’. We hope to increase this number and will help new groups by providing gloves, bags and pickers, whilst arranging for the disposal of collected rubbish. Dalkey has the benefit of having glass recycling centers both on Killiney hill and by the dart station, with the Glasthule recycling centre catering for the disposal of cardboard, paper, plastics, textiles, tetra packs, cans and batteries is close by. With the current pressures facing our already faltering landfill sites, recycling must be a top priority for all of us. With both a decreased tolerance towards our littering problem and an increase in recycling throughout our area, the benefits to our community and environment will become ever more evident.
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Dog
Fouling |
| There
are still irresponsible people in our community who let their dogs continue
to foul the footpaths in our town and who do not clean up after their pets.
Apart from the fact that it is disgusting and a health hazard, there are heavy fines under the Dogs Act for the owners of these dogs. As stated previously, there are Pooper-Scoopers available from the County Hall in Dun Laoghaire for this very purpose. As we will soon be entering for the annual Tidy Towns Competition again
this year, we hope that ALL residents will play their part in helping
to get us extra points when the judges come to inspect our town. |
Hope
- Anne M. Brady, Ard
Mhuire Park, Dalkey |
| They
come before the dawn like soldiers marching to their doom, the fears, the worries, the wrong decisions, but when the first birdsong breaks the terrible silence they slip away, and the new day beckons. |
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Cinema
Book |
| If I haven't already
informed you of the event I would tell you that our book the A to Z of All
Old Dublin Cinemas will be launched on Thursday, February 22nd 2007 in the
Pearse Street Library at 6 pm. The book will be in two editions Softback for the easy read €25 Hardback for collectors and enthusiasts €45 All copies will be signed on the night, You are more than welcome to attend. |
| LINK TO : DIARY OF EVENTS |
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