Our Year 2014.

During 2014 we lost 2 of our residents. Sam Gibbons lived in no.4 and will be sadly missed. He was a regular attendee at our Wednesday night session and could always be relied on for a song. See our tribute to Sam here.

Liam O’Byrne lived in no.6 and up to his retirement he delivered our dinners to the elderly living in the surrounding areas. See our tribute to Liam here.

At the start of 2014 we had a group of students volunteering in our centre. One group volunteered through Gaisce, The Presidents Award, and another through the Pope John Paul Award.

We continue to deliver dinners in the area surrounding our village and in April we mapped out a dinner run. Over two and a half hours we travelled over 73km.

In May we held a writers course. 12 people attended the course including those who wrote pieces for our books, which are still on sale.

Our Wednesday evening continue to entertain, this year we held our Christmas session on December 17th. Seven musicians attended and played up to 11pm. In fact we found it hard to stop them playing.

As part of our fundraising activities we created and sold Christmas cards. Our Art class submitted some paintings for them and some other local artists donated works to held too, with 8 year old Aoife helping out too.

In February Storm Darwin battered our little village. Our local Church sustained some damage and the surrounding graveyard and grounds were littered with trees and branches. Our Parish Priest kindly donated the resulting firewood to our residents guaranteeing fuel for the coming winter.

Finally our vegetable patch may look a  it barren during the winter months. While the strawberries lie waiting for warmer months before delivering their bounty, you simply need to look a bit closer to find the rewards of winter.