News from The Bog of the Foxy Woman

www.coachfordnews.com April 2017

Vintage Run Registration takes place from 11.00am on Sunday for the Broom-hill Annual Vintage run. The Cars and Tractors will depart from the GAA Complex at 12noon. Every-one is welcome to come along fro what is always a great day out. The cars will travel to Ballinscarthy to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of Ford coming home to Cork and the tractors will travel along a scenic route closer to home.

Festival gears up.

The organisers of the Coachford Family Festival are looking for contestants for their main Sat-urday night event. It’s Lip Sync time and for all those who were always held back because they thought they couldn’t sing well now is your chance to shine. Lip Sync is all about miming to the music but at the same time putting on a show for the audi-ence. The organisers are looking for groups, individuals and du-ets to enter and be entertaining. You can become Boybands,, Beyonce or Big Tom for the night on July 15th. It’s all in aid of the Cork Children’s Hospi-tal at CUH and Marymount Hospice and will be mighty craic.

50/50 Draw Coachford Community Associa-tion are launching a fundraiser to raise some money to supple-ment the Tidy Towns expendi-ture, purchase & repair the Christmas lights and provide funds for any other develop-ment projects which may arise in the future. The 50/50 draw will be held initially every fort-night. 50% of what comes in through ticket sales will be given out as first prize at every draw. Tickets will be on sale from early May for €2 each or three for €5

One Act Plays Coachford Players will perform two One Act Plays in the GAA Hall Coachford on Sat-urday April 29th, Sunday April 30th and Monday May 1st at 9pm each night. The plays, ‘The Allergic Audience" by Joan Greening and "Like Father" by an anonymous 19th century author will be performed by some new and not so new actors to the group. It promises to be a wonderful couple of hours of entertainment and you might even get a cup of tea and a bun! Support your local Drama Group.

Com-munity Council News Coachford Members of the ACR Community Council have met with the Cork County Council’s Senior Area Engineer in relation to concerns about the appalling condition of the footpath from the GAA pitch to the road to Leemount. At the onsite meeting it was outline to the Engineer that the footpath was now in such a poor state of repair that it is now dangerous and becomes sub-merged when the road gets flooded and thus forces pedestrians to go on the road and put themselves in danger. Following the meeting a firm commitment was given by the council to address the issue as soon as possible and for the project to be put on the footpath renewal scheme. The County Council were also asked by the Community Council members to ensure that Irish Water contractors repair the road from Knockanowen to the Graveyard as it was left in an appalling state following the work done to the pipes in the area last year. The area engineer and local councillors are chasing Irish Water on this issue for the community. The Engineer also confirmed that the repairs to the footpath at the en-trance to O’Callaghan’s Bar yard will be started in the very near future.. However the surface of Rooves Bridge is much more complicated and will take some time to ad-dress. More on this inside....

News from The Bog of the Foxy Woman

www.coachfordnews.com April 2017

Bridge is a danger to those who cross it The Community Council have raised with the Cork County Council the urgent need to repair the surface of Rooves Bridge. The bridge, built by the ESB in the 1950s as part of the Lee Hydro Electrical Scheme is used by hundreds of vehicles every day and is now in an appalling condition. The County Council are claiming that the ESB are responsible for the re-pairs and maintenance of the structure while the ESB are refuting this and putting the onus for any road repairs on the bridge back on the council’s desk. “ We really don’t care which of them is responsible, we need this serious issue to be addressed immediately. This bridge is used by cars and trucks every day and many cyclists at weekends. It is dangerous at this stage. On any given day one can witness cyclists putting themselves in danger trying to avoid the craters on the bridge. The surface hasn’t been touched in years and the county council are doing nothing about it. It is no good building these structures if nobody is going to take the responsibility of looking after them. We have a county Coun-cil who continue to neglect the roads around Coachford and it’s not good enough anymore. There is no point in the council or the ESB for that matter promoting tourism and healthy lives and then having a bridge across the beautiful Lee Valley that is a danger to all that use it. We have the world championships coming to the river in August and there is great credit due to the ESB and the council in the work they put in to secure the competition for this venue but their work shouldn’t stop there. They now need to ensure that the Bridge is looking at its absolute best for the event in July. ” . The ACR Community Council are asking the County Council and the ESB to sit down and come to some agreement as quickly as possible so that works can be carried out.

Daffodil Day raises hundreds The Daffodil Day fundraiser held in O’Riordan’s Bar in March has

raised over €900 for the Irish Can-cer Society. There was a large crowd turned up for the Coffee morning and everyone enjoyed some gorgeous sandwiches, cakes and scones all morning and well into the afternoon!. Loretto O'Riordan and her staff pulled out

all the stops to ensure that a wonder-ful and success-ful fund-raiser was en-joyed.

Tidy Towns

The Tidy Towns members and helpers gathered in the village recently to start the Spring Clean Up. The recycling bins were scrubbed and cleaned within an inch of their lives. The roads were cleaned and swept, weeding was carried out and new plants were put in place. Lots done but loads more to do. Well done to all who turned up to help. The Tidy Towns committee have scheduled another clean up day for this Sunday April 23rd.. Volunteers are most welcome. Meeting in Church Car Park at 11.30am

News from The Bog of the Foxy Woman

www.coachfordnews.com April 2017

Coachford Talent on show in Dublin Coachford Foróige will be travelling to Dublin this weekend to support two of their fellow club members, Eabha Donovan and Abbie Healy in the National Foróige Talent Show. The girls won the West Cork District Final and are representing the region at Saturdays National Finals in Liberty Hall in Dublin. Eabha & Abbie will be singing their hearts out on Saturday and showing to the country what great talent we have in Coach-ford.

This is the first of two weekends in Dublin for the Coachford Club as they are also one of the finalists in the organisations Youth Citizenship

Awards in association with Aldi.. The Citizenship award is the organisations flagship programme and involves clubs from all over the country exhibiting their best projects that have made a significant impact on their community and on the members who carried them out. The Citizenship youth development programme empowers young people to use their talents and initiative to make a positive difference to the world around them. The group were encouraged to enter the recent Simon Sleep Out project for this year’s event which will take place in the City West Convention Centre in Dublin. This will be Coach-ford’s second time in the Finals having previously

In memory of Greg Greg Long who played GAA for Aghabullogue, was a larger than life character. This young man who was loved by many passed away on March 30th 2016 while holidaying in Spain. Last week,to mark his first anniversary, his family unveiled a park bench dedicated to his memory at the Aghabullogue GAA grounds in Coachford surrounded by many of Greg's friends, neighbours & teammates.The bench was in-stalled by the GAA club to honour one of their best. It was placed on the spot where his mother, Trish spent many times encouraging Greg as he played for the club since he was old enough to walk. It is hoped that for many years to come Greg Long will be remembered by those who come to the pitch to watch young people play and when people who didn't know him ask "who was Greg Long" there will be many there to tell them what a wonderful and special person he was.

Congratulations to Lizzie Harrison who was judged to have baked the best Lemon Drizzle Cake in Coachford Foróige’s Baking Competi-tion . Lizzie will now represent the club at the upcoming Regional Finals with the overall winner going through to the Aldi sponsored National Finals at the Ploughing Championships in September. Pic-tured above is Martha McCaffery who was the judge of the event and picked the winner on taste and texture.

World Cham-pionships are launched in Coachford Minister for Agri-culture, Food and the Marine, Mi-chael Creed TD launched the World Youth An-gling Champion-ships at the Coachford Greenway earlier this month.. The Competition will take place on Inniscarra Lake from August 8th to 13th . Teams from around the world are expected to start arriv-ing from August 5th to get ready for the five day event. The first three days will involve training while the real competition takes place on Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th. The opening ceremony of the world championships takes place in Coachford Village on August 10th at 6pm and promises to be a colourful affair with a parade of flags and nations through the village. Huge crowds are expected along the river bank and in the Lee Valley Area for this huge event. The GAA Complex in Coachford will act as the HQ for the event for the five days. The prize giving and awarding of medals ceremony takes place in the Oriel Hotel In Ballincollig.

Sports News from The Bog of the Foxy Woman

www.coachfordnews.com April 2017

Footballers kick off campaign The Aghabullogue Intermediate Footballers will kick off their 2017 championship campaign on Satur-day, April 22nd when they take on Youghal in Carrigtwohill at 6.45pm. The lads have a new management team in place and have a good league campaign so far this year. They will be hoping that their league form can transfer to the championship stage and that they can get over the first round and make a serious challenge for hon-ours in the championship.

Under 15 Title on the horizon Coachford /Killanardrish U15s have just two games left to play in their quest to win the Di-vision four League Titile. The boys lie third in the table just two points behind league leaders, Midleton who they must play in the final game of the season next week. The team made up of players from Coachford, Donoughmore, Rylane , Killanardrish and Dripsey have been playing since August. Under the management of Declan Murphy they have been improving with every game and have had some terrific displays through-out the season.

Under 16s have interesting run in for title win The Coachford/Killanardrish Under 16 team have just five games left to play in their league season and although they are at the top of the table at the moment there is very little between the first four teams. The lads must play close rivals St. Mary's twice in the run in to try and secure the Division One title and with a cup game on Monday and all games to be completed by the end of May it’s go-ing to be a very busy and exciting few weeks for team coach, Liam Casey and his players. The boys task was even made harder recently as one of their key players, Josh Martin suffered a double leg fracture in their last game. We wish Josh a speedy recovery.

Coachford N.S.in County 5-a Side Soccer Finals The Coachford girls beat all before them in the re-gional finals in March and now face the other Cork Regional winners in Turn-ers Cross on next Tues-day, April 25th. The win-ners go through to the Munster finals in May a fortnight later. We wish them the very best of luck

Front Row L to R: Emer O’Sullivan, Amy Dineen, Niamh Barry Murphy, Clara Daly. Back row: Rachel Bo-wen, Edel Downey and Orna Cahill

Coachford/Killanardish Under 15s