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10th September 2013 • Volume 20, Issue 34 • Leader House, North Street, Swords, Co. Dublin. • Tel: 8•400•200 • info@northcountyleader.ie
North County Does It Again
T
he remarkable sequence of success experienced by North County towns and villages, continued yet again in the national Tidy Towns competition, the results of which were released on Monday last in a glittering ceremony at the Helix Theatre.
All in all, it was another great showing by our Tidy Towns committees across the North County, and just reward for the great efforts of all involved. Once again, Skerries came out on top of the class in the North County, with a great score of 309 points, up three on last year, and in the process retaining it’s Gold medal status. The town also won the Dublin Regional Award and a prize of €2,000. The hard working committee of Malahide however, may be somewhat disappointed with their result, where they scored 293 points, the same as last year and won a Silver medal for their efforts. They were classified as Highly Commended in the County Awards. There were excellent performances from other villages and towns in the region, with Lusk, improving their score by three points to 280 and coming third in the regional County Awards. Rush, who only returned to the competition two years ago, won the County Endeavour Award, after scoring a very creditable 241 points, up seven on last year. This comes as a result of great efforts by the town in recent times, which have clearly paid off. There were other impressive showings by Balscadden, Ballyboughal, Balbriggan and Swords, who all managed to improve on their points tally since last year. Balbriggan, with 255 points, are steadily climbing the ladder managed to improve their score by four points, while Swords, who just received a very encouraging IBAL result last week, recorded a very impressive 267 points, up three on last year. Our rural villages of Ballyboughal and Balscadden, also impressed, with the latter up by four points to 261, and Ballyboughal up one to 256 points. You can read a more in-depth report on the results in next week’s edition of North County Leader.
Islamic Cultural Centre Needed In Swords An innovative idea by a By Patrick Finnegan explained that the leading member of the building of a mosque and ourselves and all other cultural centre in the Muslim community in Swords, may go a long costs involved,” he said. area, would have the way to solving the diffi- “We will build the struc- same impact on his his ture all we need is the culties experienced by fellow Muslims, as the local Muslims in terms of site, which would be too building of Churches and worship and education in expensive to buy and we community centres had the area. A benefactor, hope would be donated on the Irish in American with about two acres of to us by a benefactor. We over 100 years ago. land in or around the will appoint an architect “The Muslim population Swords area, is being who will design the is not just from one sought for the purpose of centre in the appropriate country, but from a manner, which would building a new number of different Islamic Cultural countries, all with Centre in the area. their own cultural This idea is the brain differences, but child of local busisharing the same nessman, Tariq faith, which is Salahuddin who is common to all the proprietor of Indie Muslims. Friday Spice Restaurant in lunch time gatherSwords. He told the ings for prayer County Leader, happen from 12pm to “There is a great need 2pm and this is very for such a centre, important in our which would include tradition and if we a mosque, where had a mosque here, local Muslims could it would be an opporgather for Friday tunity to meet people prayers. It would Pictured is Tariq Salahuddin, who from other countries has plans for a new Islamic Centre allow us to teach our and cultures. It children the culture in Swords, which would incorporate would mean so much a mosque. and traditions of to the Muslim Islam. At present, we hire community here in the add greatly to the archiout a room at the North County,” he said. Applewood Community tectural heritage of the He also stressed that an Centre for a few hours area, taking into consid- Islamic Cultural Centre each week. If we got the eration the local environ- would also benefit the land, we would finance ment,” A very enthusi- non-Muslim community the building of the centre astic Mr Salahuddin as well, where they can
Two year old Daniel Grainger, from Rush, tries on his mother, Majella McHugh's mortar board after her graduation ceremony at the O'Reilly Hall, UCD.
see how their religions differ, as well as the similarities between them. “It’s all about spirituality. Proper education about a particular religion is really important in understanding and respecting the similarities and differences with other religions,” he said. The nearest mosques are on South Circular Road and Clonskeagh, which makes it very difficult for local Muslims to visit and fulfil their religious obligations. At present, there are at least 300 to 400 Muslim people in Swords alone, with at least 80 coming from Bangladesh alone. The possibility of such a centre coming to pass, would be widely welcomed in the burgeoning Muslim community, not only in Swords, but in the greater North County area.
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