Cork East Fine Gael TD, David Stanton has welcomed the Government’s decision to allocate €12,709 sports funding to Youghal Town Council. This funding is one of a number of location authority projects across the country which is being grant aided with the purpose of boosting participation in sport.

“I understand that the €12,709 allocated to Youghal Town Council, under this new targeted measure for local sports facilities, will go to Sli na Slainte Walking Route in Youghal. The funding allocation was announced by Minister of State for Tourism and Sport, Michael Ring who recently visited Youghal town at my request.

“Youghal Town Council has also very recently been allocated a large grant of €400,000 for the development of Youghal Leisure Centre. “I hope that this additional funding for Sli na Slainte Walking Route will provide a further boost to tourism and sport in Youghal.

 

The Youghal Slí na Sláinte is 2km in length (4km return) and starts at the Mall House on the Mall. To follow the route, walk along Strand Street, South Abbey and onto Lighthouse Road where you will pass the 1st Kilometre sign, just outside the lighthouse. Passing the lighthouse, notice stunning views over the River Blackwater and the beach and continue onto the Front Strand to the 2nd Kilometre marker at the end of the car park. Turn around at this point; back towards the Mall House to complete your 4km walk.

Slí na Sláinte stands for ‘path to health’. Developed by the Irish Heart Foundation, it’s the outgoing way to make walking far more enjoyable. Already, it’s capturing the attention of the young and old, not only in Ireland but in Europe and other parts of the world too! And no wonder, because it’s a fun, healthy way for the average adult to accumulate the recommended 30 minutes of physical activity on most, or preferably all days of the week. Marked by bright colourful signposts which are not numbered and are situated at 1 km intervals, you’ll find Slí na Sláinte walking routes all over Ireland. Simply follow the Km signs, set your pace to suit your enjoyment and you’ll quickly feel better and get fitter. You will also experience a great sense of achievement.

 

A Plein air paint out in Youghal Co.Cork,on September 11th 2011 where the South West gang brave the elements. Click on the video below.

Plein air is a term derived from the French phrase en plein air, which literally means ‘in the open air’. It’s a familiar concept today, but in the late 1800s when the Impressionists ventured out of their studios into nature to investigate and capture the effects of sunlight and different times of days on a subject, it was quite revolutionary.

TEAM YOUGHAL made history today (11/09/2011) in Navan, Co. Meath when they started the Race Around Ireland for the third successive year. Christy McCarthy from Team Youghal  left the starting line in Market Square, Navan, at 05:15pm, after playing the National Anthem on the bagpipes for the opening of the race, and then headed North for his first stint in the toughest cycling endurance test in Europe.

Despite a weather warning for the tail end of hurricane Katia, in force for Ireland over the coming days, Team Youghal will have to have a cyclist in the saddle at all times. The Team are looking to improve their time of 88 hours 18 minutes from last year during which they also encountered bad weather during the first night of the race when they were cycling through Northern Ireland.

Ten weeks ago Team Youghal were in America where they competed in the toughest cycling endurance race in the World, The Race Across America, cycling over 3,000 miles across the United States Of America. This year Team Youghal are competing in the 1,350 mile race for two local charities, Youghal Hospice and Youghal Meals On Wheels.

To follow the progress of Team Youghal keep an eye on their website ; www.teamyoughal.com

To follow the progress of The Race Around Ireland keep an eye on their website:
www.racearoundireland.com

Click on image to startslide show: Pics by John Hennessy http://www.jhennessy.net/?ref=youghalonline

Official Club Launch Night
On the 1st year anniversary of running the Gaelic4Girls Program which has lead to the establishment of 5 underage teams (U14, U13, U12, U10 & U8), a Junior and a Gaelic4Mothers team, we are officially launching our Club on Sunday 18th September from 6 – 7pm. We’d appreciate your support by bringing yourself and all players to Club Aras for light refreshments and having the girls either kitted out in their Red T-Shirts or Club colours for team & group photos taken by the local press. Hoping to see you all for the launch.

Team Updates
2011 has been an extremely successful year since officially becoming an affiliated Club, far exceeding our initial expectations. Our Gaelic4Mothers have played during half time in the National Football League Finals held in Parnell Park, and in the recent Munster Club Blitz. Our Junior team continue to master their skills and are continuing to improve. Our U12s made history by winning the East Cork League Shield in a thrilling contest with Midleton. Our U14s represented the Club & town in the Féile, gaining fantastic plaudits from all visiting Clubs over the weekend. A group of 25 girls represented the Club in a National Blitz Day held on the hallowed Croke Park turf, a day from which memories will last forever for all involved. Our U10s & U8s took part in a blitz in Ballyphehane  last Saturday with the U8s winning their final and the U10s drawing in the final, girls really enjoyed themselves. Next Saturday this groups also head to Passage where approx 40 teams will take part. Congratulations to our U14s who qualified for the East Cork Final after a thrilling win over Cloyne in Copperalley on Sunday on a scoreline of 3-0 to 0-5 in difficult blustery conditions. They now play near neighbours Inch Rovers in the final. Our U12s haved drawn Cloyne in the championship. Parents your presence at all matches is very much appreciated by all mentors and the girls themselves. Training for all our underage teams continues each Saturday morning at 10:30am, any girl wishing to take up Gaelic Football can either come up to Club Aras on Saturday or contact Cormac Galvin on 0870508474 for details.

County Board Tickets
The sale of the Cork Ladies County Board tickets are one of the important sources of Club fund raising for the year. Can all players please return all tickets (sold or not) to your manager before September 17th.

Ladies Night
Our Chairperson, Catriona Hill and the social committee are busy looking at organising fund raising initiatives. The first of these is a “Ladies Hair & Beauty Night” on Saturday October 1st in Club Aras @ 8pm, tickets priced €5 available from this weekend. This should be a great night for all. Please support.

Membership
Please ensure that all players have paid their membership, forms can be collected from coaches or in the office.

Is mise le meas,
Cormac Ó Gealbháin
Rúnaí Youghal Ladies Football Club

THE YOUGHAL RNLI LIFEBOAT was launched on Sunday 11th September at 2pm to a report of a small dingy that was attempting to row to a moored boat off the Ferry Point, Youghal, with two casualties on board. It was being swept up the Youghal harbour by strong winds and the filling tide and was unable to return to shore.

The Youghal Lifeboat under the helm of David Slattery along with crew members Martin Morris and Ray Kelly were quickly on the scene and towed the vessel along with its two causalities, a father and son who were both wearing life jackets safely to shore.  The weather was blowing a force 4 south easterly winds.

Info: Noreen Varney
Youghal RNLI Press Officer

TEAM YOUGHAL will create history on Sunday (Sept 11th 2011) when they will compete in the 1,350 mile Race Around Ireland Cycle Race for the third successive year. This year the team will be raising funds for two local charities, Youghal Hospice and Youghal Meals on Wheels.

THE RACE AROUND IRELAND is quite simply the toughest cycling endurance test in Europe covering a massive distance of 1,350 miles travelling through all four Irish Provinces with many steep climbs and sharp descents along the way.

What makes this such a fantastic challenge is the constant flow of the race which runs 24 hours a day from start to finish, with little or no let up and that overwhelming desire not only to complete the race, but to win it!

‘Team Youghal’s’ winning time in the 2009 ‘Race Around Ireland’ was clocked at 90 hours and 6 minutes and they improved this by almost two hours last year in very poor weather conditions.

The race is part of the Ultra Marathon Cycling Association (UMCA) World Cup Series and the race is organised by the Navan Road Club and is sanctioned by Cycling Ireland.

In the ‘Race Around Ireland’ once the clock starts for ‘Team Youghal’ in Navan on September 11th it won’t stop until they reach the finish line at the end of the 1,350 mile circuit. This is the second most gruelling bike races in the world, the toughest being the Race Across America and Team Youghal became the first Irish 8 Person Team to complete this race in June of this year in seven days and 14 hours.

Team Leader Ger Flanagan said “This is a great group of people and there is a great togetherness about the team both on the bikes and in the support crew. The support crew are the vital cog in our whole race attempt. We are looking forward to taking on this challenge for a 3rd successive year and would like to ask as many people as possible to support the excellent work of Youghal Hospice and Youghal Meals on Wheels”. Sponsorship Cards are in circulation from Youghal Meals and Wheels, Youghal Hospice and from Team Youghal.

Team Youghal held a launch for their chosen charities at Youghal Hospital recently and both charities as really looking forward to the race. The Race will pass through Youghal on Wednesday 14TH September and once again the Walter Raleigh Hotel has been chosen by the Race Organisers as an Official Time Station.

Organising or working on an event such as the ‘Race Around Ireland’ takes massive work hours and ‘Race Around Ireland’ race director Alan Heary and his team deserve tremendous praise for their efforts.

Alan Heary said “Team Youghal’ are a very important part of the ‘Race Around Ireland’ event, because they bring a very professional team and back up crew to the race, with everything in terms of planning and structure as well as pure enthusiasm and effort, plus the age range in the team is so varied it shows that there is no age barrier for ‘Team Youghal’ because of their superb preparation. I think the spirit of the event is defined by ‘Team Youghal’ in their approach to everyone involved in the event. There is nobody they wouldn’t help or give the best advice to, there is always an excellent genuine attitude, I believe ‘Team Youghal’ embodies everything that is good about the ‘Race Around Ireland’ and we are delighted to see them back to defend their title”.

The race route through Cork is incredible, entering the County in Glengarriff, heading on to Bantry, Goleen, Mizen Head, Skull, Ballydehob, Skibbereen, Leap, Ross Carbery, Clonakilty, Timoleague, Ballinspittle, Kinsale, Ballincollig, Kerry Pike, Blarney, Cork City (Including St Patrick’s Hill) Glanmire, Carrigtwohill, Midleton, Castlemartyr, Killeagh and on to Youghal, before heading to Dungarvan and on the Mahon Falls.

To keep up to date with ‘Team Youghal’s’ race progress plus daily reports log into www.teamyoughal.com

Youghal Gold Label Seafood Pie: This week the chefs of the town are meeting to ensure they are all using the same recipe and techniques to guarantee consistency. Recently food critiques visited the town to check out the pie for themselves and were very happy with their sampling. If anyone wants to try cooking the pie at home Youghal Bay Seafood in Foxhole are selling the various fish required in a package to make your life easier.

Bus Tours: Meeting and greeting the buses has proved very successful this summer. Increases have been seen on a number of fronts: The numbers of busses stopping has increased, the numbers of visitors coming up town has increased due to the information being provided in the meet and greet sessions and the time spent by buses in Youghal has extended. It is hoped to expand on this next season. Plans in place at present include changing the stop point for tour buses to Raheen Road so visitors can walk down through the town walls and St. Mary’s, along the Main Street and be picked up at Market Quay. At present packages are being prepared which will include food, entertainment and guided tours. A DVD is being produced to distribute to tour companies selling what is on offer. Anyone interested in making a submission is welcome to contact the group ASAP.

Festivals: The next festival planned is “Yaughaloween Spooktacular”. This will take place from Oct 28th to 31st this year.  A great family program is planned over the weekend including treasure hunt, headless horsemen, Halloween games, fancy dress parades, storytelling and pumpkin carving – check out local press for full program nearer the event. Shop keepers and bar/restaurant staff are asked to consider wearing fancy dress for the weekend

Upcoming events also include “Charles Dickens Christmas in Youghal”, and an event for Patrick’s weekend (to be announced). If you can get the message to friends and relatives outside Youghal we could have some good craic ahead.

Brochures: It is the intention of the group to produce a full colour activities booklet to show what a great destination Youghal is as a holiday base. Areas covered will be history, walking and cycling, angling, wildlife, day trips from Youghal, family activities etc. Contributions to any of these or other areas of interest are welcomed.

Citizens Award: It is planned to offer a ‘Citizen of the Year’ award this year. Nominations boxes will be placed in various shops so everyone in the town can vote.

Welcome: These events take lots of effort. Luckily we have a great team involved in YCC. However, more help is always needed; be it to meet and greet the buses, help organise an event, write on the areas of interest above or just marshal during a festival. The next public meeting will be held on Thursday October 6th in the Red Store so please come along.

Cra’ze Ireland, it’s called. A new group of YouTubers headed by Seán Creagh, touring the country on the trail of some of the biggest names in film history ever to come to Ireland. First stop, Youghal!

Last Sunday (4th Sept. 2011) saw the start of this groups new “road-trip” film campaign. A group of seven actors, artists and film enthusiasts arrived in Youghal in search of the site where John Huston directed the 1956 classic, Moby Dick.

The film was, naturally enough, quite an attraction at the time it was filmed. People came from Cork City and all around to witness the event. But it’s wonderful to see that, over fifty years later, it is still bringing curious visitors to the town! Starring Oscar Award winner Gregory Peck as the fearsome but intriguing Captain Ahab, Moby Dick was the ideal film for emerging film-maker Seán Creagh to begin with. He and his team aimed to retell some of the important historical facts surrounding the film and also to put their own spin on the classic with a short re-enactment.

Gregory Peck was, of course, the star of the film. However, it should not be forgotten that Youghal itself took on an important role in the film: it played the part of the American shipping town New Bedford. Cra’ze Ireland began their day by capturing some of the more scenic elements of the town by itself. Elements like the iconic clock tower emphasise just how historic and important the location is even without the influence of Hollywood. After all, Edmund Spenser wrote part of The Fairie Queene during his visit; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle named a character from one of his later Holmes stories Inspector Youghal as a tribute to the town, and Sir Walter Raleigh left behind a fine legacy, having been its mayor for two years and (more crucially, from an Irish perspective) having chosen it as the planting ground for Europe’s very first potato.

After taking advantage of the area’s rich heritage, the troop of film-makers began to look at landmarks like Moby Dick’s. The aptly named pub is a lasting beacon of the influence that John Huston’s visit had on Youghal. He would sit in the pub every morning and devise his day’s filming plans. His actors we, by all accounts very friendly with the locals. Spectators came from all over Ireland and Britain to see the shoot. The inspiration that Huston brought has left a visible mark on the town in places such as the pub, and has added greatly to its charm.
Click on the video clip below to see an excerpt from the 1954  film Moby Dick. This is the complete part that was filmed in Youghal

History lesson complete, it was time for Cra’ze Ireland to make some history of its own. Never modest in his ambitions, director Seán Creagh has been making his name in the theatre world for the last three years and now he is setting his sights on the film industry. His theatrical debut was a gutsy performance of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, no less. While a risky move, the play’s outstanding success won him a lot of interest and praise. Still a believer in taking the bull by the horns, he is tackling the Shakespeares of the film world: John Huston, John Ford, Stephen Spielberg… Cra’ze Ireland plans to tour the country, re-staging and telling the history of such classics as The Quiet Man, Saving Private Ryan and Braveheart, and making them available on YouTube.

Their first “road-trip”, Moby Dick, is a prime example of this. While there have been plenty of documentaries over the years, showing us again and again in different ways the prosperity, the inspiration and the joy that John Huston and Gregory Peck brought, Seán believes that something is being lost. A historian can tell you it was exciting, but are you excited? A documentary can show you the past, but what does that have to do with me now? Gregory Peck was the name in 1956, but we all know that what exhilarates one generation can actually seem boring to the next. Cra’ze Ireland aims to revive some of the feelings attached to the films. Moby Dick happened in 1956, but it happened again last Sunday. The way to keep Ireland’s cinematic history alive, Seán says, is to update it, to relive it, to keep it relevant.
Click on the video below to see a short documentary on the making of Moby Dick in Youghal

Cra’ze Ireland were thrilled to meet the locals in Youghal, who provided insight into the John Huston classic and proved that Moby Dick is still very much alive in the hearts of the people. One young lad told tales of his grandfather who had a small part in the film. When the final product airs on YouTube shortly, the director hopes that Youghal will look proudly on his team’s humble contribution to the town’s proud and ongoing history.

THE YOUGHAL “QUEEN OF THE SEA” FESTIVAL RAISED €3,000 FOR TWO CHARITIES.  Cheques of €1,500 each were presented to the two nominated charities Childline and the Youghal Lifeboat on Monday the 5th September at the Youghal lifeboat station.

The money was raised during this years 2nd annual “Queen of the Sea” festival which took place in Youghal Co. Cork from the 15th to 17th July 2011.  The very successful festival ran over three days and was packed full of free family fun events throughout the entire weekend.  The highlight of the festival was the “Queen of the Sea” contest where local businesses got involved and put forward a candidate to represent them in this free open air event. Each girl that entered the Queen of the sea Contest was given a sponsor card and the proceeds of these cards were given to these two worthy charities Childline and The Youghal Lifeboat. The cheques were presented by this year winning “Queen of the Sea” Kate Mulcahy who represented the Quays Bar.

Event organisers picked these two charities to support, Childline because the theme of the festival is mainly a family festival based around children’s free fun activities and events. Childline is part of the ISPCC (The Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) and receives thousands of calls every year.  These are answered by volunteers and staff who are trained to listen and understand young people.  Their telephone lines are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to every young person living in Ireland.

And Youghal lifeboat because we are a seaside town and depend on the water based activities for much of our tourism and industry. Youghal lifeboat is a local organisation that is crewed entirely by local volunteers who are ready to put to sea 24 hours a day, 365 days a year if required. Youghal’s lifeboat station is one of the oldest lifeboat stations in Ireland as it dates back to 1839.  The lifeboat exists to save lives at sea and is entirely supported by voluntary contributions.

The Homecoming of the photographic exhibition ‘Last Days. The Last of Carpets in Youghal’ takes place on Corks Culture Night, 23rd September 2011 in the Mall Arts Centre, Youghal.

The launch of the photographic exhibition “Last Days. The Last of Carpets in Youghal” will take place in the Mall Arts Centre, Youghal on Friday 23rd September 2011 at 7pm, in accordance with Corks Culture Night. This launch marks the homecoming of the exhibition; as the collection is returned to Youghal on a permanent basis.

The exhibition was previously displayed in May 2007 and was compiled by Marcella Reardon and Derek Speirs who witnessed and documented the final days of the factory’s operation in December 2006.

The striking photographs of this exhibition encapsulates the immense impact of the immenent closure of the factory. Tremendous pride was taken in the producing of these high quality carpets and this exhibition honours the skill and workmanship involved in this process.

The production of carpets in Youghal began in 1954 with just four employees. At the height of its operations, nearly 800 staff were employed in Youghal alone.  The industry is one that symbolises Youghal itself and was monumentuous to the development and progression of the surrounding communities.

The official launch of the exhibition takes place at 7pm in the Mall Arts Centre on Friday 23rd September. Una Whyte, the talented concert Harpist and Vocalist will perform a recital to mark the opening of the exhibition. Previous factory workers as well as those involved in compiling the exhibition will be present to mark the homecoming of the exhibition.

The exhibition opens in the Mall Arts Centre on Friday 23rd September from 3pm – 10pm and on Sunday 25th September from 3pm – 6pm;  and runs from Monday 26th to Friday 30th September from 9am to 4pm daily. Entry is free of charge and all are welcome.

For more information please see www.themallartscentre.com or contact Joyce Hosford on 083-3606507.

Corks Culture Night occurs on Friday 23rd September and it is an evening, which promotes cultural activities within Cork, and gives people the opportunity to explore cultural sites at night for free of charge.

Click on image below to see the nostalgia farewell party for ‘The Carpets’ employees at the Walter Raleigh Hotel back in December 2006. Photographs in this post are from Youghalonline archive/2006 and are not part of the exhibition

The Mall Arts Centre/St. Mary’s Collegiate Church
Part of Youghal Socio Economic Development Group
7-10 Emmet Place, Youghal, Co. Cork
Tel: 083 360 6507