Uisce Éireann has announced a planned water outage in parts of Swords on Tuesday, 03 February, expected to run from 11:00 to 16:00, to enable essential works on the water network. Customers in Pinnockhill, Airside Retail Park, Nevinstown West, Fosterstown South and nearby areas may be affected. After the works, it may take 2–3 hours for normal supply to fully return, especially for homes on higher ground or at the end of the network. See the full details here.

Two really positive local updates to share with you this week: Skerries Carnegie Library is back open after a major restoration and redevelopment, and Donabate Library has opened in Ballisk House following the refurbishment of the former credit union building. What I love about both stories is the same thing — they’re not just “libraries” in the old sense, they’re becoming proper community spaces where you can read, study, meet, learn, and spend time comfortably.

In Skerries, the scale of the transformation is huge. Fingal County Council says the project involved €8.9m, and the library is now around four times its original size (about 852 square metres) across three levels. The upgraded building includes dedicated areas for children and young adults (with direct access to Floraville Park), along with reading space, study and computer areas, meeting rooms, and an event space. There were also improvements to the public space outside, including around the front of the library and beside St Patrick’s Church, making that whole area feel more connected and usable.

In Donabate, the library has moved into Ballisk House, which was purchased in 2022 and then refurbished (a €2m project starting in January 2025) to create a modern, accessible public building with the library at its heart. The big practical change coming next is the planned My Open Library service, which is expected to extend access from 8am to 10pm, 365 days a year, including Sundays — a genuinely useful upgrade if you want to pop in early, use it later in the evening, or find a quiet space at the weekend.

A really positive bit of local news this week: Siemens Healthineers has opened a new €10m R&D Centre in Swords, focused on developing next-generation laboratory diagnostic instruments. The new facility sits alongside their existing operations in the area and is aimed at strengthening the local capability to design and build advanced immunoassay systems — the kinds of tools used in hospitals and labs to help detect and monitor things like infectious diseases, cancer and blood disorders.

What’s especially encouraging is the jobs and skills side of it. The company says the expansion has already supported over 65 high-skill roles, spanning engineering and software, systems and data work, and specialist life-sciences expertise. In practical terms, that means more high-value, future-proof jobs in our area, and deeper links into global R&D programmes — the kind of investment that tends to have knock-on benefits for the wider local economy too.

It’s also a strong signal about Swords as a place for serious innovation, not just production. When firms invest in R&D like this, it usually means long-term commitment — and it helps position the area as a hub for advanced medtech and diagnostics. It’s the sort of development that’s worth keeping an eye on, because it often brings more collaboration, more specialist recruitment, and more momentum over time.

See the full press release here.

A seriously proud local story to share this week: St. Marnock’s National School in Portmarnock is representing Ireland right now at the 2026 NFL Flag U13 International Championship in San Francisco (01–03 Feb 2026), happening during Super Bowl week. This isn’t a novelty invite — they’ve earned their place through the Irish NFL FLAG pathway, which means they’re travelling as the official Irish representatives. The travelling squad has been named as Matthew Carr, Evelyn Carter, Max Clarke, Rhys Foran, Max Gayler, Emmet Guyot, Robyn Harrell, Oscar Lawrence, Dylan Leavy and Beth Spicer, with coaches Mr Barnes, Mr Spellacy, Mr Cooper and Ms Dillon.

The tournament itself is a proper international stage: U13 co-ed teams from 14 countries competing over three days — Austria, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Panama and Spain. And it’s all landing right in the middle of the Super Bowl build-up, when the NFL effectively turns the Bay Area into a festival of sport. For kids from our area, the experience is huge — not just the matches, but the atmosphere, the scale, and the sense of representing your country in a sport that’s growing fast worldwide.

What I love most is what this says about youth sport here at home. Flag football is accessible, mixed, and built around speed, teamwork and smart decision-making — and Ireland’s school participation has been rising quickly. St. Marnock’s are proof of what can happen when a school embraces something new and commits to it: you can go from schoolyard sessions to a world stage. If you know any of the families involved, send them a message — this is one of those moments that deserves a big community cheer, regardless of results.

The full RTE article on the St. Marnock’s Heroes is here.

RETENTION permission for

PLANNING permission for

Swords

Clogheder

Donabate | Newbridge House and Farm | St. Brigid's House Tour | Join us for a special Georgian House tour in honour of St. Brigid, patron saint of craft. Explore the history of the Cobbe family alongside traditional Irish knitting designs and heritage craft throughout the house. | 11:00-13:00 & 14:00-16:00

Balbriggan | Balbriggan Beach | St. Brigid’s Day: Celebration of Light | Lantern procession from The Lark, over the Viaduct, to Balbriggan Beach. Bring a tea light in a jar or lantern and wear something white. | 18:00-20:00

Donabate | Donabate Library | Chair Yoga | 10:00-11:00

Skerries | Skerries Library | Art Classes | 11:00-12:00

Online | Online | Community Led river restoration | A world wetlands day webinar with speakers Eva Ford (catchment officer) and Dr. Trish Murphy (Project Officer) | 10:00-12:00

Rush | The Millbank Theatre | Millbank Theatre Movies : Horseshoe | When Colm Canavan dies, his adult children gather in the family home. All have a difficult relationship with the rest of their family. When Colm’s will is read out, it has a surprising provision - the four siblings must agree on how the estate is divided up. The problem? They can barely have a conversation without getting into an argument | 20:00-22:30

Balbriggan | balbriggan Library | We Can Quit Smoking Cessation Course. | To register please contact [email protected], call 01 8209550 or through the QR Code in the link. | 18:15-19:45

Portrane | Cuppacabana at community Centre Portrane Road | Coffee, craft & Connect | Join us for the chats and if you can, pitch in and help us
brain storm designs for hand held visual props for our group’s participation in our very own village celebrations St Patrick’s weekend (Saturday 14th March @1:30pm) | 19:30-21:30

Malahide | Malahide community School | Meditative Mandala Course | How to Cultivate a Meditative Practice for Stress Relief and Self Expression. 10 weeks course. | 19:30-21:00
Online | Online | Digital Boost LEO’s Digital Toolkit for Success | Join this webinar for a dynamic and informative event, designed to empower small business owners with the essential knowledge you need to gain access to the digital supports available from the Local Enterprise Offices. | 09:30-11:30

Dublin City Centre | 3Arena | Michael Flatley’s Lord of the Dance – 30th Anniversary Tour | This needs no explanation. | 20:00-23:00

Balbriggan | The Lark | The Rod Stewart Songbook - The rhythm of my Heart | Get ready to be “Sailing” through a night of unforgettable hits with the ultimate Rod Stewart Tribute Act – a show that’s as close as you’ll get to the real thing without raiding Rod’s tartan wardrobe. | 20:00-22:30

Skerries | Skerries Library | Musical Tots | 10:30-11:30

Malahide | Malahide Library | Sensory Musical Tots | 14:00-15:00

Swords | Carnegie Library | Crimes of Fashion: Bad Bridget and Laura Fitzachary | 14:30-15:30

Balbriggan | The Lark | Route 66 - The Big Band - Live in concert | The Kildare-based Route 66 Big Band bring their Live in Concert show to The Lark for the first time. After celebrating 25 years on the road last year, the band—prompted by years of requests from wedding and corporate audiences—began touring theatres a decade ago, with great success. | 20:00-22:30

Dublin City Centre | National Concert Hall | Room on the Broom & The Snail and the Whale with NSOI | National Symphony Orchestra Ireland, conducted by the inspirational David Brophy, performs René Aubry’s inspired scores with live screenings of the much-loved children’s classics Room on the Broom and The Snail and the Whale, based on the books by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. | 12:30-14:00

Dublin City Centre | Whyte Recital Hall at RIAM | Dublin Piano Series: Bach/Bartók | A selection of exquisite JS Bach transcriptions by Ferruccio Busoni, Myra Hess, György Kurtág and the Academy’s Head of Keyboard, Peter Tuite take centre stage in the first half of today’s concert. | 16:00-18:00

Balbriggan | The Lark | Who's sorry now? The story of Connie Francis & Bobby Darin | As her first anniversary approaches, the brilliant Singalong Songbook team sprinkle their trademark magic on the story of Connie Francis and her longterm love with Bobby Darin. | 15:00-17:00

If you’ve ever done the coastal walk up past Balbriggan, you’ve probably passed the Bremore Passage Tombs without even realising what they are. They’re one of those places that are properly local — five low mounds sitting out on the headland at the mouth of the River Bremore — officially logged as five separate monuments and protected as part of Ireland’s Neolithic passage-tomb tradition. The main mound is still the standout: a big grassed-over cairn (about 29m across and roughly 3.5m high) with hints of kerbstones, and a damaged section that may be where the original passage-and-chamber structure collapsed.

What makes Bremore more than “a mound on the coast” is that it’s a whole cemetery, not a single tomb. Four smaller mounds sit around the main cairn and they’re all slightly different — some barely rise above the field now, others are oddly shaped, and a few expose cores made from rounded beach pebbles, which feels very Bremore when you think about it: the builders used what the coastline gave them and still created something deliberate and ceremonial. Even without big excavations like you’d see in the major complexes, modern non-invasive surveys have started teasing out more detail, including signs of a stone cairn structure and possible central burial/cremation activity in at least one of the mounds, as well as later interference (including a drainage pipe noted close to the main mound).

And like a lot of our coastline, Bremore is a living landscape — layers of activity across different periods nearby, and the ongoing reality of erosion. There’s no visitor centre or “packaged” experience here; it’s really just a walk in an exposed, working coastal environment. If you go out, treat it with the same respect you’d give any fragile spot on the headland: mind the uneven ground and unfenced edges, keep back from the cliff line, watch tides and conditions if you’re coming in along the shoreline, and don’t climb or disturb the mounds.