Latest News

Santa Must Be Banjaxed concert  in Kinvara Community Centre on Saturday 21st December at 8.30pm, to celebrate Christmas in all its diversity, its joys and tribulations, featuring: Máirtín O’Connor, Ciara and Sinead O’Connor, Brendan O’Regan and Garry O’Briain, Eileen Fleming, Frank Hall and Pete Brazier, Helen Lane and Steve Johnson, Claire Egan and Eoin O’Neill. Dajo and the Sparks with their hit record Santa Must Be Banjaxed (After Christmas Day) plus surprise guests. All proceeds to go to The Road To Hope charity Hope to see you there! Look out for the Santa Must Be Banjaxed EP on sale at various outlets around Kinvara from now until Christmas €5

The Kinvara Swimming and Life Saving Club’s Christmas Swim Fundraiser returns to Traught Beach at 1pm on 25 December to help raise much needed funds for the Galway Hospice. The 2018 fundraiser raised €2000 for the Galway Hospice, a registered charity established in 1986 to provide palliative care services for terminally ill cancer patients and their families throughout Galway. The annual Christmas Day dip is a key feature on the community calendar and will reward swimmers, paddlers and onlookers with festive hot chocolate and mulled wine (people are encouraged to bring along their own reusable cups in keeping with the goals of Plastic Free Kinvara). The Christmas Swim Fundraiser will start at 1.00pm on 25 December 2019 at Traught in Kinvara. Everyone is welcome!

Kinvara Rock and Road 2020 will see the 10th running of the Marathon, Half Marathon and 10K. The event takes place on Saturday 7th March and entries are now open. Record numbers are expected and we hope to see you on the start line. All race info and online entry is at www.rockandroad.ie.

All Trácht magazines published by Kinvara Community Council over the years (1980-2008) are being scanned and will be available soon on the Kinvara.ie website. Subsequent Trácht issues were published online. These documents will be available in (searchable) pdf format and should be of interest for research purposes and to local residents, businesses or any persons interested in Kinvara’s history and heritage.

Here is a list of all Trácht magazines published (printed) over the years which are now being scanned and will be available soon on the Kinvara.ie website. If you happen to have a Trácht magazine that is not listed here please let us know by emailing communitycentre@kinvara.ie or dropping a note into Eilish at the Community Centre office (mornings Mon-Fri). We would like to borrow any missing magazines not on this list for scanning. Please check any back issues you have. List of years published (in print): 1980, 1981, 1986, 1987, 1990,1994, 1995, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2008.

The objective of the Seniors Alert Scheme (SAS) is to encourage community support for vulnerable older people in our communities through the provision of personal monitored alarms to enable older persons, of limited means, to continue to live securely in their homes with confidence, independence and peace of mind. Funding is available under the scheme towards the purchase of equipment via Kinvara Community Alert  i.e. personal alarm and pendant with one year’s free monitoring. The subsequent associated monitoring and service charges must be paid by the participant. The equipment will be funded by Pobal and made available through the Kinvara Community Alert voluntary and not-for-profit organisation registered with Pobal under the SAS. Please email kinvaracommunityalert@gmail.com for more details.

The Kinvara Community Alert Text Alert Scheme is in operation with over 100 members. The Text Alert Scheme is used to get short, immediate messages out to registered users who have an interest in helping reduce crime and help keep the community in which they live or work safer. If you wish to join please email kinvaracommunityalert@gmail.com for more details.

Muintir na Tíre has been allocated funding by the Department of Rural and Community Development to install Carbon Monoxide alarms in the homes of elderly and vulnerable persons. This programme is aimed at persons who do not have existing alarms and do not have the resources to install alarms themselves. It will be rolled out through the Kinvara Community Alert Group who will apply for alarms for residents in their areas and will install them on a voluntary basis. They are battery powered alarms so installation is straightforward.

President Michael D Higgins, Launching the Ireland In Focus

Exhibition at Collins Barracks Dublin on 20 November Last.

Both the President and the Museum thanked Kinvara Community Council for its work in preserving the Cresswell images. M D Higgins thanked all those who were involved in bringing this archive to public attention: “Thank you for your contribution to citizenship for it is a citizenship and contribution in the best sense.”

Report on Exhibition

The exhibition launch went very well and was attended by about 300 people. The President spoke for about 25 minutes. See link below. The French ambassador was also present.

A selection from Robert Cresswell’s work (29 images, people, locations and events in Kinvara) is shown in the first two rooms/spaces. The enlarged B/W and Kodachrome images are shown in the adjoining room.

Bresson’s and Lange’s works are shown in the second room, together with a slide show of Bresson’s work never shown before.

The exhibition runs until April 2020.

Download Museum flyer for the event

Listen to a speech given by President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, at the launch of the exhibition

An interview with Michael Brogan and Patricia Brehony-Martyn. This is to mark the opening of Ireland in Focus: Photographing the 1950s. The exhibition seeks to highlight the way in which three photographers, from France and North America, saw and portrayed Ireland of the 1950s, through the places they visited and the people they photographed.

The photographs of Paris-based American anthropologist, Robert Cresswell, who lived for over a year in Kinvara during 1955 and 1956, will also be shown. Cresswell took over four hundred photographs in the Kinvara area, including an exceptional set of Kodakchrome slides. The photographs were taken as part of his fieldwork in a 1950s’ rural community in transition. He published his findings in what is now regarded as a seminal anthropological study of rural life, Une Communauté Rurale de l’Irlande. 

The exhibition is being formally opened tomorrow, 21 November 2019, by President Michael Higgins.

All of the Cresswell Photo Archive are available to view on this website. Simply click on the links at the top of the page.

More details of the exhibition are available here: https://www.museum.ie/Decorative-Arts-History/Exhibitions/Future-Exhibitions/Ireland-in-Focus-Photographing-the-1950s