Lough Arrow 8 Mile Ballinafad Sligo 30th July 2011
You can Register on the Day !!!
Organised by Aughanagh Parish Council Ltd. in aid of :
National Breast Cancer Research Institute and Aughanagh Parish Development Fund
Walkers start at 4.00pm, runners at 5.00pm
Parking/ Toilets / Refreshments
Parking will be in the Field Study Centre car park, Ballinafad, and overflow parking at Ballinafad Church. Toilets will be available, and refreshments provided, in the Field Study Centre.
Cost and Registration
Cost of entry is €20. Entrants who register on-line through runireland.com by 26th June (closing date) will be entered into a special prize draw. Registration fee includes a souvenir t-shirt for all finishers, as well as prizes for first three male and female finishers. Entries on the day cost €15 (will not secure a t-shirt).Registration from 3pm on the day in the Field Study Centre.
Other
As well as being an ideal run for anybody wishing to test themselves on some hills, this will be a fun family day out – including kids novelty events and brand-new playground facility. The annual Garland Sunday Festival takes place the following day in nearby Keash for those who want to enjoy a weekend with a difference in this beautiful part of the country.
Location
54° 1' 40.1304" N, 8° 20' 6.0648" W
Thank you to all involved in
St Patricks Day Ballinafad Sligo 
Kevin Cryan would like to begin by thanking everyone who attended this year’s Aughanagh Parish Saint Patrick’s Day Parade and Family Fun Day in Ballinafad Village. A great day was had by all who attended and once again our “Child’s of Prague” did their job with the weather staying mild and dry all day. Thank you to Fr Ian and Canon Ronnie Burke who preformed an ecumenical blessing at the start of the Parade and then handed over to John O’Gara and Philip Craig who did a great job MC’ing and DJ’ing all day respectively. Also a special word of thanks to Michelle King for all her work and marketing skills in advertising the event, which was hugely important in ensuring the day was successful.
A word of thanks has to go to everyone who entered floats into the parade, obviously a parade of such novelty and exuberance could never take place unless people were willing to give up their own precious time and make such efforts in designing their floats. Thanks again to all who entered their floats. The winning float was The Flinstones from Bedrock, in second place was the young lads of the area with their wonderful B Factor Float into which they put a huge effort (Jonathon East, Colm Connolly, Diarmuid and Cian Higgins and Tomás Taheny) and third place went to Aughanagh Celtic Football Club. A special word of thanks to our Celebrity Judges, TV’s Biggest Loser Mr Paddy Cunningham and Ocean FM Radio DJ Mr Francie Boylan who were really up for the craic on the day!!!!!!
A special word of thanks and immense gratitude has to be given to the people who worked so hard preparing and serving food on the day in the local Field study centre. Also thank-you to ACE for the use of this fine facility. All that could be seen was people licking their lips after leaving the heritage centre after having a beautiful Irish Stew. There was also chips and Sausages and tea/coffee and biscuits being served all day. So well done. We would like to thank the following sponsors of the food in alphabetical order:
Carty’s shop, Ballinafad
East Bros, Boyle
Martin Baker, Riverstown
Michael Rowley and Associates, Consulting engineers.
The Mayfly Inn, Ballinafad
Stephen Flynn, Mace shop, Castelbaldwin
And all the community for donating buns, busicuits etc…
Also to the stewards on the day, you know yourselves the immensely important roles ye had on the day and everybody carried out their duties with expert ability. As well as being stewards, you all then pitched in at minding the bouncy castles, organizing the penalty kicks, face painting and keeping a supervision around the village all evening. Ye know who ye all are and thank ye all very much for the work done on the day and of course all the work done in the build up to the parade. Thank-you to those who arranged traffic management, and who arranged and provided cones, barriers etc…
Of course another main attraction of the day was the tug of war pulling which proved to be highly popular with patrons young and old alike. Public Houses taking part were The Mayfly Inn Ballinafad, Sean Macs Riverstown, Pat Reilly’s Gleann, The Moorings Knockvicar, The Saddler’s Kingsland and Des Mc Donagh’s Heapstown and thank you all for attending on the day and making this event possible to achieve. The event was won by Des Mc Donagh’s Public House Heapstown with the team captained by Conor Mc Donagh who beat the local Mayfly Inn team in the Final captained by Karl Mc Dermottroe. Well done lads and looking forward to seeing all the teams that competed in this year’s event back next year.
Importantly to everyone who came out Friday morning after the parade and began the clean up which included taking down flags, buntings, Signs etc… thank you very much.
And Finally thanks also to everyone who made a donation/contribution to the Aughanagh Parish Saint Patrick’s Day Parade and Family Fun Day in 2011 for the Aughanagh Community Pitch and the Autism Society North West. We will hopefully be doing a final count of the monies over the next few nights and there will be a presentation night coming up shortly of which you will all be informed of.
Soon there will be DVD’s of the day on sale in Carty’s Shop Ballinafad and if we have enough Reponses and demand from people we can start selling these DVD’s in Hunts Shop Castlebalwin, The Shop in Corrigeenroe, Narin’s in Riverstown and Ward’s in Keash aswell.
So that’s it for another year and already looking forward to Aughanagh Parish Saint Patrick’s Day Parade and Family Fun Day in Ballinafad Village on Saturday 17th 2012!!!!
The Committee, - Francis Candon, Kevin Cryan, Sean Scott, John Healy, Oliver Mc Dermottroe, John Mc Dermottroe.
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St Patricks Day Photos 2010
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Aughanagh Parish Playground Development
Playground design
We have received design drawings from a number of companies for the playground in Ballinafad as regards design, layout & equipment
Thanks for all the feedback
Pride of Place, Ballinafad, Sligo, Ireland
Pride of Place is an all-island competition which is directed towards recognising improvements by local communities to create civic pride in their area. The competition focus is on people coming together to shape, change and enjoy all that is good about their area.
The competition is hosted by Co-operation Ireland under its Local Authority Programme in conjunction with the all-island Local Authority Steering Forum comprising officials from authorities in both parts of Ireland.
In 2009, just about one hundred entrants representing communities from cities, towns and villages from throughout the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland were nominated by their local authorities to take part in the competition.
In Pride of Place, community groups have the unique opportunity to showcase specific pride initiatives which will have long lasting and positive impacts on their society.
Ballinafad Village is representing Co. Sligo in the population under 200 category in the National Pride of Place Competition.
Judging Day for the people of Ballinafad is on Tuesday 27th July 2010, the judges are expected to arrive at 2.15pm and stay for two and half hours.
On the day the people of Ballinafad will be out showcasing what it is they love about where they live. There will be various displays on view to include all the active groups in the village, examples are below and there will be more on the day:
- ACE
- Active Age
- Aughanagh Celtic Soccer Club
- Aughanagh Parish Council
- Aughanagh Parish St. Patricks Parade and Family Day
- Ballinafad Development Group
- Business of Ballinafad
- Church of Ireland
- CLASP
- Community Pitch
- Eastern Harps GAA
- History Society
- National Parks and Wildlife Service
- Playground Committee
- Tidy Towns
- Under Age Sports including Cross Country, Tennis, County Champions
- Corrigeenroe NS, Community Games
- Youth Club
The judging will be wrapped up with some traditional music, dancing and refreshments in Ballinafad Community Centre
The last number of weeks have seen great excitement building in the village in the lead up to the Judging Day, there have been numerous clean up evenings, families/people adopting areas to maintain, a general over all pride in the village in how it physically looks. There is and always has been a commitment to the general wellbeing of people living and visiting the area with groups and committees being established and continued to ensure that the spirit of Ballinafad lives strong and lives long.
Without the people volunteering their time to do the tidy ups, to attend the meeting, to fundraise and all the other time that is taken up with various activities, none of this work would happen, so thank you to each and every one. We would also like to thank Sligo County Council for their support and their belief in the community and pride in Ballinafad.
Everyone is welcome to come to Ballinafad on the 27th July for the afternoon, it is a community day that should be both informative and enjoyable.
Please email your photos of the day to catriona@osd.ie if you would like to see them on the website
Click here to see 2009 parade gallery>
You can also see the images click here Picasa web
Thanks to all the organisers & helpers for a brilliant day !!!
This web site is for the community but we need your text and images to build it please email catriona@osd.ie
Ballinafad is situated about 20 miles southeast of Sligo Town. A picturesque village at the foot of the Curlew Mountains it lies on the shore of Lough Arrow. There is a small castle of the Curlieus which can be found in the village. One of the few limestone lakes in Connaught, measuring 3,123 acres, Lough Arrow contains four main islands named Anaghgonda, Inismore, Inisbeg and Much Island.
Ballinafad Castle
Ballinafad Castle is located on the edge of the village of Ballinafad, just off the main Dublin to Sligo road. It was built at the time of the plantations in the later 16th century, but resembles a 13th century castle rather than the type of castles that were usually built at the time of the plantations.