The St Patrick’s Day Weekend preparations are in full swing with the Blackrock Business Association planning events for both Sunday 16 and Monday 17 March 2025.

• The Blackrock pub will be hosting its own Tradfest in association with Rockshore from Saturday 15 to Monday 17 March 2025.
• The Frascati Centre will put on an afternoon of music and fun on Sunday 16 March 2025, at which participants in the Leprechaun Chase on St Patrick’s Day can check in and get their wrist bands.
• On St Patrick’s Day itself (17 March 2025) the Leprechaun Chase events take place in Blackrock Park, followed by Ceol agus Craic in the Village, and in the Blackrock Village Centre.

The provisional weekend line-up is looking like this:

Saturday 15 March 2025

The Blackrock – Sport; and Music by The Amber

Sunday 16 March 2025

Frascati Centre Foyer:  2pm to 5pm – Leprechaun Chase Check-in, music and fun provided by the Frascati Centre

The Blackrock: 9pm – Live Music by Annascott

Monday 17 March 2025

Blackrock Park:  10am – 12.45pm – Late check-in until 11:30, music, games, Mr Podzo, and at 12 noon the Leprechaun Chase.

Blackrock Village:  From 1pm: Goody Bags, Four live bands, Street food.

Blackrock Village Centre:  From 1pm:  Magic, face painting, balloon shaping

Wicked Wolf:  From 1pm:  Face painting, balloon shaping

Blackrock Market:  From 1pm: Face painting

The Blackrock:  From 2pm:  Live music and Irish Dancing; 7pm:  Fin Furey Duo

Sponsorship

We are very grateful to our sponsors who have stepped up to the plate again this year.   A full list will be published once all pledges are in.

Registering your child for the Leprechaun Chase

We expect to go live during the last week in February 2025.   This will be widely advertised.  This year we are increasing child spaces to 750 from last year’s 600.

Centra Blackrock has a brand-new name over the door.  Local retailer, David Curran, took over the longstanding Centra store in late 2024, and now looks forward to growing the business. Curran’s Centra Blackrock offers convenient solutions across the day, including wide on-the-go breakfast and lunch options, premium deli, Frank and Honest, Moo’d Ice Cream, and top-up grocery.  They have new extended opening hours – Monday to Friday from 6.30am to 10pm.  The weekend hours are Saturday and Sunday 7am to 10pm.  A full beer wine & spirits off-licence will be added in April 2025.

Commenting on the launch of the new store, David Curran said: “We’re thrilled to announce the takeover of Centra Blackrock to add to our sister store – Centra Monkstown.  A heartfelt thank you goes out to the huge support we’ve received so far from the community, and we look forward to welcoming everybody into the store.

Following exploratory meetings between the Blackrock Business Association and the dlr Heritage Office, the BBA coordinated a Heritage Workshop held on 7 January 2025. Participants represented the business and heritage community of Blackrock and contributed their understanding, knowledge and experience to the workshop as they explored how Blackrock can best share its stories with locals and visitors.  Our thanks go to Deirdre Black, Heritage Office at Dlr who facilitated the workshop.

The Workshop Report is the outcome of all the contributions made during the course of the event.  It brings together ideas, issues and aspirations and is a starting point for projects to showcase what Blackrock has to offer.

Key themes emerged:

• We are a village in a town, with the benefits of a town’s retail diversity, and the vibrant character of an historic urban village beside the sea
• We have three jewels; village core, seafront, park
• Blackrock is active
• We are becoming a destination for indoor and outdoor dining
• Our heritage is accessible – in public buildings, in the streetscape

This workshop outcomes report can form the starting point for a range of projects.

The first projects could include:

• An illustrated map of the village showing key points of interest and a looped walk which can be shared with businesses, visitors and local people.
• A digital storymap with the same information on your phone.
• Well-designed interpretation at key heritage sites.

Bennett’s Bakery which was opened by Ellen Bennett in 1925 was famed for its brown bread.  The bakery was novel in employing a messenger girl rather than a messenger boy!  It sold mince pies all year round, not just at Christmas.  It’s other specialities were shortbread, jam tarts and medeira cake.  Mary Pat, Ellen’s daughter took over the business in 1974 and closed its doors in 1987.

The house at 59 Main Street is in the news again and its eye-catching refurbishment was heavily featured in last week’s Irish Times – for full article click here.  The new owner, a retired building engineer, paid €470,000 for the property in 2022 and after spending a similar amount in refurbishment, has created a bold and contemporary home, while at the same time paying homage to the property’s Victorian origins.  The bright pinky exterior is eye-catching and has retained the Bennett signage in addition to brightening up the exterior from the original grey concrete render.  The refurbed house is a wonderful example of how to tastefully populate an urban space.

The Government’s Housing for All – A New Housing Plan for Ireland – proposed a new tax in the Finance Act 2021 to activate vacant land for residential purposes as a part of the Pathway to Increased New Housing Supply.  The process to identify land is now underway and the tax will be payable from 2025.

The RZLT has two parts.

1. Identification and mapping of the land in scope for tax.  This is undertaken by the local authorities through the publication of annual draft and annual final maps
2. Administration of the tax, which is to be undertaken by the Revenue Commissioners from 2025 onwards.

Please note that whilst residential properties are included in the draft map, they are not liable for the tax.

Submissions on the draft map for 2026 for the inclusion/exclusion of lands from the mapping or on what date the land first satisfied the criteria for inclusion, before 1 April 2025 can be made here.

The annual draft map is available at the following locations:

• Dún Laoghaire – Rathdown County Council Offices, County Hall, Marine Road, Dún Laoghaire, A96 K6C9,10:00am to 4:00pm, Monday to Friday.

• Dún Laoghaire – Rathdown County Council, Dundrum Offices, Main St, Dundrum, D14 YY00, 9:30am to 12:30pm and 1:30pm to 4:30pm, Monday to Friday

Join DLR Volunteer Centre in making a difference!  DLR Volunteer Centre, in partnership with Southside Partnership DLR and Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council, is running a Donation Appeal to collect essential items for International Protection Applicants in our communities. To respond to current needs, they will be running a temporary donation hub at Ballyogan Parish Hall on Friday 21 February (4pm-7pm) and Saturday 22nd February (11am-2pm), where individuals can drop off essential items, which can be viewed here with the full list of requested items They are hoping to collect.

If you are interested in making a donation, they would greatly appreciate if you could fill in the attached form which provides additional information about the donation hub.  They would also be grateful if you could help spread the word and share this appeal with anybody who might like to contribute.