This award goes to Skerries Meals on Wheels. This group of volunteers has been serving the community of Skerries for over 50 years! They currently ensure the delivery of approximately 750 meals a month. The logistics of getting the right meal to the right person at the right time are smoothly and efficiently handled. Each day requires a team of four volunteer drivers who must all be insured, briefed and Garda vetted. Financial contributions from the recipients must be collected, recorded and banked. It is a huge undertaking and it happens five days a week, all year round!
Moreover, the group was able to maintain this valuable service throughout Covid-19, complying with all restrictions.

Congratulations to Skerries Meals on Wheels and a huge thank you for all your dedication and commitment!
Jane Landy (Chair, The Skerries Community Association)

This goes to Gráinne Enright in recognition of all that she has done to welcome and support Ukrainians who have fled the war with Russia and sought refuge in Skerries. Gráinne personally organised accommodation, summer camps, clothes, bicycles, lifts, job opportunities and countless other supports. She was even involved in ensuring that our Ukrainian guests took part in the Skerries St Patrick’s Day Parade!Gráinne also worked on the Skerries Soundwaves Committee for many years and has set up a website to provide free online Maths grinds for secondary school students https://www.brighterminds.ie Her efforts have made a huge difference to the lives of so many people. Thank you Gráinne for all your wonderful work!

Jane Landy (Chair, The Skerries Community Association)

Every year, the Skerries Community Association (SCA) awards the Jim Quigley Volunteer of the Year title to a group or an individual.

In doing so, the SCA honours the memory of the late Jim Quigley – a man who, like so many of us, was a “blow-in.” He and his wife Brigid came to Skerries in the 1970s. He volunteered in his local Residents Group and from there was drawn to the Skerries Development and Community Association, where his involvement lasted 22 years, ten of them as Chairperson.  Perhaps the most visible legacy of his work in Skerries is the Community Centre, which opened in December 1982. You can read more about him on the SCA website.

This year, the award was made at a particularly fitting and festive occasion – in the context of the Skerries Community Centre 40 Year Celebrations (7 August 2022), and in the presence of Jim’s widow, Brigid. To great applause, SCA chairperson Jane Landy introduced the winner, and Brigid Quigley handed the award to Máire Jones.

The judges chose her in recognition of the range of her volunteering activities. She is a long-time volunteer with Skerries Water Safety (the winners of the Jim Quigley Award in 2017, by the way),  she maintains the Skerries Community Association website, she is a founder member of Skerries Walking Club, she is one of the more active volunteers with the Skerries Community Garden, she is a Skerries Community Car Volunteer Driver, a Skerries Cycling Without Age Volunteer Pilot, and the Skerries Neighbourhoods WhatsApp Group contact person for The Haven. This year she has also been involved in supporting refugees from the Ukraine who have come to Skerries.

Can you begin to see why the judge picked her out of a very strong field of nominees? Congratulations Máire! Well deserved.

Michael McKenna, Secretary, Skerries Community Association

Volunteers are the glue of our community!

Every year, Skerries Community Association awards a prize to an individual or a group of volunteers in appreciation of volunteering work they have done for Skerries. 

Your nominee can be a young person, an adult, or a group – the only thing that matters is that they are deserving prize winners!

Please submit your nomination and supporting text with the reasons why you would like this person/group to get the award so that the judges will be in a position to make a fair decision. Please bear in mind that the judge has to make his evaluation on the information in your nomination so don’t hold back on detailing the reasons and citing evidence of your nominee’s work and achievements.

Nominations to reach award@skerriesca.com by 5 p.m 22 July 2022.

Who was Jim Quigley?

He was a champion of community development; a larger than life personality who was a dreamer and a doer; an idealist and an activist.  Jim was born in 1942 and grew up in Toomevara, County Tipperary.  He attended school firstly in Nenagh and then Mungret College, Limerick.  After moving to Dublin he worked initially in the bar trade and subsequently in sales with Eir (then Telecom Eireann).  In 1970, Jim married Brigid Carolan and shortly afterwards the couple came to live in Skerries, purchasing their home in the newly built Hillside Estate. He started up the residents’ association there and joined the SCA. He drove the huge community effort needed to get the Community Centre funded and built and was for many years chairperson of the Association.

To read more about him and see previous winners of the Award visit https://www.skerriesca.com/jim-quigley-award/

Last updated 5th July 2022

Michael McKenna, Chair of the Skerries Community Association, writes: Last Monday, 19 October, on the day of the 2020 Skerries Community Association AGM, I had the pleasure of presenting Ronan O’ Callaghan with the Jim Quigley Volunteer of the year award for 2020, on behalf of the Association. Ronan was given the award for “his exemplary initiative and proactivity in starting the community response in our town” in setting up a volunteer group response group here in Skerries at the beginning of the Covid Pandemic.

After considerable arm-twisting Ronan accepted the award with the words ”All I’ll say is  I just hope I’m making it clear how the Skerries Volunteer Group was in every way a team effort that literally couldn’t have been done without many volunteers, and you can kick me if I ever say it wasn’t. I want to specifically say that others did the same share of work, especially in getting the concept out there. It’s an example of how people are willing to do to help when needed.”

Well said and fair enough Ronan, but you were the one that kicked it off.

So who was this Jim Quigley guy anyway?

Jim Quigley came to live in Skerries with his wife Brigid in the late 1970s, purchasing their home in the newly built Hillside Estate. He joined the local residents association and was drawn to the Skerries Development and Community Association where his involvement lasted 22 years. Jim was Chairperson of the SDCA (now SCA) for ten of those years and worked on many, many projects.  Perhaps the most visible legacy of his work in Skerries is the Community Centre. His skills in community building came to be recognised further afield and he became the first full-time President of Muintir na Tíre in 1994. He was proud to be named Tipperary Man of the Year in 1999. Jim died on the 29 August 2001. We remember him and celebrate his life’s work with an annual award. You can read more about him here.

Skerries Covid Community Response Group

When Ronan started the Response Group last March, he was quickly joined by other individuals and groups and together with voluntary services such as Meals on Wheels, they delivered a valuable service to those confined to their homes. 

Leaflets were printed (with the contact numbers for the group) and delivered widely in Skerries. Volunteers were registered and many of them Garda vetted. Google groups and WhatsApp made it possible to respond rapidly to requests in a way that kept personal information private. As local businesses geared up to meet the demand for home deliveries, the need for the volunteer service lessened and the group was able to wind down operations after some months.

It is great to know that there is a reservoir of people out there who are ready and willing to give their time and energy to making life better for others.