Newcastle Lions Celebrate 40 years

In 1984 Downpatrick Lions club began looking into the possibility of sponsoring a new Lions Club in Newcastle and on 7th December 1984 Newcastle Lions Club were formed.   At their monthly meeting on Tuesday 10th December 2024 the club celebrated the occasion with birthday cake baked by the club treasurer Virginia Hughes. Two of the original members are still members of the club Peter May and Michael Niblett. Unfortunately Michael was not present but Peter was able to blow out the celebratory candle and then the members had mince pies, chocolates and birthday cake before getting their photo taken on the Christmas sleigh at their meeting venue the Burrendale Hotel Newcastle.

The club will have a special event in July 2025 with members of The Lions Club Ireland team joining in to mark this special achievement and celebrate the service our club provides. Some of the projects that they have been involved in include providing carbon monoxide alarms to local senior citizens following the deaths of  Nan & Francie  O'Reilly,  children projects, including an environmental competition, school quiz and on two occasions, produced calendars from the artwork of children on the theme Don’t Talk To A Stranger. Other events included golf events at Royal County Down, collecting toiletries to be sent to Bosnia and also Kosovo, helping Down District Council with the centenary celebrations of the 1910 flight of Harry Ferguson by getting 10 post primary schools to make a 5 minute film or a talking newspaper on Harry's life with the winning team from  St.Malachy's getting 5 minutes ride in a helicopter over Newcastle.

The most recent successful projects have been fundraising and buying 10 defibrillators and managing and maintaining these and sending 23,000 pairs of spectacles to people in need. Of course the generosity of the local community and businesses have helped the Lions achieve so much in the last 40 years.

Vice District Governor Marion McGreevy, Peter May one of the founding members and Newcastle Lions President John McDonagh.

Newcastle Lions members with Charter Club Treasurer, Peter May and Club President , John McDonagh sitting in the sleigh.

Newcastle Lions Christmas Fundraising

Newcastle Lions have begun their Christmas fundraising efforts and in the run up to Christmas these will continue each weekend.  Last Saturday during the day despite Storm Darragh the Lions were outside Eurospar, Castlewellan Road and would like to thank those who generously contributed and oered words of encouragement in the awful conditions.

Next Saturday they will be outside the Barbican on Dundrum Road and on Saturday 21st December they will be outside Tesco on the Castlewellan Road. On Saturday evening thanks to the Burrendale Hotel they were able to run a raffle during the hotel’s Christmas dinner dance with the prizes including a Christmas hamper and a bottle of wine for a winning table.

They will be back again next Friday and Saturday evening and on Friday 20th December. The Lions would like to thank Tesco and Lidl for their generous donations towards the hampers. Please note that the Lions now have a SumUp machine so you do not need cash to support their fundraising efforts.

Brendan Downey and Beth Cairnduff outside Eurospar

Chloe Brannigan and Marian McGreevy getting ready for the raffle in the Burrendale Hotel.

Lions Peace Poster Competition

For over three decades Lions clubs around the world have proudly sponsored an International Peace poster competition and Newcastle and Ballynahinch Lions clubs sponsor the competition in the South Down area.

This art contest for young people encourages them to express their visions of peace and the theme for 2024/5 Peace Poster contest is “Peace without Limits”.

Each poster is judged on originality, artistic merit and expression of the theme and this year was judged at a local level by Cecelia Halloran and Alison Herron.  Our area winner’s poster will now go forward to Ireland District level by mid November. The all Ireland winners poster will then be forwarded to the International competition and the overall winner will be announced in February.

Thanks to the superb creative talents of our young people the judges had a difficult task as the ideas displayed were superb. The winner will be announced in due course.

Well done to the young people and Art Departments staff in Assumption School Ballynahinch, The High School Ballynahinch, St  Colmans High School and  Sixth Form College, Ballynahinch, Shimna Integrated College Newcastle ,St  Malachy’s High School Castlewellan and  St  Louis School Kilkeel.

Photo: Cecelia Halloran , Marion McGreevy Vice District Grosvenor and Alison Herron