18,000 COPIES WEEKLY
Town celebrates sporting hat-trick Wednesday, 18th December, 2013. Vol. 6, Issue 51 • 63 Clanbrassil Street, Dundalk, Co. Louth. Tel: 042 9320888. Fax: 042 9329676. Email: editorial@dundalkleader.com; advertising@dundalkleader.com
By Niamh Kirk
Dundalk is celebrating a sporting hat-trick after two major projects were announced last week, along with further good news on an international event next year. All going to plan Dundalk will host Ireland’s only elite standard velodrome and the world’s first all weather, flood lit turn hurdles track by 2016. In addition, Dundalk has already been selected to host a stage of the 2014 Giro d’Italia and it was announced that the sprint in the town will be shown live on television. The green light was given to Ireland’s first international standard velodrome which is to be established in Dundalk town after a 150 year-long lease for the land in Muirhevenamor to the track was
approved at Dundalk Town Council meeting on Tuesday. Cuchulainn Cycling club who are behind the project have already received planning permission for the 250m outdoor track and a separate 306m BMX track. The track should attract some of Ireland’s competitive cyclists to practice here as many currently travel to cycling centres in the UK to train. There are already hopes that elite Irish athletes will use the track to train and perhaps make their way from Dundalk to the Olympics. Although both tracks will initially be open-air there are already plans to roof the cycling track in the next phase of the development. Younger members of the community Continued on Page 11
Pupils bring Christmas cheer
Adele Clune and Margaret Conlon with pupils from Realt na Mara Student Council
By Paul Byrne There will be plenty of Christmas cheer for a number of people around Dundalk thanks to the extraordinary response to Reált na Mara’s St Vincent de Paul Christmas food appeal. The halls of Realt Na Mara
resembled Santa’s Grotto on Friday morning with rows and rows of beautifully arranged Christmas hampers laid out waiting to be collected by St Vincent de Paul. Towards the end of November the Reált na Mara student council put up a
notice saying that they would start going around the classrooms daily, collecting items for the Christmas Hampers in aid of St Vincent de Paul. The collection ended last Friday and according to student co-ordinator Continued on Page 4