________________ LONG BEACH _______________
HERALD Also serving Point Lookout & East Atlantic Beach
$1.00
Political signs turn to art
l.B. girls’ soccer seeks revenge
NY Fit Fest returns
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Vol. 32 No. 39
SEPTEMBER 23 - 29, 2021
Irish paint Nickerson Beach green By JiM BERNSTEiN jbernstein@liherald.com
Christina Daly/Herald
YouNgSTERS ShowEd ThEiR Irish dancing skills during daylong competitions at the Ancient Order of Hibernians annual Feis and Festival in Lido Beach last weekend.
The Gaffney family found a good spot to call their own on the expansive grass field at Nickerson Beach in Lido last Sunday, where they could watch the dancers and the crowds at one of Long Island’s largest Irish festivals. Dad Jim, mom Kristy, daughter Kaylee, 6, and son James, 2, had driven in the early morning from their Lake Ronkonkoma home to attend the Nassau County Ancient Order of Hibernians’ annual
Feis and Festival. They were among some 400 people — many of them children who had come to take part in dance competitions — who turned out at what most simply referred to as “the Feis,” on a breezy and sun-splashed late afternoon, the last of the summer’s weekends. The day was particularly poignant for the Gaffney family. Kaylee had taken second place in an under-7 Irish dance competition. Kristy was a dancer when she was single and living in Shoreham, and was thrilled Continued on page 15
Long Beach joins worldwide beach cleanup effort By JaMES BERNSTEiN jbernstein@lbherald.com
Fabien Cousteau, a grandson of legendary French ocean explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau, stood under a tent at the New York Avenue beach in Long Beach last Saturday morning as some 150 people — many of them young — gathered for a cleanup as the summer season drew to a close. They had come to take part in International Coastal Cleanup Day. Cousteau, who took part in more than 20 sea expeditions with his grandfather, who died in 1977, smiled as he looked over
the crowd signing in to pick up plastic bottles, cans and other trash left on Long Beach’s white sands. “I think he would be very encouraged,” Cousteau said when asked how he thought his grandfather would view the cleanup. “It shows how much young people care.” In 2017, Cousteau founded the Fabian Cousteau Ocean Learning Center, a Manhattan-based nonprofit, to “protect and preserve” coastal waters, coastal areas and marine habitats through education and research. The organization’s executive director is Eleanor Raftery, of Long Beach.
T
he community here takes care of its beach.
FaBiEN CouSTEau conservationist
Raftery had been working for the organization as a consultant. “I said to him one day, ‘You do this stuff all over the world. Why don’t you come to Long Beach?’” she recounted, referring to Cousteau. And so he did. “Long Beach is a beautiful place,” said Cous-
teau, whose grandfather was a French naval officer, explorer, conservationist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and its many and varied creatures. He co-developed the Aqua Lung, pioneered marine conservation and was a member of the Académie Française.
“The community here takes care of its beach,” Cousteau said. “This is a model for how you can enjoy a place and keep it pristine.” Aside from beach cleanups, Cousteau’s organization runs a program in Nicaragua to preserve four endangered species of sea turtles, and is planning to Continued on page 4