Tag Archives: Tomar Trust

A KILLALOE mother-of-two has described the €27,000 raised by her daughter’s charity cycle for a major community development as “phenomenal”. “Julie’s Cycle to School” has exceeded the initial €3,000 target ninefold as thousands of euro poured in from people who watched Julie Collins (6), who is a wheelchair user, cycle on her adapted bike. Even the rain didn’t deter Julie from cycling her fourth kilometre from the car park near Gooser’s Bar, Ballina down to the former co-op store on the bridge and back again on Saturday. Flanked by her parents, Nicola and Fergus, a group of about 40 family and friends cheered Julie along the way and posed for photographs with two giant balloons with inscriptions “Well Done Julie” in the viewing area overlooking the lake in the middle of Ballina. Julie will complete her final kilometre at Boher National School. Born in Ballyvalley, Killaloe, Nicola is now living in Boher and is the chairperson of Boher Community Development …

MONTHS of lockdown were put to good use with a successful application for funds to enhance one of the region’s oldest churches. The community who look after Oatfield Barn Church, one of just of three of its kind which still survive in Ireland, were able to use the time to make a successful application for a conservation grant under the Historic Structure Fund. The fund which is administered by Minister of State for Heritage and Electoral Reform, Malcolm Noonan, has allocated €15,000 for repairs to the protected structure. The application was made possible with the support of the Tomar Trust which will also fund some of the works. “We’re just delighted with this,” said Michael Tynan, Pastoral Council representative and Oatfield Church Project Co-ordinator. “We had to have some of the money in place before we were eligible to apply for the Historic Structure Fund. Because we had support from the Tomar Trust, the way was paved for the application. …