Magic Vacations are delighted to announce that Kinsale has been included on the Disney Map – and Goofy has a GIANT surprise for you

Simply log onto our website

www.MagicVacations.ie

Scroll down to the bottom left  of the page – enter Kinsale Cork Ireland in the box with Goofy – and see what happens!!

This link has been sent to our 16,000 +  facebook fans and 15,000  database friends  – putting Kinsale firmly on the Disney Map

Yours Magically

John Barrett

Managing Director

Magic Vacations Travel Group

Tel:             353 21 4700568

Fax: 353 21 4706609

john.barrett@magicvacations.ie

www.magicvacations.ie

www.thebigapple.ie

The St. Patrick’s Day Parade is back and the people and businesses of the town have put together an amazing weekend to celebrate. Starting with the Blessing of the Shamrock this evening, then an amazing line up for the whole day tomorrow: Spring Fair, Children’s Art Exhibition, Shop Window Competition, Busking & Street Entertainment Competition — and of course the Parade!  Saturday evening there’s even more entertainment with a Ceili Mor and then the spectacular Maritime Parade.

The Parade itself starts at 4pm, but plan to come early and stay late so you don’t miss out on the fun!

Click here to download our St. Patrick’s Day Poster with Schedule and Map

She will receive a copy of her work on canvas courtesy of Canvas Works Kinsale as her prize as well as a €75 voucher for the Kinsale OEC.

The winner of the 4-7 year old age group was Ryan O’Donnell age 7 who will also receive a canvas of his art work and a €75 voucher for the KOEC.

Second Place/Special merit are:

Ilona Perret and Marta Rankiewicz from St Joseph’s N.S.  They will each receive a €25 for Cooleez Children’s Boutique in Kinsale.

Runners up from Summercove were:

Kristen Cavanagh – Special Mention
Gracie Plunket
Lauren Green
Ronan Geary

Runners up from St Joseph’s N.S. were:

Polly O’Brian – Special Mention
Sarah Sheedy
Szymon Majewski
Carey MacGaharan
Kriska O’Riordan
Paulina Matoicinskaite

The above art work has been mounted courtesy of Studio One, Kinsale, and will be available to take away after the festival weekend.

Wild Goose has won Supplier of the Year & Best New Product at the prestigious annual awards given by the North American Celtic Trade Association and Enterprise Ireland.

Voted by NACTA members, Gift Supplier of the Year is the top award and is given in recognition for the excellent service & recent innovation provided by the Studio in North America. Best New Product was awarded to the Celtic Collection of bronze decorations which were developed & launched in September 2011.

The presentation was made to Wild Goose Managing Director Jamie McCarthy-Fisher and Sales Director Clive Salter at a ceremony in Dublin last week by Association President Fran Siefert, who also runs Ballyhugh Irish Imports, a shop in Audubon, New Jersey. John Perry, Minister of State with special responsibility for Small Business, was also on hand to offer his congratulations on the Studio’s achievements.

NACTA is the trade association for retailers of products from Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the Celtic Isles and has over 200 members in the USA and Canada.

Wild Goose Studio, which has been designing and making gifts in Kinsale since 1970, was shortlisted for Gift Supplier of the Year in 2011 & runner-up in the NACTA Award for the Best Packaging & Presentation category in 2008.

See more about Wild Goose Studio and purchase items online at www.wildgoosestudio.com

BOOKSTÓR NEWS

World Book Day

To celebrate World Book Day on Thursday 1^st March, we are holding a Design a Bookmark competition. The competition is open to everyone under 18 years old, and entry forms are available in the shop, or by email. Entries must be in by next Wednesday, 22^ndFebruary. The winning bookmark will be printed on one side of Bookstór’s own bookmark and distributed in the shop. Our favourite entries will also receive Bookstór vouchers, as well as fame and glory, and all entries will be on display in the shop from March 1^st.

World Book Day is the biggest celebration of books and reading in the world. Every child will receive a €1.50 World Book Day Book token from their school, which they can exchange for one of eight specially produced World Book day books or get €1.50 off any other book.

World Book Night

World Book Night is on April 23^rd 2012 and is a celebration of reading and books, in which 20,000 passionate volunteers give out free books in their communities.

World Book Night will see Givers across the land hand out twenty four copies of their chosen book (from a list of twenty five titles), to remind the world of the bounty of books. Local Givers can collect their books from Bookstór in the week before April 23^rd.

World Book Night’s charitable mission is to promote education and literacy by focusing on the enjoyment and liberation that reading brings, and to inspire the love of reading.

April 23^rd is a symbolic date for world literature. It is both the birth and death day of Shakespeare, and was chosen by UNESCO as the international day of the book. For further information please see www.worldbooknight.org, where you will find details of how to apply to be a giver, the 25 titles on offer and so on.

“A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face…It is one of the few havens remaining where [your] mind can get both provocation and privacy.”

Edward P. Morgan

Kinsale Pink Ribbon Walk Pink Promotion

The Kinsale Pink Ribbon Walk takes place on Sunday March 4^th, and Bookstór is delighted to be supporting the event as a Pink Partner. On the weekend of March 3^rd and 4^th, we are going to donate €1 of every €20 spent in Bookstór to Action Breast Cancer.

Cork Spring Poetry Festival 15-18 February 2012 (at the Metropole Hotel)

Readings Workshops  The Gregory O’Donoghue
Poetry Competition

In the past thirty years Cork has been prodigious in fostering poets, and the first  Cork Spring Poetry Festival starts tomorrow. The Munster Literature Centre has been presenting spring literary festivals in Cork for over fifteen years. This year the organisers decided to make the festival exclusively poetry in acknowledgement of the preference for poetry by our past Spring Festival audiences and also to celebrate Cork’s poetic heritage at a time when the country has just acquired its first poet President.

This year at our festival there will be poets from eight countries. From Ireland there will be poets writing in Irish such as Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, and Irish poets writing in English such as Kerry Hardie and Thomas McCarthy, as well as many others, both established poets and some with their first book published.

Poets from Canada, Croatia, Italy, New Zealand and Slovenia will also be represented. Emerging poets will be given a voice in the PreBooked Event. There will be a reading by the prize-winner of the third Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Prize and poets wishing to hone their skills can sign up for the four day Masterclass Workshop with Greg Delanty.

You are invited to reacquaint yourself with poets you know well and enjoy the genius of poets who are new to you.

For more info and to download a brochure go to www.corkpoetryfest.net

Book Club Reminder

Bookstór hosts a book club once a month, usually on a Thursday.  A different book is discussed each month over tea & coffee.

The next book club meeting will take place on Thursday 23^rd February when we’ll be discussing Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

The March Book Club will take place on Thursday March 22^nd at 7pm, when we’ll be discussing The Tiger’s Wifeby Tea Obreht

To reserve your place at the book club please call in, email or phone with your name and phone number.  The book club is free but places are limited.

If you’d like to suggest a book for a future meeting please let us know!

Books of the Month

Religion for Atheists by Alain de Botton

In Religion for Atheists Alain de Botton argues that although some in the West struggle with organised religion, many recognize that religions have much to teach. Blending deep respect with total impiety, de Botton proposes that we should look to religions for insights into how to build community, cultivate loving relationships, allow art and architecture to enrich our lives, overcome rampant egotism & feelings of inadequacy; in short, into how to live.

He has said that a false choice is often presented between faith and scepticism. “Either you have to accept lots of beliefs that are unbelievable or you end up in a spiritual and aesthetic wasteland…But maybe the choice doesn’t have to be that stark.”

As a way of bridging that divide, de Botton envisages secular spaces for contemplation called Temples for Atheists. Nurturing humility and stillness would be a wonderful place to start. “Often a religious building plays around with our perspective: it’s very large, or it’s very old or both. It recalibrates us in space or time, so you walk in and feel tiny.”

De Botton writes with elegance and wit, and this is an engaging and interesting meditation on religion, beauty, architecture, community and the meaning and significance of contemplation.

Children’s Book of the Month

The Tale of Georgie Grub By Jeanne Willis Illustrated by Margaret Chamberlain

The Tale of Georgie Grub is a brilliant cautionary tale of what happens to a boy who refuses to bathe. This is black comedy, without excluding sensitive souls, and muckiness, without being unpleasant.

It is a vibrant and funny story, with a wonderful rhythmic text that even very young children will enjoy. Because Georgie’s grubbiness has been conjured so brilliantly in the tale, his final comeuppance is hilarious, rather than bleak, in the best tradition of Hilaire Belloc’s cautionary tales.

Margaret Chamberlain’s illustrations are as wonderful as ever, with a friendly and charming style, and there is plenty going on to reward subsequent readings. A winner!

Storytime

Our next Storytime will be held on Saturday March 3^rd at 10am.

**Admission Free**

Stories, songs and rhymes for little ones (toddlers, pre-schoolers etc).  Children must be accompanied by an adult.

Storytime has been held every month since 2006

If you would like to receive a Storytime reminder text a day or two before the event each month, please let me know, and I’ll keep you in the loop.

As Brand Ambassador for the Kinsale Pink Ribbon Walk, Cara O’Sullivan will lend her support on the day and will perform ‘Stand up and Fight’ to inspire walkers as they head off on the 10km route. There will be an earlier start time of 1.45pm for runners.

After the Walk, refreshments will be provided by the Kinsale Good Food Circle and jazz singer Sharon Crosbie, also a Brand Ambassador, will entertain everyone after the Walk, creating a party atmosphere in the Town Council Car Park on the Pier Road. It promises to be great day as every participant wears a Pink Ribbon Walk t-shirt and Kinsale shops and restaurants will ‘go pink’ for the weekend.

Online Registration is now open onwww.pinkribbonwalk.ie and Registration forms are available at Kinsale Pharmacy or Finishing Services Kinsale.

The Pink Ribbon Walk is a national fundraising initiative which organises sponsored charity walks in locations around the country in aid of Action Breast Cancer, a programme of the Irish Cancer Society. The objective is to empower individuals and communities to increase breast cancer awareness, promote healthy living and raise funds for Action Breast Cancer through a fun and rewarding experience.

“We are delighted with the response from so many people and Kinsale businesses to date. This is the first walk on the south coast and we are hoping to have 400 walkers on Sunday 4^th March raising €40,000 for The Irish Cancer Society’s Action Breast Cancer,” said Jackie Dawson, Chairperson, Kinsale Pink Ribbon Walk Committee.

Since 2009, The Pink Ribbon Walks in Kells, Co Meath and Ballina/Killaloe, Co Clare have raised €400,000 for Action Breast Cancer. The Kinsale Pink Ribbon Walk hopes to add significantly to this figure in 2012.

See www.pinkribbonwalk.ie. for further details and online registration or call the  Pink Ribbon Walk Hotline on (087) 2627387 for more information. Follow us on:

www.facebook.com/pinkribbonwalk and www.twitter.com/pinkribbonwalks

A story on the Kinsale Peace Project and the guest visitor Sister STAN, will appear on next Thursdays Examiner, farm/food section .

The journalist interviewed Padgraig Fitzgerald of Kinsale Peave Project and sister Stan yesterday and she has put together a big story on the success of the Kinsale Peace Project.

This will promote the town of Kinsale as having a strong & vibrant community .

www.kinsalepeaceproject.com

Mary Enright is a highly skilled goldsmith who can be seen working at her bench onsite. The jewellery collection is headlined by contemporary pieces boasting clean lines and timeless quality.

Kinsale Town Council and Kinsale Chamber of Tourism are spreading Christmas cheer with the announcement that shoppers in the town can avail of free parking all day every Saturday and Sunday from this weekend right up to Christmas Eve, Saturday 24th December.

The free parking will be available on all allocated street parking as well as the public car parks around the town.

Hal McElroy, President of Kinsale Chamber of Tourism, welcomed the decision “This decision is so important to the town and the traders and will help encourage the community to shop locally during this key time of year. In addition to this, people from farther afield can travel to Kinsale, avoid much of the long delays experienced while queuing for shopping centres in the city and other county towns; and shop for presents in the tranquil setting of Kinsale.”

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank Kinsale Town Council for making this decision and for working with us to encourage more people to shop in Kinsale in the run up to Christmas. It is a very important gesture on behalf of the Council that is very much appreciated.”

The decision regarding the free parking was made at a Kinsale Council Meeting, yesterday evening, Monday 5th December and received unanimous support from the Councillors.  Kinsale Town Mayor Cllr Fred Treacy stated “Like everyone in the retail sector, Kinsale traders need every support they can get and I am delighted that the Council made the decision regarding Free Parking. I am sure that this will encourage more people to travel to Kinsale.”

McElroy concluded by stating “The town has an abundance of unique shops which are packed full of wonderful gift ideas to suit all budgets – and now there is an even greater incentive to visit Kinsale in the run up to Christmas – free, hassle free parking every weekend from now until Christmas.”

“24 Hours in Kinsale” is an article featuring members of Kinsale Chamber of Tourism – Kinsale Outdoor Education Centre, Trident Hotel, Kinsale Ghost Tour, Toddies, Fishy Fishy and Kinsale Harbour Cruises.

This award winning maginze “showcases the best of Ireland’s history, scenery, culture, traditions and lifestyles to the world at large”. With a huge subscription base in North America and other areas of the world, the article in this magazine will provide great exposure for the specific businesses and to Kinsale as a whole, as being the place to visit in Ireland.

See the text of the article online: http://www.irelandofthewelcomes.com/?p=711.

View copies of the article below: