Coachford Players enjoyed a very successful Ballincollig Drama Festival last weekend. The drama group entered two plays in the competition and both came home with awards. The group’s festival play, ‘The Window Cleaner’ picked up the Best Director award for Eugene O’Sullivan and ‘The Unwanted’ was the recipient of the Adjudicators Award for its director Louise Murphy Lyons. The best Actress award was won by Emily Twomey for her part in the Blue Hat production of ‘Tough Cookies’. Chairman of Coachford Players, Willie Barrett said ” We are thrilled with the awards picked up on our first night out of the season. It was great to see Eugene picking up best director award for our festival play and gives us a great confidence boost as we head off on the circuit  and we are looking forward to our first night out in the All Ireland competition on Friday night in Kilmallock. Our second play, The Unwanted, will feature in our ‘Pub Theatre’ night in Coachford in early November and will be one of three one act plays that will be performed. Everyone in Coachford Players is delighted for Emily Twomey on her well deserved award. Emily has been a member in Coachford for years and threaded the boards with us last April in ‘Separate Beds’ and we wish her and our friends in ‘Blue Hat’ the very best of luck on the circuit.”

Coachford Village is full of Halloween goodies and is set for another bumper few days beginning this weekend. The pubs are expected to be  busy again for the long weekend with many revellers continuing to enjoy the rugby and Soccer games on TV. Large crowds are expected to fill the village on Saturday night on their return from supporting Dripsey in the County Final  and to enjoy ‘Hell for Leather’ in O’ Riordan’s Marquee. “The village is hoping that Dripsey succeed in their quest for glory and everyone here is right behind them. They are rivals when we meet them in games but we really wish them the very best of luck on Saturday night. A lot of the businesses here have very strong links with Dripsey and our villages are linked through family ties, neighbours and friends, said Peter Dineen,PRO of Coachford Tidy Towns. All the shops in the village have been gearing up for Halloween with all of them stocking up on treats for the little ones  who will be visiting the houses next week. For the long weekend and Halloween Coachford is the place to be.

 Football title

The Aghabullogue  under 16 footballers captured the East Region League Final defeating Aghinagh in the final on Sunday. The footballers were in control of this game for most of the 60 minutes and were well deserved winners  on a scoreline of 1.13 to 0.08 The boys now face the West Region champions in the County final.

The under 13 Aghabullogue Camogie team emerged victorious last weekend when they defeated a very fancied  Blackrock in a thrilling  Cork County Under 13 A league final by 1.5 to 1.4 This was a terrific performance by this young team who played some excellent hurling throughout . On Sunday the clubs Under 18 stars defeated Glen Rovers oin the Championship by 5.8 to 1.8.

The Murphy’s Centra walk for Breast Cancer was a huge success again this year with over 70 people taking part in the 5km walk from the village to the Greenway. The walk coincided with the unveiling of a beautiful seat on the Greenway dedicated to the memory of Bernie Bergin who for years worked in Murphy’s Centra before her untimely death earlier this year. The charity walk dedicated to Bernie’s memory raised  over €1,720 with some donations still to come in.

All roads lead to Pairc Ui Rinn this weekend as Dripsey Intermediate Hurlers face Charleville in the County Final on Saturday night at 7.45pm. The village and the wider area are all looking forward to the game and are hoping that the boys in Blue and Red can bring the trophy and title back to the cross on Saturday night.. Although Charleville will be red hot favourites going into the game this will in no way put Dripsey off putting in the performance of their lives to try and win the title and elevate the club to Premier Intermediate status for next year. The excitement in Dripsey and surrounding villages is huge and everyone is getting behind the team.

Renovations at O’Riordan’s Bar last week unveiled some unexpected village history. As the current owners removed the timber façade it revealed the name on the 1960s owners, Mangans over the door. Proprietor Pat O’Riordan explained that Celine Mangan was the owner of the historic pub in the late 1960s, “The bar has seen several owners since including Lissons, Stouts and O’ Shaughnessy’s. and we took it over ten years ago. We didn’t expect that anything would be underneath the timber and it was a nice surprise to see the old name there. Loads of our current customers remember Celine behind the bar and many people have been taking photographs of the exterior over the last few days.. It has prompted great discussion and reminiscing about the owners of this bar and all the bars in the village down through the years.”

On Saturday at 2pm Tower entertain Coachford Premier team in the second round of the AOH Cup. Also on Saturday the U15 boys play Douglas Hall at home at the Glebe at 1pm