The Mulhuddart Ladies Club Outing

The Mulhuddart ladies club meets every Thursday night from 7pm until 9pm in the Parnell Respond’s Community Building (40 Parnell Drive) Mulhuddart. The club was formed by local women in the community to have somewhere to go to chat, do crafts, education and outings and to generally socialize one evening a week. This club allows women some time for themselves to relax and to interact with other women from the area. The ladies club is open to all ages of women from 18 and over.

Aims & objectives
The aim is to give women in the community somewhere to go in the evening for a couple of hours to socialize with their friends and other members of the community. The group aids personal development and builds self-esteem for the women. The women do arts and crafts courses and teach each other new skills and talents for example knitting, jewellery making and cooking. It is a place where women can come to feel safe, to relax and have fun, sending them back to their families in a better frame of mind. It also encourages goodwill fostering community spirit and encouraging community involvement.

Outing :
A group of 12 women, from the group, recently decided go on a craft workshop to An Grianán, details of the outing are detailed by Katie Murphy from Respond;

Our day started at 8 am, the birds singing, the sun shining and all the ladies like excited children waiting to go on a school tour. At 8.15 Community Guard Mick McCoy now renamed ‘Tonto’ Murphy arrived in the minibus, with tinted windows and a door that can only be opened by the magic touch! We climbed aboard; well when I say climb I really mean struggled and dragged each other into the bus…It was a sight for sore eyes.

All the way up to An Grianán the banter and chatting went on, all the ladies were in great form, enjoying the chance for some time to ourselves, no kids, no phones and best of all some mammy time. As the bus made its way the jokes and slagging started, it was great craic.

We finally arrived at our destination about 9.15am and were then shown to the drawing room which can only be described as something from Downton Abbey, with its Grand Piano in the corner, magnificent marble fireplace and its splendid high ceilings and magnificent mirror. The room was surreal, filled with antique furniture and walls full of art work from previous workshops, it made us feel like royalty. As we still had 45 minutes to kill, and been the nosy type, we decided to take a wander around the different rooms in the house from the library to the dining room. Each room had its set up of art work from embroided quilts to jewellery to handmade bags, cakes, lace making, painting and other trinkets.

At 10.30am we met our tutor, a wonderful lady named Breda Bohan, who lead us to our craft room were all our project packs were set up.The first craft of the day was a memo pad board – this was made using a photo frame on a magnetic strip, card, ribbon, decorative punches and some silver & gold pens. It was here that we realized the hot glue gun actually removes fingerprints from your fingers ha.

Our second craft of the day was a lot less painful well apart from the laughter that caused some aching cheeks and tear stained purple faces! We had great craic just enjoying the fun while learning new techniques.We carried on with these two crafts until 12.45pm then we broke up for dinner and wow what a feast we had.

At 2.30pm we all arrived back to start our third project, which was a fabric & ribbon notice board. We spent most of this class laughing and great fun was had. This was a totally relaxing day and the volume of laughter reached into the corridors. They say laughter is the best medicine, well we wish we could have bottled the whole day up and kept it safe.

Alas 4pm came and it was time for us to depart this wonderful sanctuary of tranquillity. As we headed out to “Tonto” and our awaited carriage some of the tutors came out to wave us all goodbye! I wondered was it because they would miss us, or were they secretly glad now they could have some peace from the bunch of cackling women who thought it was hilarious to staple ourselves to fabric. We had a great fun filled and relaxing day. What a blast ….we left An Grianán promising ourselves that we will definitely be back for more, not only did we learn new skills that will benefit us greatly, but new friendships were forged and great memories were made! Our cheeks might have ached and our tears flowed but it was a definitely a well worth adventure for all us ladies. Breda Bohan has also agreed to come out to our club and teach us more crafts, which will be great for us as funds are tight.

Future Plans
We have decided that next year hopefully we will set up a craft stall in the local craft fair to display our projects throughout the year. We will continue to grow in our knowledge and skills hopefully so that we can strengthen as a ladies group. Hopefully we can share our knowledge with other community groups in the area too. We have already started many projects in our club, from new born hats for Crumlin children’s hospital to knitting, jewellery, crocheting and rug making.

Our ladies club on a Thursday night means so much to us as it’s an outlet for socializing as many of us don’t get to go out. It’s here where we can come and forget our troubles for two hours and escape, to just sit, relax, chat and do our crafts. This club gives us a chance to make new friends and develop our skills whilst also building up our self-esteem and giving us the encouragement to just be our selves. When we all leave the club at the end of the night we always come away feeling rejuvenated and positive.