Forty years since founding of 168th St Aengus Scout Group

A CELEBRATORY Mass to mark 40 years since the founding of the 168th St Aengus Scout Group was held in St Aengus’s Church last weekend.

Past and present members of the group gathered to celebrate the milestone, which included refreshments in the Scout Hall following the Mass.

Mary McGuigan was one of the team of founders that established the scout group 40 years ago, and said there was a strong appetite for a group of that nature for children in the area.

“The local priest put out a notice for a meeting in Scoil Íosa in the hopes of opening a scout troop because there was nothing here for kids,” she told The Echo.

“There was very big demand for it. When we started off first, we started off in classrooms in Scoil Íosa and then got our own plot of land from Dublin County Council for the Scout Hall.

“We went out and we held fundraisers [to develop the Scout Hall] and it was all voluntary.”

Founding member Mary McGuigan and her son Paul, investing her Grand daughter Chloe into the Cub scouts

Mary said she came from a family of scouts, as her uncles and brothers were all scouts, and so she was keen to help to establish a scout den in the local area, which has now been there for 40 years.

Talking about the 40th celebration on Sunday, Mary said: “It was absolutely brilliant, a lot of our first scouts turned up.

“It was our 40th, which meant a lot because we’ve come through a few bad times but survived it all.”

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