Lighter side of Christmas

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in Virginia thanks to the work of the Lights Committee who have been installing the town’s beautiful lights display, ready for the big switch-on by Santa on Sunday, December 7.

Cllr TP O’Reilly was amongst the Lights Committee fold working away in these dark evenings, ensuring the town looks its best for the festive season. The Celt bumped into the Fine Gael councillor as he collected a cherrypicker, generously loaned by CA Hire.

“We have a small committee who put up the lights every year, it’s all done by local volunteers and we do it over a couple of evenings,” TP explained. “We redid the lights about two years ago, so we’ll get this year out of them and there will probably be some investment needed next year.”

Looking ahead to 2026 Cllr O’Reilly was eagerly anticipating the advancement of a couple of major projects.

“The Waste Water Treatment Plant will be opened which will provide a big boost for planning permissions in the town, and will hopefully see an increase in housing supply. That will be a big bonus.

“We hope in early 2026 the M3 bypass will proceed to planning permission stage, so that will be a vital part of enhancing the town going forward. It’s something I’m going to be pushing very strongly from next year when we get into that space, to try to forge ahead with that.

Shop local

“On a personal note I’d like to thank everyone for their support over the last year, and if there’s anything where I can be of help, I ways try to do that as best I can.

“I’d like to encourage everyone to support local shops as much possible. We have Tesco now in Virginia in place of SuperValu and that seems to be going well.

“I’d like to wish everyone a happy, healthy and safe Christmas and New Year,” said Cllr O’Reilly.