Community Games on a new jersey high amid great results
A SPECIAL commemoration will take place on Saturday, May 5, from 1pm to 2pm to mark the 130th anniversary of the opening of the Lartigue Monorail in Listowel.
The Lartigue operated for 36 years from 1888 to 1924 between Listowel and Ballybunion and as the late Bryan McMahon once said: “although the Lartigue was the quarest railway in the world, the people loved every wheel of it”. It became a very important part of world monorail history and has entered into the realms of railway folklore.
The Lartigue was named after its inventor and designer, Frenchman Charles Francois Marie Theresa Lartigue. He was employed by the Anglo-French company to go to Algeria to examine a more practical and economical way of transporting harvested esparto grass across the vast arid semi-desert plains of that country. A conventional narrow gauge railway system proved to be problematic and impractical as it was regularly covered over by drifting desert sand especially when the sirocco winds blew.
The story goes that as Lartigue was sitting in front of his tent one evening, he saw a cavalcade of camels in the distance carrying pannier baskets strapped across their backs laden with goods. From this sighting of the string of camels came the idea of an elevated rail system. The legs of the camels became trestles, their humps were transformed into wheels and the panniers became carriages.
By 1881, 60 miles of mule-powered, elevated track was functioning in Algeria. While Lartigue was perfecting his railway system from 1881 to 1885 the people of Ballybunion, now an emerging tourist destination, began a campaign to have a rail link provided between the resort and Listowel which had a rail connection from 1880 and had a service of four trains daily connecting it to Dublin, Limerick and Cork. The campaign was led by Fr Mortimer O’Connor, the local Parish Priest in Ballybunion.
Because of Fr Mortimer O’Connor’s persistence and with the support of William Reginald Earl of Devon a connection was made with Charles Lartigue. An Act for making “a Railway between Listowel to Ballybunion in the County of Kerry, and for other purposes” was passed by Parliament on 16 April 1886. The railway opened on March 5, 1888, the first train driven by Joseph Holyoke, a member of a family that became synonymous with the railway.
The Lartigue served north Kerry well. Up to 1,000 passengers a day were carried during peak days during the summer. There was a perception that to get the complete Ballybunion experience one had to arrive on the Lartigue.
A number of reasons led to the closure of the Lartigue on 14 October, 1924; the last train driven into Listowel by Michael Holyoake, whose grandfather drove the first train out of Listowel in March 1888. But for the initiative of Mick Barry from Ballingown, Lisselton, very little of the original Lartigue would have survived. Local historian Michael Guerin also published an excellent history of the Lartigue to mark its centenary in 1988.
The story of the Lartigue Monorail restoration project is worthy of a publication in its own right. The story began when I visited Mick Barry’s farm in Ballingown and saw the 40 metres of track and carriage that he had assembled on his farmyard. I decided there and then to initiate the Lartigue Restoration Project. I set up a committee of individuals who had a family connection or a genuine interest in the original Lartigue. The massive injection of €250,000 from the Millennium fund, the provision of an outstanding group of tradesmen under foreman, Tom Roche, and the donation of a site by Kerry County Council enabled work to commence in 2000 on Phase One of the project which included the building of 500 metres of track complete with switches and turntables, a locomotive and two carriages. This was officially opened by President Mary McAleese in October 2005 at a cost of €1.3million. A substantial amount of the funding was generated by fundraising events that I organised in New York, Chicago, Boston, Dublin, London, San Francisco, San Jose and San Diego. Also, local people sponsored sleepers and made financial contributions. We received generous sponsorship from companies such as Spectra Laboratories, Shannon Ferries, Kerry Group PLC, Ardfert Quarries, JJ Galvin, Airgrid and McKenna’s Hardware.
Phase Two involved the conversion of the old Great Southern goods store into a Museum. It features memorabilia from the original Lartigue and the main line railway, including film footage of the original Lartigue Monorail. It was officially opened by the French Ambassador to Ireland Mrs Emmanuelle d’Achon in 2013. Funding for Phase Two was provided by Failte Ireland with a grant of €358,000, €45,000 from Tuatha Ciarraí, a very generous donation of €250,000 from Jack McKenna and €70,000 from the sale of a book I published on “My Sporting Life”. LISTOWEL Community Games members and organisers are flying high these days following further provincial wins as well as the securing of vital sponsorship.
Secretary Jill Carey gave deep thanks on behalf of all in the organisation to Charlie Cantillon and Dan O’Connor from Fitzgeralds Centra for sponsoring the branch’s new jerseys, in what marks a long association of sponsorship between the business and the organisation in Listowel.
News of the sponsorship comes after both the boys and girls’ badminton teams won the Munster finals of the racket sport at the University of Limerick, clinching the honour of representing Kerry in the All-Ireland finals later in the year.
And it’s an equally busy week ahead for the Listowel branch as it hosts its annual athletics competition on Thursday, May 3, at 6.15pm in the sportsfield of Scoil Réalta na Maidine.
The programme of events taking place at the boys’ school is as follows:
Boys and Girls: U8 60M, 80M; U10 100M, 60M hurdles 200M; U12, 100M, 200m (at county level only), 600M; U14 100M, 80M hurdles, 800M; U16 100M, 200M, 1500M; Tiny Tots Race and U6 Race.
Field events for boys and girls: U12 Ball Throw; U14 Long Jump, Shot Putt. Fun relay race for u10, u 12 and u14.
Competitors must be under age as of July 31, 2018, and from Listowel parish. Admission is €2 per child.