German-native Karl was anything

KARL Wagner, together with his wife Sabina and baby son Steven took up residence in Sneem in the early 1980s.

Having holidayed in Ireland earlier the Wagner family from Northern Germany chose to start a new life in Sneem, having been tempted here by the rugged scenery and what they perceived to be our relaxed life style. They were renting Pete’s House at Gerah Cross which I passed by daily on my way to Sneem. Word quickly spread that the ‘German’ there was good at fixing cars and tractors and so I quickly went to visit as my tractor was in need of some attention.

On that very first visit I was very impressed by the friendliness of this powerfully-built German who, despite his ‘broken’ English was very interested in our Irish customs and in the Sneem area in particular. (In a very short space of time Charlie had acquired a great command of the language.)

I was equally impressed by his ability to get my tractor motoring again and also by his most impressive store of tools and equipment that he had brought with him from Germany. That first conversation was to become the first of very many long discussions and debates that I had with Karl or ‘Charlie’ as he was to be known by in Sneem over the next two decades or so. He was in his element discussing international affairs, threats of major world conflicts, the stock market etc.

After a few years in Gerah, Charlie was anxious to acquire a site so as to build his own home.

I offered him a site at Ankail in Tahilla in exchange for building a cattle shed for me, keeping my farm machinery in good working order etc. It was during the construction of that cattle shed that I first told Charlie that he certainly wasn’t an ‘average man’. Relying only on pulleys and planks he managed to hoist up the stanchions for the shed which were very long lengths of railway track weighing most of a ton. He then proceeded to do some remarkable welding within the shed which is still as solid today as when first welded.

Charlie proceeded to design and build his own home in Tahilla, complete with two fish ponds. During the construction of his own home and also whilst working at the Long Lake House in Tahilla, Charlie employed up to five locals for some time. He seemed to have had a unique relationship with his workforce because during lunch break Charlie would occasionally engage in bouts of wrestling with them. He always fondly recalled his wrestling contests with Danny Breen, one of Sneem’s strongest men.

Charlie’s interests however were not confined to mechanics and building. Despite the fact that he had left school at a young age he had built up a very impressive library both in Tahilla and latterly in his home