Sure signs of homesick emigrants

IT’S a sign of the times – homesick emigrants who are taking Irish road signs to bring back to their new homes abroad are causing traffic chaos in Co. Kerry.

The latest raft of thefts in the Kingdom has left tourists and locals spending hours negotiating the tiny back roads with l i ttle signage left to aid drivers.

On Sunday there was chaos for road users in mountainous south Kerry when traffic was diverted inland from the coastal road following landslide on Ring of Kerry near Kells, it has been claimed.

Journeys of an hour across the Iveragh peninsula took some tourists almost four hours as they tried to find their way in the labyrinth of tiny roads around Glencar without any signage.

Even native Kerry people had no idea where they were going following the diversion, with one Tralee man contacting local radio to say it took him hours to find his way out of the mountainous maze – eventually he reached Moll’s Gap.

A B&B owner at Kells, whose guests had a tough time trying to get home, said while there are plenty of signs for the pedestrian Kerry Way, there are none for road traffic. The council has conceded there are virtually no signs in the area because of theft, possibly by sentimental emigrants.

‘In certain pockets of south Kerry a lot of our signposts have been stolen,’ senior roads engineer, Ger MacNamara said.

The matter had been raised at council meetings previously – the signs for the high mountain passes of Bealagh Oisín, (the way of Oisín) and the pass of Ballaghbeama Gap in the area rich in mythology had ended up in pubs in New York and Chicago, Mr MacNamara said.

Meanwhile, the road is still being cleared after a landslide of more than 3,000 tonnes of material came down following a localised cloudburst at around 4.30pm on Sunday near one of the main tourist viewing points on the Ring.

A stop-go system is now allowing traffic to pass along the main Ring of Kerry N70, however culverts are still being cleared.

Its not the first time the Ring of Kerry has turned into little more than a maze.

Three years ago councill or s demanded the introduction of tamperproof road signs after complaints that pranksters were turning around finger post signs.