Future of pony and traps to be reviewed

GAP OF Dunloe pony-and-trap operations will face a review over the coming months, it emerged last night.

The Department of Transport said last night it expects Kerry County Council, which regulates the decades-old industry, to review it following Monday’s tragedy.

The Mayor of Killarney said that following investigations into the deaths of two American tourists, local authorities will look into jaunties at the Gap of Dunloe.

There had been mounting concerns about safety before the incident which led to the deaths of US tourists Joy Few and Normand Larose.

Over the last ten years or so there have been a number of minor-to-serious injury falls and at one stage, in 2004, it was feared the entire pony and trap industry would have to close down because the operators found it almost impossible to get insurance. Insurance companies were reluctant to indemnify them because premiums hardly covered the level of money that was being paid to tourists being injured falling from them. The last near-miss was in May 2017. Then three US tourists were flung from a carriage on a tour of the Killarney lakes after the horse was startled and backed part of the carriage over a cliff.

Luckily the jarvey driver, a local man named Hugh O’Donoghue, was able to control the horse and avert a tragedy.

He was badly injured in the incident but the tourists escaped relatively unscathed.

It is near misses like that and incidents involving serious – and now catastrophic – accidents that have left serious doubts about the industry’s future.

Killarney councillor Michael Gleeson said last night: ‘Pony trap riding will go on. Accidents will always happen.’

He said there was great sympathy for the deceased tourists but also for the pony men. ‘It is traumatic for all sides.’