We will be shortly welcoming to Athy the Chilean team for the
Special Olympics. The town will host the team until its departure to the
various venues to participate in the competition. The arrival of the special Olympians in the town
and in towns across the country has been eagerly awaited over the last few
months. As the event draws near it
occurs to me that there are very few
events held or hosted by this country which focus the eyes of the world upon us
One such event held over 100 years ago on the 2nd of July 1903, in
the area of South Kildare and Athy, was the Gordon Bennett motor race,. I
recently came across a publication entitled “Automobile Fortnight in Ireland”,
printed in Dublin at the time of the race which was a guide for all those who
wished to attend and watch the race. The
guide detailed the arrangements for the race and faithfully records the
meticulous preparations of the races organisers. On the day of the race at
6.00am on Thursday, 2nd of July, the roads over which the race would
be run would be closed and every road running into the main road of the course
would be blocked at the same hour, with two RIC men placed in charge of each
barrier.
At 6.30am two pilot cars would start to make an entire circuit of the
course, one going east and one going west.
The purpose of this was to warn the public that the race was to begin,
and that nobody was to be allowed on the course until the race had been
completed.
In the weeks preceeding the race an enormous amount of work was
undertaken in the area where the race was to take place. The Automobile Club
Journal published on June 11th 1903 reported “that the roads had been thoroughly repaired throughout the circuit,
certain bends had been straightened, and right angled turns rounded off, and
the hedges had been cut down for two hundred yards on the approach side of each
corner. Caution and warning signs will be fixed if necessary and the
roads stewards will be supplied with flags, for the purpose of warning an
approaching car in case of obstruction on the road. All animals are to be put into fields and not
allowed to stray, and not a single spectator will be allowed either on the road
itself or on the roadside at the hedges.
As a further precaution all the inhabitants on the road and within three
hundred yards of each side of it will be personally circularised with warning
notices, and in addition, public notices will be posted in every convenient
site, setting out in detail the name of the roads closed for the purpose of the
race, and also giving a general warning to the public to remain behind the
hedges and to obey strictly the police and
club officials”
It would appear that these warnings were necessary as one of the
teams which had practiced on the roads three weeks before the race believed
that the roads in Ireland were used more or less as farmyards for the breeding
of chickens and other birds and beasts. The drivers found that they had to take
the greatest care to prevent accidents occurring between themselves and these
animals, although occasionally even their great skill could not prevent the
killing of an unfortunate chicken. On
all such occasions compensation was agreed between the driver of the vehicle
and the owner, who retained the carcass.
It did occur to some of the more cynical drivers that perhaps the number
of chicken increased on the road daily. However this was balanced by the
increasing intelligence of the birds, quipped the English driver Jarrott, in
that they knew what to do when a car appeared in sight!
A canvas village was erected at Ardscull consisting of approximately
one hundred tents which supplied dining and seating accommodation for over five
hundred people. Indeed all the towns in
the area surrounding the race rushed to ensure that the adequate facilities
were made available to the visitors to the town. It was perhaps inevitable that
some people would take advantage of the demand for accommodation and food
around race day and there were complaints at the time in the local press that outrageous
prices were being charged by hoteliers.
It was alleged that some business people and farmers were charging 6
pence for a glass of water, 1 shilling for a wash-up at a farmyard pump and 6
pounds a night for a room in a cottage near Athy! The Athy Urban District
Council was moved to contradict an statement which had been published regarding
the nature and expense of hotel accommodation in the area. The UDC emphasised that the ordinary Summer
rate of £4.4s per week would be available at all times during the racing
period.
The elaborate arrangements for the event extended to the provision
of viewing facilities for the thousands of people who would come to the
race.
Perhaps the most dramatic and defining image of the race itself was the huge grand stand which held
almost a thousand people, which was built straddling the main Dublin to Athy
road at Ballyshannon, in such a way as to allow the competitors in their cars
to pass safely underneath.
The race is also notable for the first recorded motor accident in
Laois. On the Stradbally side of the
Dunamaise hill an English driver Jarrott crashed when something went wrong with
his steering gear and he lost control of the machine. The car careered into a bank on one side of
the road rebounding off the bank and throwing both Jarrott and his companion
out of the vehicle. The injured men were
attended to by Surgeon Ormsby from Broomfield Cross and both men were then conveyed to Rheban Castle where the English
team were staying prior to the race. The
race itself was won by the enigmatic German Camille Jenatzy, in a time of six
hours and thirty nine minutes. Driving a
Mercedes, Jenatzy, was a popular winner with the crowd who admired him for his
daredevil driving. He would later die tragically in 1913 when he was
accidentally shot by some of his friends while hunting for wild boar.
In the year that marks the centenary of the race a series of events
are planned in and around the town for the June Bank Holiday weekend when the
roads will again roar with the sound of these magnifient vintage cars, the
pioneers of modern motor racing.
No comments:
Post a Comment