Grieving family and community meet with rail representatives at scene of Straide tragedy.
GRIEVING Breege McGowan and Kitty Bourke, sisters of PJ McGowan, with a picture of their late brother.
Irish Rail makes commitments about crossings Áine Ryan IT WAS an accident waiting to happen – and PJ McGowan was the ultimate victim.
Like his neighbours, he’d had many near misses, such as that morning 33 years ago when he pulled out a little too far onto the track in his old Volkswagon, because the hedges hadn’t been trimmed. God knows what saved him that day. Sadly, on February 28 last, he wasn’t so lucky. The semi-retired farmer was killed instantly, near his home in Straide, when his car was struck by the 10.50am passenger train from Ballina to Manulla junction.
Despite the fact that his loving family and neighbours are devastated, they gathered in their dozens last Wednesday (March 19) to highlight their plea to Iarnród Éireann (Irish Rail) to ensure it never happens again.
“Will hundreds of lives have to be lost before Iarnród Éireann acts to make safe the thousands of unmanned crossings traversing the country’s railway lines?” That’s the question the late PJ’s nephew, Andrew McGowan, had asked politicians from across the party divide a fortnight earlier in the aftermath of his uncle’s death.
Last week his grieving sisters, Kitty Bourke and Breege McGowan, told The Mayo News about their relief that Irish Rail had not only met them but agreed to extend the roadway outside their late brother’s isolated house by 300 metres. This small concession obviates the need for neighbours of the dead farmer to cross the railway track at, at least, two unmanned, unautomated crossings.
A further meeting is scheduled to take place in June next after the completion of two separate reports on the accident by the Railway Safety Authority and the Department of Transport. Fine Gael’s Deputy Michael Ring, who has already raised the issue in the Dáil, also attended last week’s meeting.
“One life has been lost. That’s one too many. I am informed there are only 240 such crossings in the country, while there are hundreds more across fields that are really only affecting animals. Iarnród Éireann should upgrade those being used by people and make them safe,” said Deputy Ring. He welcomed the commitments made by the Iarnród Éireann officials and observed he will keep a watching brief on their delivery.
“Our whole family, all the nieces and nephews, are devastated by this tragedy, this cross of grief that we have to carry for the rest of our lives,” said Breege McGowan. “PJ was my brother, he was my best friend. He was very loved and very popular. This terrible tragedy should never have been allowed to happen.”
She told The Mayo News that she’d been writing to Irish Rail since 2006 about the dangers. “All I got was official acknowledgments.”
“These trains are going much faster nowadays. I remember last March, the weather was really stormy, there were hail showers. I got out to open the gate and was nearly blown onto the railway track. I had to find a rock to hold the gate back,” said Breege McGowan.
“It’s no joke as a retired pensioner trying to yank those gates open,” she continued.
Her sister Kitty Bourke, mother of the organiser of the meeting, Paul Bourke, observed that ‘once the new trains come onstream next summer, the people along the line will be virtual prisoners in their own homes’.
“It’s all about companies nowadays and not about people. PJ wrote a letter himself in 2006 [to Irish Rail] talking about the difficulties of trying to bring cattle across the line,” said Kitty Bourke.
Meanwhile, neighbour Sheila Lowe told The Mayo News about how the death had shocked the tightly-knit community.
“I knew PJ since I came to live here 32 years ago. It was just shocking. I mind my daughter’s child and she has to leave the child with me at 6.30 every morning for her job at Mayo General Hospital. Opening and closing those gates in the dark of winter with a child in the car is no joke,” said Sheila Lowe.
“It is ridiculous that a private individual has to be responsible for Irish railway safety,” she continued. Mrs Lowe also tellingly noted that the new trains were more silent and coloured green, which made them less perceptible and more dangerous.
For PJ McGowan’s niece, Emer Bourke, her uncle’s deserted house is a lonely place these days.
“After my grandparents died in 1978 and 1979, PJ lived in the house alone. It’s a very beautiful spot, overlooking the lake [locals call it PJ’s lake], but it’s also very dangerous. He was a very warm character, and he loved the craic. His neighbours were all devastated,” recalled Emer.
He was always involved in some project to improve the house and farm, said Emer. She told The Mayo News that he was building a new pillar for a gateway on the days before his untimely death.
Emer said that while PJ was never a big drinker, he used to go for a few pints to the Copper Beech or the Wishing Well until the introduction of the more stringent drink-driving laws.
Last Wednesday afternoon PJ’s best friend and neighbour, Tony Cogger, talked about how the two had worked on about 15 FÁS schemes together.
“It’s just unreal how he’s dead. He used to always ring me after he’d come in from the cattle and check if I needed to go to Foxford or Castlebar. I’ve only the tractor, you see,” said Mr Cogger.
“The cattle were his big interest. Every Saturday we’d go to the mart in Balla and then have our dinner together and talk about the prices,” he continued.
“That accident should never have happened,” added Tony Cogger.
