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The Glenbeigh
Races were first held on Rossbeigh Strand in 1924. However this was
to prove to be a costly venture as the local Garda Sergeant, a Mr.
Scannell summonsed the organisers to court for their failure to have
the required permit. The four people summonsed were:
• Diarmuid O’Sullivan (grandfather of
Peadar, current Race Committee Joint Treasurer)
• Tom Cahill of Droum
• Pat Morris of Mountain Stage (the then proprietor
of the shop in Mountain Stage)
• Tom Jones, then a local school teacher
For this they were fined £80, a huge sum of money then, later
reduced to £20, still a considerable amount of money. Coming
close to the ending of the divisive Civil War one can speculate that
there might have been differing attitudes to the legitimacy of the
administration of the legal remit involved. Needless to say, having
suffered such penal penalties there were no further attempts to host
the races for quite a while.
It wasn’t until 1957, that another attempt was made to host
racing in Glenbeigh. Amongst the organisers were Patrick Clifford
and Johnny O’Mahony, and they are still today active and involved
the organisation of Glenbeigh Races. Over the next number of years,
Glenbeigh began to become established as a holiday location, helped
by the growing international reputation of the Towers Hotel, and
the races held in late July / Early August grew to be the centrepiece
of a festival that stretched to over ten days. Indeed, the hotel
proprietor at that time, the larger than life Ernie Evans used to
host a party in his house at Rossbeigh on raceday which became the
place to be for those who perceived themselves to be “celebs”.
Initially a one day event, the Glenbeigh Races became a two-day meeting
before reverting back to one day. One year, the organisers even attempted
to host jump-racing, but this proved to be a disaster as horses cannot
get enough grip on the hard sand of Rossbeigh to enable them to jump
properly, and all that resulted was a series of refusals, unseated
riders and horses running out. Another less than successful innovation
was the introduction of Sulky Racing (Trotting Races where the horses
pulled a small lightweight cart or gig, also known as Standardbred
Racing). While the surface was in this case ideal, the public were
not interested and despite the popularity of this sport in West Cork,
the experiment in Glenbeigh was abandoned. However by the mid 1970’s
interest in the Glenbeigh Races was dwindling, largely brought about
by the small number of horses participating, and the uncompetitiveness
of the racing. In what was to prove to have disastrous consequences,
there were no races held in 1978, so when racing was scheduled for
1979, the Public Liability Insurance Premium jumped to £9000 – because
no premium was paid in 1978, a new policy was required, and the old
rate was lost. For that year the London-Glenbeigh Association paid
the premium, but with such unsustainable costs for Public Liability
Insurance, the races ceased.
In 1996 the Glenbeigh Races were resurrected following the negotiation
of an umbrella insurance policy that enabled all Horse and Pony Racing
throughout the country to avail of Public Liability Insurance at
reasonable cost. Under the guidance of people such as Pat and Joan
Griffin, Johnny O’Mahony, Patrick Clifford, Paddy Finn and
Brendan Sweeney, and backed by the very generous sponsorship of many
benefactors, the races grew from the initial one day, to become a
two day meeting. Glenbeigh Races is now one of the biggest race meetings
on the Horse and Pony Racing Calendar
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