Pétanque club bowled over by new shelter initiative
Connection between Men’s Sheds in Belturbet and Loughan House Open Prison facility
Erne Community Bowling and Pétanque Club have been bowled over by the generosity of Belturbet Heritage Railway and the local Men’s Shed, where all parties concerned have secured the input of inmates at Blacklion’s Loughan House to help restore two former Great Northern Railway wagons.
The end result will see Belturbet Railway, which hosts Erne Community Bowling and Pétanque Club within its grounds, earn a lovingly-restored new attraction. The pétanque members, meanwhile, will receive use of the goods wagons as serviceable shelters and a clubhouse.
The “cross-community project” is being carried through a connection forged between Belturbet Men’s Shed and the Men’s Shed at Loughan House Open Prison facility.
The now dilapidated wagons, originally built in 1880, have been at the Belturbet Railway Station site for close to a quarter of a century. Each of the historic wagons have their original steel frames still entact, however the wooden outer shells have since fallen away.
In return for their own hard work, Loughan House inmates involved in the restoration will receive a skills accreditation. The workers are being supported through Cavan-Monaghan Education and Training Board (CMETB) who are the providers of prison education at Loughan House.
Michael Gorman serves as treasurer of the Belturbet Men’s Shed, and is also a playing member of the Cavan County Pétanque Club. The club was formed late last year and already boasts close to a dozen members, taking part in inter-county competitions.
The club is an extension to the Belturbet Community Bowling Club, formed in May 2005 by John Bennett and Jim McElgunn.
“The railway gets to have a new permanent attraction for the site, and we as a club get to use them as a clubhouse. We’re very thankful for the link-up between the Men’s Shed here and in Loughan House, and hopefully it can be the first of many,” he says.
A funding application has since been submitted to the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. Some funding has been put forward by Belturbet Men’s Shed already, and it is expected that the total cost of the wagon restoration could rise as high as €6,500.
Mr Gorman paid tribute to the assistance of Angela Kelly, community education facilitator at CMETB, and to Enda Lee, Peter Perry, and Alan McLoughlin, attached to Loughan House.
It’s expected the restoration work will take several months to complete. Mr Gorman is under no illusion as to just how tough the task at hand will be. The steel frames are heavily rusted, and went under a brief inspection before they were moved by digger by local man Liam Shannon, and loaded onto a transporter provided by local haulage firm, McVitty Transport.
“We’re trying to keep as much of the steelwork in place as possible. It’s a unique project for [the inmates] to be working on. The accreditation is important, but the experience or working on something like this I think they’ll remember for a long time to come. The plan is to keep them as authentic as possible, and weatherproof them for future use.”
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