Part 1: The motorcyclist

THE MOTORCYCLIST
Written by  Bert Plomp

My wife and I take turns every day driving back and forth to our woodland on the northern side of the Conor Pass on the Dingle Peninsula in south-west Ireland. In that woodland and the adjoining fields, we keep the donkeys and ponies we have taken in from the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, where they now enjoy their retirement.
To reach this woodland, you have to brave the hazards of the long, steep and in places very narrow Conor Pass Road. This mountain road has many sharp, blind bends with overhanging rocks. During the holiday season, this leads daily to panic among touring visitors who at a certain point no longer dare to manoeuvre forwards or backwards, resulting in countless traffic jams. It is essential to drive at walking pace here, not only for your own safety and to be able to fully enjoy the view, but also for the well-being of the sheep, foxes and other animals that likewise make use of this breathtaking route.
Under these circumstances it is hard to imagine, yet there are still speed maniacs who tear along this thoroughly dangerous road as if they were on a Formula 1 circuit, with several fatal accidents as a result. Animals suffer most from this behaviour. On my journeys over the Conor Pass I regularly come across an animal that has been run over. Rarely does the person responsible take the trouble to look after such a poor creature. Simply driving on is usually the rule. It does not occur to the driver to take the animal, if it is still alive, to a vet, or, if it has already died, to lift it off the road and lay it in a quiet spot, covering it with some greenery. I become truly despondent whenever I encounter yet another pitiful being along my way. Only recently it was a sheep that had been run down, which moments before had still been in the prime of its life. The beautiful animal still felt warm and its eyes were shining with vitality. How can you leave such an animal in the middle of the road to its fate and simply drive on?
Riding over the Conor Pass Road has also become popular among motorcyclists. So far, my experience has been that these road users climb and descend the pass at a restrained speed. Sadly, last summer fate struck one of them mercilessly. Having safely negotiated the pass and reached the bottom, the 53-year-old man headed towards Tralee, with his home in Abbeyfeale as his final destination. The very first part of this journey runs along the valley above which our woodland lies in the mountains. It passes the house of our ‘down-the-road neighbour’. Michael’s home is about a hundred metres from the road, with a sheep pasture in between.
On that Sunday afternoon, Michael heard a loud bang outside his house. As it is usually very quiet in the vicinity of his home, he feared that something serious had happened. He hurried down to the road. When he arrived, he saw a motorcycle lying on the tarmac and its presumed rider lying motionless against a drystone wall by the roadside. Although such centuries-old drystone walls generally present a romantic sight, here it formed the backdrop to the agony of a motorcyclist.
Michael immediately informed the police of the accident and tried to make contact with the victim. Although the man was still alive, Michael realised that the motorcyclist was in a very bad way. While waiting for professional help, he did what he could to reassure the man. Hovering between life and death, the man asked, fear in his eyes: Will you hold my hand?
When you find yourself in such a deplorable situation in a foreign place, far removed from your loved ones, and you feel life slowly but surely leaving your body while you sense yourself moving through some kind of dim tunnel in which, for the moment, no light yet appears at the end, you have a deep need for a fellow human being to hold you firmly and prevent you from slipping away. Sadly, despite all of Michael’s devoted efforts, he was unable to prevent the poor man from dying at the scene.
Every time I pass this place of disaster, the image comes back to me of Michael holding the injured motorcyclist in his arms. Regularly, the bouquet of flowers placed in the fatal drystone wall is renewed. Recently, I saw a fellow motorcyclist respectfully taking care of this.