Brian Hennessy

KENNEDY Equine Centre in Co Kerry, home to many of Ireland’s top sport horse stallions, was devastated with massive flooding last week, coming just months after another flood which also caused extensive damage.

Top sires O.B.O.S Quality, Lancelot, Future Trend and KEC Maximum Joe are just some of the stallions who stand at KEC in Tralee, which is run by William (Bill) and Anna Kennedy along with their family.

“In the 30 years we are here we have never seen flooding like this,” said Anna Kennedy this week when speaking to The Irish Field. “We had a small flood in September this year and after that we built a very long four-foot wall and we thought that would be the end of it.

“We woke up last Saturday morning and the house was surrounded by water. There was four feet of water in the stables and all our hay and straw was destroyed. We had only just finished replacing the sand in the indoor arena following the September floods and now it is totally destroyed again. The water started coming into the house and we had to get clay banked up around the doors to keep it out.”

While much of Ireland’s west coast has experienced flooding in recent weeks, the Kennedy’s are adamant that housing development on traditional flood plains in the area by Kerry County Council is a major factor in this second flood of 2015.

“Kerry County Council have built three housing estates in recent years on the flood plains and put no extra drainage in place. We never had flooding like this before these houses were built. They came out and had a look at the damage this week and they have promised to carry out work on the river so hopefully this will happen,” said Mrs Kennedy.

There was no response from Kerry County Council to queries by The Irish Field by the time of going to press.

Anna Kennedy was keen to pay tribute to all those who helped them at this incredible difficult time: “We would like to thank everyone who helped us move over 50 horses and all the people who offered us stables. We have a very small sport horse community down here in Kerry but people have been very helpful. 2015 was one of our busiest years in a long time after some tough years in the recession and we would like to thank our customers for their patience at this time and we do hope breeders will continue to support us in 2016.”