By Sean Moriarty

There will be several road closures in the Killarney area to facilitate this weekend's running of the Rally of the Lakes.

The 42nd rally will bring a much needed early season boost to the locality.

With close to 200 competitors, from as far afield as Australia set to take part in the event, the town will busy all weekend.

The Lewis Road car park is already closed to the public since last night (Thursday) to allow overnight parking for the 200 rally cars taking part in the event. This car park will remain out of bounds until late on Sunday evening.

The ceremonial start takes place on Main Street tonight (Friday). As a result there will be traffic disruptions in the town centre from 6pm until 9pm.

The ceremonial start is a family friendly event and presents an ideal opportunity to meet the star drivers ahead of their two days of competition.

The ramp celebration is being organised by Mike Moriarty. He has arranged extra entertainment including music and dancing to set the tone for tonight's event.

“People can expect plenty of surprises and some of our local drivers will be celebrated too,” he said.

The rally itself takes place tomorrow (Saturday) and Sunday.

The Molls’ Gap road will close from 7am to 11.15am tomorrow morning. However, the rally moves into the Beara Peninsula and the Castletownbear area for the remainder of the day and the rally will not affect local traffic.

Sunday’s action includes repeats of Moll’s Gap and visits to Ballaghbeama. Moll’s Gap will close from 6.30am until 1.15pm while Ballaghbeama will be out of bounds from 7.30 to 2pm.

The Sunday pitstop for the rally is at the Liebherr Container Crane Factory in Fossa so approach roads to and from the village will be busy all day and motorists are advised to plan their journeys accordingly.

The afternoon action switches to East Kerry with Rathmore, Barraduff and Gneeveguilla all set to be much busier than usual.

The Gortnagane road will close from 12.15pm to 6.05pm while the Knockrower East area will be closed from 12.45pm to 6.45pm.

Full details of the route and additional information are available in the official programme which is on sale in a host of outlets locally.