By Sean Moriarty

When a relatively straightforward rail journey from Galway to Killarney turned to a nightmare, three strangers experienced a Christmas miracle and got home in time for the holidays.

Cara Ní Chofaigh, a NUI Galway student and an employee of a Galway-based citizens support agency, urgently needed to get home to Kells this week as she is back working over the weekend.

She left Céannt Station Galway on Tuesday, and expected to arrive in Killarney at 10.15pm later that evening where her mother was waiting to bring her on the final leg of her journey.

She made it to Colbert Limerick Station a little later than planned due to signalling issues.

That meant she missed her connecting train to Limerick Junction and onward connection to Killarney via Mallow.

At this point Irish Rail staff advised her not to travel to Limerick Junction as she would have been stranded there.

Two more young women, strangers to Cara, found themselves in the same predicament on a lonely platform in Limerick.

Cara admitted that she knew one of the women to see but did not know her personally, and that the third woman was a Limerick-based tourist on the way to Killarney to visit friends.

Irish Rail staff were trying desperately to find solutions, the three women were offered a bus to Tralee and an onward connection to Killarney by taxi but that would mean they would not arrive at their final destination until well after 1am.

“A man called Tony stepped up and said he would drive us to Killarney, it was all very surreal,” Cara told the Killarney Advertiser.

“He went out of his way. He was supposed to collect his son from the cinema at 11.30pm but, instead he was driving us to Killarney, it was just amazing.”

The three women eventually arrived in Killarney at 11pm, 45 minutes later than planned. In an ironic twist, they met their Mallow train in Farranfore after that was also delayed due to the same signalling issues.

“All in all we were about 15 minutes late,” added Cara. “I was able to tell my mother the whole story on the drive down to Kells, she was laughing and kept saying ‘only something like this could happen to you’.”

Cara is only home for Christmas for a few days. She is due back in Galway tomorrow (Friday) as she is scheduled to work for the citizens support agency over the weekend.

“At one point I really thought I would not get home for Christmas,” she said. “It is a lot easier to get connections back to Galway late at night and I was considering going back up.”

Instead, thanks to the Irish Rail employee, she was able to spend Wednesday and Thursday with family in South Kerry.