IN WATERVILLE, a popular holiday destination near the Ring of Kerry, stands a bronze statue of silent movie star and director, Charlie Chaplin.
The statue, accompanied by a stone plaque, remembers the actor as “a welcome and humble guest and friend to many” of Ireland.
But why the statue? And why here?
Well, the Chaplin family – Charlie, his wife Oona and their eight children – spent many summer holidays in the village throughout the 1960s.
Chaplin was born in England, made his career in the United States and spent his final years in Switzerland. But what drew him to holiday, repeatedly, on our green isle?
In Garret Daly’s documentary, Kerry and the Tramp, made for RTÉ Radio One, Chaplin’s daughter Geraldine revealed the origins of his relationship with Ireland, which began in 1959.
Her mother, Oona O’Neill, had Irish ancestry and wanted to visit the country her family left prior to her birth. Chaplin enthusiastically made the voyage overseas, swapping film sets for quaint countryside views.
Chaplin, at this time, was a global superstar. But in rural Ireland, where the faceless medium of radio ruled as a main source of entertainment, the actor enjoyed anonymity among the locals.
Detailing the filmmaker’s holidays in Waterville, Chaplin Film Festival includes ”fishing on Lough Currane” as Chaplin’s favourite pastime.
Each year, Chaplin stayed in the Butler Arms Hotel and befriended the owners, the Huggard family. The website Vacation Killarney marks the break-out of The Troubles in Northern Ireland, from 1970, as the end of their summers in Waterville with “fears [the violence] would spread south.”
Twenty-eight years after Chaplin’s final visit, the bronze cast statue, by sculptor Alan Ryan Hall was unveiled in July 1998. The life-sized figure depicts Chaplin dressed as The Tramp, his most famous character from the 1915 movie of the same name.
The piece was funded by the actor’s daughter, Josephine Chaplin and the EU Leader Programme, an organisation supporting rural development.
As well as being immortalised in bronze, Chaplin’s mark on Kerry extends to the annual Charlie Chaplin Comedy Film Festival. Since its inaugural event in 2011, the festival is held every August in the town of Waterville.
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