Snake discovered at Kent Station likely to be escaped family pet

Evidence has come to light suggesting that St. Patrick may not have banished all the snakes from Ireland as a Cork man found out on Monday when he visited Kent Station to find a non venomous snake slithering alongside the tracks.

Colm Twohig was out walking with a colleague, Siobhán Horgan, and they went to see the new points system installed by the railway track at the bottom of Myrtle Hill.

He told PJ Coogan’s Opinion Line on 96FM that Siobhán said she had spotted something and thought it might be a snake.

“We were looking at it and walked over towards it and next thing it moved.

“Cripes, what’s that?”, Colm recalled saying. “It must be a snake, you wouldn’t expect to see a snake down around here.” They moved closer and examined it and it raised its head two inches or so to stare back at them. Colm took some footage of the snake on his camera and it moved away.

“We thought we might pick it up, we didn’t think it was dangerous at all and we thought it might be a corn snake,” he said. “We decided to get gloves and a bag to put it into.

“Myself and another fellow went back down and, unfortunately, we couldn’t find him when we went back down.” 

UCC Zoology lecturer Simon Harrison said, having viewed the footage taken by Colm, that the snake appeared to be a non-venomous corn snake.

“The poor thing is probably very cold, and I would guess has only been at liberty for a short time. it would not last long in the wild in an Irish March!

“These snakes are totally harmless (non-venomous) and commonly kept as pets.

 “Unfortunately, they also tend to escape quite easily and/or are released into the wild by people who do not wish to look after them anymore - you tend to find goldfish in the ponds in urban parks for the same reason.” 

A query has been sent to Irish Rail asking if staff at Kent Station have come across the snake.