Club History

A few people who were volunteers of Romanian Appeal Helpline (a charity that carried out repair and maintenance to Orphanages in Romania since 1992) decided in February / March 1995 to run a major 2 day cycle event. 

Plans for the event were developed and it was decided that the cycle would be from Loughinisland to Greysteel in Derry with part of the cycle going via the Shankill Road in Belfast. This was linking the three areas that suffered from a tragedy a few years earlier. In order to run the cycle and to insure the event with the CTC it needed to be linked to a Cycle Club. So a club called Loughinisland Cycle Club was formed primarily for the running of this event. 

People involved in the committee set up to organise this event were, John Trainor, Paul Rogan, Joe Gibney, Martin Gibney, Pat Gibney, Jim Toman, Briege Toman, Gerry Carvill, Seamus Carvill and Gerry Morgan. From that committee only Pat, Martin and Gerry are still members of LRCC. As it was linked to the three tragedies we got both radio and television coverage and made a profit of £22,000 (huge money then). Approx £15,000 went to Romanian Appeal Helpline and the remainder to a number of local charities. 

The next year 1996 the same event was held raising a profit of £17,000. Both events were held in May each year. From then until now this event was scaled down to what is still our one day cycle event "Over the Quoile" which is being held this year on 18th May. 

The Loughinisland Cycle Club had its own club jersey and some members still have the jersey. In 1997/98 with the interest in cycling growing in the area and the need for a properly formed and organised club a meeting was held to discuss this issue. At the meeting it was decided that as members would be from further afield than Loughinisland that the name Loughinisland Cycle Club would not be appropriate or be acceptable to all members of the new club. Over a few meetings a number of possible names were put forward and a vote was then taken on all the names. The name La Lanterne Rouge Cycle Club obtained the most votes and was duly taken as the name of the new club. 

The first post holders of that new committee were: 

Chairman - Roger Flynn 

Secretary - Gavin McConvey 

Treasurer - Martin Gibney.