County Carlow Welcomes Home Our Double Winter Olympian Tess Arbez

Carlow County Museum, on behalf of our parent body Carlow County Council, coordinated the Welcome Home for Tess Arbez, Ireland and Carlow’s Two Time Winter Olympian. She was officially welcomed home to County Carlow by Cllr. Brian O’Donoghue, Cathaoirleach of Carlow County Council, at a civic welcome in the Town Hall in Carlow Town.
Tess’s grandfather, father of her mother Marguerite, is Francis Neerman, born in Carlow Town in 1944, and he is the son of Auguste and Alida Neerman from Ghent in Belgium. Auguste worked for the Belgium company Lippens who built the Carlow Sugar Factory in 1926. Auguste was one of the senior staff who came from Belgium in 1925 to set up the Carlow Sugar Factory. From 1939 to 1949 he was the Factory Manager, one of the most prestigious jobs in the country at that time.
Tess, who lives in France, has completed for Ireland at both the 2018 Winter Olympics held in PyeongChang, South Korea, and the 2022 Winter Olympics held in Beijing, China, in February 2022. She created history by becoming the first Irish female competitor in a speed skiing event, the Super-G, in 2022.