Listowel Connection

This blog is a personal take on Listowel, Co. Kerry. I am writing for anyone anywhere with a Listowel connection but especially for sons and daughters of Listowel who find themselves far from home. Contact me at listowelconnection@gmail.com

Month: February 2013 Page 2 of 4

Listowel kids1994, Crusaders and GAA in 1880s

By

On February 21, 2013

In Uncategorized

Due to the popularity of my previous young people photo here is another from the family album. This one is dated July 13 1994. Weren’t they cute?

This was the previous photo and I have to apologize to two people I misidentified. The two girls I named as the Clifford sisters are in fact, Catherine Moylan and Mairead Regan (I think).

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This is The Square in Listowel on Saturday. Notice the people in the high vis tops. They are the Crusaders on their weekly run. These local people are a great example to  us all, a healthy lifestyle and lots of fundraising as well.

I “borrowed” this photo from Mary Toomey Roche’s page.

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Do you remember this sound of summer?

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Timeline of GAA in Listowel from 1885 to 1899

June 27th 1885

Meeting to form G.A.A. Club was held. The following resolution was proposed and seconded: “That we, the people of Listowel in public meeting assembled, hereby establish a branch of the G.A.A.” A club was then formed with the following officers: J. W. Keane was appointed President; M. Murphy, Vice-President; Richard Stack, Treasurer and M. J. Flavin, Honorary Secretary.

August 10th 1885

G.A.A. Club organised sports Meeting – no report.

November 1888

County Board formed: Listowel delegates present: Martin O’Sullivan and J. McGrath.

On Martin O’Sullivan’s proposition T. Slattery was appointed chairman.

1889

1st County Championship

1st Round – Listowel (Feale Amateurs) defeated Irremore.

2nd Round. Tralee Mitchels defeated Listowel (Feale Amateurs)

April 28th 1889

First Town League recorded – William St. (Shamrocks) V Church St. (Amateurs)

1890

County Championship- Listowel defeated by Tralee Mitchels

1894

1st recorded Listowel team on print (Club History)

1895

Football Club split – 2 teams (Listowel Football Club) and Listowel Temperance Society Club (St Patrick’s)

County Championship Draw: Listowel Football Club V Tralee Mitchels and St. Patrick’s V Irremore

1896

Formation of Listowel Wild Geese.

1899

Opening of Listowel Sports field.

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The Real Taoiseach

Jack Lynch in 1957, dapper, as always

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JFK and family with dogs (photo from the JFK library)

Conferring of Diplomas in 1954, Super Valu and Horans

By

On February 20, 2013

In Uncategorized

This is one of the photos in Vincent’s Carmody’s Listowel, Snapshots of an Irish Market Town.

A little known fact about Vincent is that he is related to two acclaimed writers, Richard and Stephen White. Below is what Stephen writes about Vincent’s book in his Facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/StephenWhiteBooks

“There seems to be no end to my writing relatives, or in the amazing number of writers who have roots in County Kerry, Ireland. I’ve written previously about my mother Sara’s background. She was born in Ballylongford in County Kerry and emigrated to Chicago during the Depression. Her life story on both sides of the Atlantic is chronicled in my older brother Richard’s book, “Ahanagran: A History of Stories.” One of the important places in that history, and in my mother’s life, was the nearest market town to Ballylongford—the place my mother considered the big city, Listowel.


Now another relative—my second cousin, Vincent Carmody (his grandmother and my grandmother were sisters)—has written a glorious love letter to the Listowel of my mother’s youth. His handsome new book is called “Listowel: Snapshots of an Irish Market Town, 1850-1950.” If you have any Irish in you, or in your background—or maybe just have a love of Irish history—it’s an entrancing look back at how your Irish ancestors lived, traded, and shopped. Consider taking a look.”


High praise, indeed!



Vincent’s book is available to purchase here


http://listoweloriginals.com/




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x

 From The Kerryman in 1954

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A few days ago I did a little photo essay of the refurbishment of this premises but I was reminded that I did not include a recent picture. So here it is, SuperValu as it is today.

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This is now, that was then….

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Martin Griffin’s lovely old photo of his father, Andrew Griffin. In the background is the old mill in Greenville.

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A group of today’s young Irish emigrants in Perth attempt to recreate the iconic image of Irish workmen in New York in the 1950s.

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 Trad Night is back

Friday night next in Tankers at 9.00 p.m.  A great session guaranteed.

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This is the way of the future

Massive kegs of Guinness being unloaded from boats from Holland at Dún Laoghaire on Monday night      (photo;  Emma McNamara)

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+  Eileen Larkin R.I.P. +

The death took place on 17 February 2013 of Eileen Larkin who was born at  Rathea, Listowel and was  Retired Public Health Nurse, Ballybunion. Requiem Mass for Eileen was celebrated on 19th February 2013 in St. Bridget’s Church, Duagh. Her body was donated to Medical Science, University College Cork.

Bord na Mona, Lidl in Listowel and Knitwits

By

On February 19, 2013

In Uncategorized

This is the Whickham rail car which was used to ferry
visitors around the Bord na Mona works. the passenger is Father Brown, the famous photographer of World War I
and Titanic fame. He visited BnM in the late 1940s and took lots of photos.
Here he is waiting for the visit to start.

In these 2 photos, Fr. Browne has alighted from the car and his hosts are moving it off the line and out of the way of the oncoming cart.

This photo from the Fr. Browne visit  is from Lyrecrompane or Barna . The McHenry lorry has
“Kerry” written on its side. The lorry is being loaded with sod turf,
probably for the Dublin market. At the same time a donkey and cart is also being loaded with turf for local delivery. The new and old way of delivering turf pictured side by side. 


Photos and text from


Bord na Mona Heartland

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Here is another of those old photos from Maurice MacMahon. On the right is Jim (Salmon) Roche. Another one for his family to enjoy at their upcoming family gathering. No one so far can name his companion.

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Lidl under construction

Excavating the site 2006

The walls have arrived.

August 2006

Lidl today

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KnitWits

To celebrate our 2nd. birthday and to coincide with our first Tuesday knit-in I will give you here a short history of KnitWits.

KnitWits, Listowel’s knitting and crochet group began life on February 12 2011.

Isobel Barrett put an
ad in the library and in a few shop windows in town. We rang Isobel and she
told us that the first meeting was organized for Saturday February 12 in Off
the Square Café.

 10  knitters turned up. We drank
coffee or tea and knitted away. Isobel decided on the name Knirvana. This name
had been suggested to her by Martina in the library. It proved to be
troublesome later when we established our web presence. People kept going to
the website of the band of a similar name or else putting in Knitvana, so we
changed to KnitWits, which is what Liam Hayes had always called us.

There are 6 of that original gang who still come regularly.
People dropped out for various reasons but they are all welcome back at any
time.

In 2012 the café closed and we were homeless for a few weeks
before Isobel found us our new home in Scribes. We were very happy in Off the
Square and we missed them at first but Scribes is a super location for us,
bright and airy, comfortable, great food and lovely staff. Namir has become
one of us and has made us all feel at home in his lovely restaurant.

Our numbers have swelled to roughly 20, 11 or 12 of whom come
most Saturdays. We have a mix of ages but the majority of us are in the older
category. We still remember the age when women knit all their families’
jumpers.

We count among us a goodly number of women who have lived
most of their adult lives outside of Ireland. We have women who were born in
England and Wales, women who were born in various counties of Ireland and were
driven out by the last recession. We have blow- ins from Cork and other places
further afield. This diversity adds spice to the chatter which is an essential
part of our get- togethers.

What do we do between 11.00a.m. and 1.00p.m. ?

We knit or crochet, we exchange patterns, and we chat. We
have a cuppa or a mini breakfast and we provide a support network for one
another. We are friends.

We have adopted 2 charities, locally The Society of St.
Vincent de Paul and globally Kozy Kaps 4Kids. We have got great pleasure and
satisfaction from using our talents to help those less fortunate than us. So
far we have raised €400 from our Christmas Craft Stall for St. Vincent de Paul
and we have made over 100 caps for children undergoing chemotherapy.

We enjoy our sessions so much that we have decided to meet
on two days per week in future. From this week, Knitwits will meet in Scribes
on Tuesdays and Saturdays from 11.00 to 1.00. We welcome new people at any
stage. While we do not give lessons, we are always willing to help a beginner
or anyone who is encountering difficulties with a pattern.

We also reach out to our sister group who meet in The Family
Resource Centre on Thursday nights. There is a significant overlap in our
membership and we share an annual outing to The Knitting and Stitching Show in
the RDS Dublin in October.

We are on the web at

https://www.facebook.com/pages/KnitWits/134286519974162

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I got this email from Karen in the US

Hello,


Was wondering if you can help? We are trying to locate members of the Kiely family who we believe had a store in the town around the early 80s. May of been a son (?) of Cornelious Kiely and we think there may of been a brother who was a priest, possibly Michael. They had connections with the Kielys from Glin.


Any information at all would be very helpful.

Thank you very much.


Regards

Karen

I directed her here

http://churchstreet53.com/intro.html

Does anyone else have any ideas?

Kennedy’s Bread, Vincent de Paul Society and KnitWits

By

On February 18, 2013

In Uncategorized

Monday, Monday……..

  Mid term break over, grandchildren returned to their parents and life is back to normal chez listowelconnection.

I was heading downtown on Saturday circa 10.45a.m. and the motorbike people were just gathering at The New Kingdom for their annual Nano Nagle fundraising run. They had a lovely day for it.

Further along Church St. I came across this other motor bike, a Garda vehicle waiting patiently

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KnitWits is 2 years old

This is the gang on Saturday in Scribes as we celebrated our birthday. We have grown so fond of our knitting and nattering that we are going to meet on Tuesdays as well. If you like to knit or crochet, why not pop in to Scribes any Tuesday between 11.00 and 1.00 and join us for a session.

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In case you missed it in the media, this is John Reidy’s photo from last week’s Kerryman accompanying a story telling of shocking levels of dependence on charity among our neighbours in North Kerry. The local conference of the St. Vincent de Paul Society has seen an increase of 40% in demand for its services. Such is the number of people coming to them for help that they are opening a dedicated office, as the shop can no longer cope.

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I found this on Broadsheet under the title, “Yesterday’s Bread Today”

“Kennedy’s Bread was a Dublin institution from as far back as the
1850s, when Peter Kennedy, the founder of the firm, took over an existing
bakery in Great Britain Street (later Parnell Street).  Subsequently
another branch was opened in Patrick Street. Kennedys not only survived
with aplomb the Great Dublin Bakery Strike of the 1900s, but (unlike Bolands’
Mills and Jacobs’ Biscuits, which supplied their products free of charge and
without consent) made a bit of a profit out of the Easter Rising by providing paid-for bread to
the forces in the GPO.

Around this time the firm started
manufacturing one of their most popular products, the Bermaline malt loaf (“brown bread that invites closer acquaintance… a crisp delicious
crust which you will enjoy biting into… its flavour is altogether worthy of its
looks”) to accompany that most popular Dublin staple, the Vienna Roll.
In
1938 Kennedys’ Well-Fruited Sultana and Madeira Cakes won first prize at the
International Bakers and Confectioners Exhibition in the Royal Albert Hall,
London, losing out narrowly to a rival firm for the Irish Challenge
Shield.  And in 1953, just as rationing came to an end, the Kennedy Open
Pan won first prize at the International Bakery Exhibition at the Mansion
House, Dublin.
Things looked to be going well for Kennedys; but on Thursday the
3rd July 1971 breakfasters all over Dublin choked on their Bermaline toast at
the announcement that the bakery end of the business, employing three-quarters
of its 400-strong workforce, was to close.
Enter Brennan…

(Sibling
of Daedalus)

Bread van

These boys were “guarding” the bread during the civil war.


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This is Martin Griffin’s photo.

Back : Left to Right:  Michael O Connor, Jimmy ? Mahoney, Andrew
Griffin and Ned Browne, all from O Connells Avenue  

Front is Vangy
Hanlon 



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More from Bord na Mona


Visitors to Lullymore works on a Wickham railcar
nicknamed “The Flying Commode”. On the left is Griffith Owens, a
Welshman who came to work in Turraun peat works in 1924. He then worked in
Lullymore and was responsible for the development of the disc ditcher. On the
right is CSV Smith of the Garrett Engineering Company, UK, who supplied some of
the early peat machines. This was the first post war visit by Garretts to BnM.

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Plans to develop a primary care
centre in Listowel have been given a go ahead. An Bord Pleanala has granted
planning permission to Austin Dennany for the two-storey facility on Convent
Road, Listowel. The plans comprise a regional primary care centre, a GPs care
centre, and a medical suite, as well as 50 car parking spaces. Listowel Town
Council granted planning permission, however that was appealed to An Bord
Pleanala, which has now given the go ahead.

From Radio Kerry:

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+ Seán Óg OCeallacháin +


R.I.P. the voice of Sunday nights for so many years.


Laundry for the Elderly, GAA 1975, soccer 1936 and rats in the trenches

By

On February 15, 2013

In Uncategorized

I found an account of the girls’ involvement with the newly set up laundry for the elderly in the 1988 yearbook. Good to relate that this service is still going strong, even though the young girls no longer help out since it moved to its new location in The Family Resource Centre.

Listowel laundry service for the elderly (the early years)

The building that houses Listowel’s laundry service for the
elderly is neither pretentious nor imposing. Yet, for a large section of
Listowel’s elderly, it provides an invaluable service.

The service runs on a quite simple but efficient system. A
member of the voluntary group, with the use of a car, visits the homes of the
laundry’s customers to collect and deliver the laundry. The organisation
caters mostly for the aged living alone who find themselves unable to deal with
heavy house work such as washing clothes.

The laundry room itself contains four washing machines, a spin dryer and three
tumble dryers and a large hot press, It is operated by an able-bodied group of
volunteers recruited mainly from the secondary school, and from local obliging
housewives. Working on a regular rota each group is responsible for the
laundering, packing, drying, ironing of an allotted batch of clothes. Another
group take care of sorting and packing the clothing.

The board of management with Jim Stack, a local primary
school teacher, as chairperson meet regularly to discuss the running costs of
the laundry and its present and future service to the community in the Listowel
area. The whole venture depends and succeeds admirably on the care and concern
of almost a hundred volunteers.

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In my favourite charity shop I found this treasure from 1975:




I photographed a few snippets for your enjoyment.

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Mary Sobierlaski found this photo of a very interesting  old match programme.










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Rats in the trenches were a constant problem during WW1. Here is a group of German soldiers after a good session of rat catching. Will you look at the size of those rats?

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