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: April 2018 Page 2 of 5

Glashas, The Building of O’Connell’s Avenue and Women in Media in Ballybunion 2018

By

On April 23, 2018

In Uncategorized

Photo; Pat O’Meara, Mallow Camera Club

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The Kerryman Unbuttoned


From a Shannonside Annual, Redmond O’Hanlon writes of his experience of the distinct idiom and expression of Kerry speech

The woman of the
house where I stopped to enquire told me that the people I was looking for lived
only the pelt of a stone from the road. “Mary here will carry you up to the
headland, sir, ”  she added, “but you
will have to jump the glasha.” My proferred escort was a minute barefooted
maiden of about ten summers. Looking at the wisp of femininity and remembering
my eleven and a half stone, I thought of Sinbad, the Sailor and The Old Man of
the Sea. But the glasha was still a problem. What was it at all and how did one
go about jumping glashas? I wondered as we walked on. And did the daily jumping
of such obstacles in Kerry account in any way for the ease with which the
county’s ball players rose for the high ones in Croke Park?  And then light dawned. “Glasha,” I repeated
as I walked along with the wee one, that must be the Irish glaise, a stream.
And so we came to it. I said goodbye to my guide at the headland and duly
jumped the glasha. No bother this to me in those days. A rangy leggy lad I was
then and the jumping of glashas for years to come was to be one of the
privileges of a job that brought me all over North Kerry and West Limerick.

(more tomorrow)

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Communion Class in Scoil Realt na Maidine



Photo credit; Ned O’Sullivan on Facebook

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Building O’Connell’s Avenue


(Photos and Story from Vincent Carmody’s Living History on Facebook 2016)



In the 10 years after our Civil War, very little was achieved, nationally, in the building of local authority housing. Around 1930, the members of, the Listowel U.D.C. were concerned with severe overcrowding in many properties and the use of many more with very poor sanitary conditions. Following a survey of the town’s housing stock, they presented their findings and sent a plan to the Department Of Local Government. In response they were informed that the Listowel Council had been granted funds for the building of 104 houses. At this time, it was to be one of the largest local authority building contracts in the country.

The contracting tender, in 1932, was won by a local building contractor, M.J. Hannon. This in itself was a great bonus to the town, as it guaranteed a substantial number of years’ work for the town’s tradesmen and laborers, with, of course, a great spin off for the town’s businesses.

Some years ago, I spoke at length, and took notes, from Mr Jim (Red) O’Sullivan of Charles Street. Jim, who had worked with the Hannon Builders since he left school, was officer manager at the time of the construction, (he is pictured in the second last row), unfortunately, with the passage of time, the notes were misplaced.  However, I can recall a number of the things which he told me. The council took soundings on a possible name. One of the early contenders, before they decided on O’Connell’s Avenue, was Eucharistic Avenue, this was on account of the Eucharistic Congress which was been held in Dublin, in the summer of that year. He also explained, that the wage bill per week was, if I remember correctly, in the region of £400. At the time, this would have been an enormous sum of money, Jim would collect the money from the bank first thing each Saturday morning, after which, he would be escorted by an armed detective back to the office. There he would make out the pay packets in readiness for paying each man, at the conclusion of the half-days work on Saturday. All the blocks for the building work were manufactured on site.

The land on which the houses were built had been purchased from Lord Listowel, prior to it being built on, it had been used as meadowing by the O’Donnell family, family butchers in Listowel. The main entrance to the houses was from Convent Street, Later a roadway was built to connect up with Upper William Street. The building of this later facilitated the erection of St Brendan’s Terrace. 

The official opening was on Monday, June 17th 1935. It was presided over, by then Government Minister, Sean T. O Kelly. ( He, ten years later, in June 1945, became Ireland’s second President, replacing the outgoing Douglas Hyde).

The first residents had taken over their houses, prior to the official ceremony. In the main these were couples with young families. Today, a third generation of these families own many of these houses. Over the years there has been mass emigration from the area. However, those who remained, have contributed greatly, to the, social, cultural and sporting history of the town. 

The pink photograph is of a  pamphlet which was distributed to the local businesses, asking them that they allow their employees time off, to participate in the ceremony.

Local men who were part of the official party are seen here in conversation withe the minister. They are Eamon Kissane, T.D., Eddie Leahy and John McAuliffe in conversation with Minister Seán T. OCeallaigh.

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Women in Media 2018



I was in Ballybunion at the weekend for this super event. John Kelliher photographed me with some of the Writers’ Week gang who were there enjoying a festival at which they didn’t have to work.

Of course I was working away on your behalf. John snapped me as I snapped another photo for Listowel Connection. I’ll bring you my report during the week as well as an account of my trip to St. John’s for Many Young men of Twenty and to the Seanchaí for the history lecture.

John Kelliher’s photo of me taking a photo of some Limerick ladies with Rachel English

Elizabeth Dunn, Annette Fitzgerald, Rachael English, RTE journalist and author, Mary Cogan and Elish Wren

Photos; John Kelliher

Tarbert children 1809, De Valera and Fleadh Cheoil 1981

By

On April 20, 2018

In Uncategorized




Signs of Spring…tulips in bloom in Market Street in April 2018

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Tarbert pupils in 1809



Somebody doing a bit of ancestor research found these names on this website

Ancestor Network

A list of 39 schoolchildren in Tarbert, Co. Kerry in 1809 from NLI Ms 17,935 (5). if you make a connection, we would love to hear about it to jim.ryan@Flyleaf.ie 

‘A list of the Scholars educating (sic) at the english school founded at Tarbert by the Governors of Erasmus Smith’s Schools. May 1809. 

Mary Kelly

Sarah Fowler (?)

James Fowler (?)

Michael Finucane

Ann Finucane

Catherine Finucane

Elizabeth McCormick

Catherine Ware

Mary Ware

James Supple

John Eggleston

Hannah Nott

Charles Conner

Mary Conner

George Ware

William Dillane

Margaret Dillane

Michl. Dillane

John Dillane

William Murray

John Enright

Edmond Fowlove (?)

John Finucane

Michael Finucane

William Cummins

Pat Cummins

Margaret Cummins

Abigail Murray

A list of Free Boys

Francis Kelly

Thos. Kelly

Willm. King

David Ferguson

Henry McCormick

John Nott

Thos. Nott

Thos. Murray

Charles Murray

Thos. Ware

George Farrel ‘







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Dev’s love of Turf


This story and picture are from Bord na Móna Living History blog





When Todd Andrews took charge of the Turf Development Board in 1934, Eamon de Valera made sure to inform Andrews of the importance which he personally attached to the development of the bogs. He also assured Andrews that he would always be available to help with any problems he encountered.

Dev was deeply interested in the progress of bog development and took pains to make his support known in public. Year after year from the beginning of the scheme he visited the bogs every Good Friday. Frank Aiken usually tagged along as he was even more interested in the success of the scheme. There was a picnic lunch on those occasions and Andrews and the other Board members tried to get Dev to drink a bottle of beer as proof of his assertion that he was not a teetotaller. On the bog visits Dev made a point of greeting the staff at all levels and discussed issues with them.

During the war Dev toured the bog areas of the west in support of the Emergency turf campaign.

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Fleadh Cheoil na hEireann  in Listowel



Johnny Hannon took this photo during Fleadh Cheoil na hEireann 1981. The hunger strikes in Long Kesh were on at the time and you can see posters of the hunger strikers on a caravan in the background. During the fleadh, sympathisers with the cause of the hunger strikers held a mock funeral  and some people hung black flags from their windows.

Love lost, Ploughing up The Cows’ Lawn and an old photo

By

On April 19, 2018

In Uncategorized

Listowel Pitch and Putt club now maintains a course in the Cows’ Lawn.

This  was the location of much controversy 100 years ago.

PLOUGHING THE COWS LAWN

One hundred years ago this week, a
remarkable event took place in Listowel.   A courageous action by a
group of leaders in the town, armed only with hurleys, struck a non-violent
blow on behalf of the people of the town to be masters of their own destiny, and
to ‘walk their own land’.  

The
event itself was the ploughing of the Cows Lawn, the property of Lord Listowel
which was eventually to lead to the provision of probably the best loved
amenity in the town  –  the present Town Park.

While
a group of people ‘ploughing’ might seem a harmless enough activity, this
ploughing was anything but harmless.  It led to a number of clashes
and confrontations between the police and a number of local men, thirteen of
whom were sentenced to 12 months in Cork and Belfast Gaol

To
understand what a momentous occasion it was we have only to see the headlines
in The Kerryman the following week:

As World War I raged,
shortages of food and rising prices in 1917 started to cause distress  in
the town.   The British Ministry of Food set up a food control
committee for Ireland on 31 August 1917 and many of its regulations, in theory,
applied to this country.    Sinn Féin established Food Committees
throughout the country and started to organise local markets, distribution of
local food at fair  prices and  arrangements for the poor
of the town to get small areas of land or allotments to grow their own food.   

In
February  1917, Listowel Urban Council Chairman Jack McKenna had been
involved in a fruitless exchange of letters with Lord Listowel looking for
permission to use 15 to 20 acres of vacant land

to be distributed
among ‘artisans, labourers and small traders of the town … on which they could
raise food to supplement their small earnings’. While a number of small
unsuitable fields had been suggested, these were not acceptable to the Urban
Council.

The two fields
identified as the most suitable for the purpose were  called at the
time the Back Lawn and the Front Lawn . These fields were at that time leased
from Lord Listowel by two local men and ‘negotiations’ were opened with them to
give up their tenancies.  John Keane held the front lawn and was
willing to give up his tenancy.’Mr Keane was prepared to forego his right for
the purpose of enabling the Council to proceed with the scheme, provided that
Lord Listowel was satisfied’.

Mr.   Kenny
who had the grazing of the back lawn was not keen to give up his title. He had
a butcher shop – it was absolutely essential to enable him to carry on his
trade as a butcher in the adjoining Church St., however he was persuaded to ‘do
the right thing’.

On 25th February 1918, tired of
waiting for permission, the Sinn Féin Food Committee with the help of the Irish
Volunteers from Moyvane, Knockanure, Finuge, Rathea, Ballyconry and
Ballylongford marched into the town ‘all armed with hurleys and headed by
bands, while ploughs and horses brought up the rear.  They were
cordially received by the Listowel Company of Irish Volunteers with their brass
band.  The whole procession, composed of some eleven or twelve
hundred Volunteers, marched to the estate office in Feale View at 1.30 o’clock
where the above mentioned waited on Mr. M. Hill, who is Lord Listowel’s chief
clerk’.

 Although Messrs.
Kenny and Keane had given up possession, Mr Hill refused to hand over the keys
as he had not got orders from Lord Listowel. The Volunteers then broke open the
gates leading to the back lawn near the National School house.  The
ploughs and ploughmen started operations and another section  of
Vounteers took over the front lawn.  Over the following two months,
local people continued with tilling the land despite visits from the R.I.C.,
and the threat of court proceedings which culminated in the imprisonment of
thirteen of the ‘offenders’ in Cork and Belfast Gaols.

——————————————————————————————–

This was just the
start of an endeavour that
fifty years later culminated in the acquisition of the two lawns  for
the people of Listowel.  It had taken from the twelfth century,
firstly  with the Fitzmaurices and then with earls of Listowel as overlords,
to put the lands back into the hands of the people of the town.

An illustrated talk on
the full history  of the Cows Lawn from this event onwards, entitled
‘Sinn Féin v. Lord Listowel 1918’ will be given by Kay Caball at
the Seanchaí on Sunday 22nd April 7pm.

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Today’s love poem is a favourite with teenagers.

But You Didn’t

By Merrill Glass

Remember the time you lent me your car and I dented it?

I thought you’d kill me…

But you didn’t.

Remember the time I forgot to tell you the dance was

formal, and you came in jeans?

I thought you’d hate me…

But you didn’t.

Remember the times I’d flirt with

other boys just to make you jealous, and

you were?

I thought you’d drop me…

But you didn’t.

There were plenty of things you did to put up with me,

to keep me happy, to love me, and there are

so many things I wanted to tell

you when you returned from

Vietnam…

But you didn’t.

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People I Don’t know with a Motorbike



From the John Hannon archive

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In Case You haven’t Booked yet


Tickets are selling fast for this John B. Keane classic in St. John’s

Photo; Frances Kennedy

Many Young Men of Twenty opens on Friday April 20 2018

Closure of Listowel ESB shop, Is a Black Pudding Meat? and the voice of home when in exile

By

On April 18, 2018

In Uncategorized




Photo: Barry Murphy, Mallow Camera Club


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Closing of the ESB shop


This building once housed the ESB shop.

As it was closing down, Johnny Hannon took some last photographs. Mike Hannon gave them to me to share.


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The Council of Dirha by John B. Keane   (conclusion)

……..Billy Drury opened
the proceedings with a story explaining at the outset that it was to be taken
in lieu of his conclusions on the subject in question. I now propose to explore
the Drury paradigm in its fullest.

Some years earlier
he had worked with a farmer to the north of Listowel. In a croteen at the lee
of the house there was a prime pig fattening. When the time was ripe one of the
children of the house was dispatched to the house of the local pig butcher.
Duly the pig was killed and butchered and the meat salted and barreled, the pork
steak cut away and the blood readied for the filling of the puddings. The last
chore was always undertaken by the women of the house. Eventually all the
puddings were filled, boiled and placed in tall tiers so that they might cool. When
they were sufficiently cooled, the man of the house, without a word to anyone,
produced the frying pan, greased it with lard and placed it on the red hot
Stanley range which dominated the kitchen. He then went to the tiers of puddings
and withdrew a substantial ring for himself.

“Will you sample
one of these?’ he asked Drury

“I’m your man.”
Drury responded. The man of the house placed both puddings on the pan where
they set up a sibilant sizzling. This was followed by a heavenly smell as the
puddings started to cook. Both men sat happily by the range while the fat spat
and the puddings crackled. Then came the unexpected. Down from the bedroom in
her long flowing nightdress came the woman of the house. First she looked at
the pair by the range and then she looked at the pan.

“Do ye know?” she
said with a sting in her voice, “what day we have?”

When neither
answered her she pointed out it was Friday and is wither one partook of the
puddings he would be risking eternal damnation. Both men shuffled uneasily in
their seats. The man of the house rose but Drury stayed put. The man of the
house preceded his woman to the bedroom casting a cold look at the frying pan
and an even colder one at Drury. To make a long story short, Drury consumed both
puddings in their entirety.

The hobside
theologians digested the Drury story and cogitated on its many implications
while they filled or relighted their pipes. Finally a man from Affoulia spoke
up.

“You committed a
mortal sin,” he said, “and that’s the long and short of it.”

Others disagreed
and for a while the argument ranged back and forth. It was Drury however who
had the last word.

“I was a witness,”
said he, “t o the filling of the puddings.’ The blood was salted. Common oatmeal
and macerated onions was all that was added. If a sin was committed it was a
venial one and a very watery venial one at that. If, continues Drury “ the
puddings were filled by Mary Flaherty and I was after guzzling two of them then
it would be a mortal sin for Mary Flaherty’s puddings are stuffed with every
known groodle from spice to pinhead oatmeal.

 At this stage there were murmurs of approval
from the council. Mary Flaherty’s puddings were known and prized from the
Cashen to Carrickkerry.

Drury was quick to
press home his point. He listed the numerous ingredients of the Flaherty
pudding from the chopped liver of the pig itself to her minutely gartered
gristle. He pointed pout that the two puddings he eaten on that Friday in the
farmer’s house were not legitimate puddings and by no stretch of the
imagination could they expect to qualify as whole or legal puddings under the
act. Drury went on to state that one of Mary Flaherty’s puddings was a meal in
itself and thereby contributed to a breaking of the law laid down by the
Council of Trent.

The council re
lighted its pipes and cleared its throats. In the end it held that Drury had
done no wrong. Had the puddings in question been up to the Flaherty standard
there would be no doubting his guilt. The puddings were inferior and therefore
incapable of contributing to a sinful situation.

The conclusions of
The Council of Dirha were accepted locally until 1966 when Pope Paul’s
promulgation changed everything.

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A Chess Player with a Listowel Connection


Both of this man’s parents hail from Listowel, or so I’m told.

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The Voice of Home for thousands of Emigrants



Big Tom McBride who died yesterday holds the record for the biggest crowd ever in The Galtymore. People who had never been to Glenamaddy cried at his Four Roads and Gentle Mother and thought of home.

I have never had to emigrate but I can feel the exile’s pain in Tom’s songs.

Here is a poem from another man who well caught the longing for home of the  culchie.

Kerr’s Big Ass   by Patrick Kavanagh

We borrowed a loan of Kerr’s Big Ass

To go to Dundalk with butter,

Brought him home the evening before the market

An exile that night in Mucker.

We heeled up the cart before the door,

We took the harness inside-

The straw stuffed straddle, the broken breeching

With bits of bull wire tied;

The winkers that had no choke- band,

The collar and the reins….

In Ealing Broadway, London Town,

I name their several names

Until a world comes to life-

Morning, the silent bog,

And God of imagination waking 

in a Mucker fog.

Listowel Celtic, The Case of the Black Pudding and will the next US ambassador be a Corkman?

By

On April 17, 2018

In Uncategorized

Photo: Donal Murphy, Mallow Camera Club

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Reliving a memory with Listowel Celtic

These photos from Listowel Celtic’s Facebook page are from the official opening of the soccer playing field at Tannavalla. May all of those who were part of the occasion and are gone from us rest in peace.

The late Jack Carmody (The Sherriff) with his family.

John Delaney with club chair, Aiden OConnor and Beatrice and Jack Carmody

Some great club stalwarts.

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The Council of Dirha by John B. Keane continued from yesterday

………However, this is
another matter. It is with the pre Pope Paul period of fast and abstinence that
I propose to deal now. Before I do, let me say that fireside theology was
reduced to a very fine art in those days. There was no opposition from
television and the country was far from motorized. Consequently there was
genuine profundity in most fireside exchanges. The subtler arts of sarcasm,
irony and cynicism all flourished and were brought to such a degree of
excellence by common country folk that ordinary comment was almost totally
outlawed.

The first serious
council held by hobside theologians to which I was a witness was held in Dirha
Bog circa 1935. So great was the fear of excommunication in those distant days
that even today I am not at liberty to mention the name of the house owner. The
council was well attended and present at the time were such venerable sages as
the late Sonny Canavan and Jack Duggan. The main spokesman was a spailpín by
the name of Billy Drury, brother of the poet, Paddy. The main item on the
agenda on that memorable occasion was whether the consumption of black puddings
on a Friday constituted a breach of the laws of fast and abstinence. Pork steak
and puddings were a common enough diet at the time. Every countryman kept his
own pig and when the creature was fat enough to be butchered substantial
quantities of pork steak and home filled black puddings were distributed among
the neighbours.

It was universally
accepted even amongst the most extreme heretics and schismatics that under no
cicumstances was the eating of pork steak to be countenanced on a Friday or any
other days of fast and abstinence. Puddings, however were a different kettle of
fish altogether. If I might be permitted to the use of a widely used saying at
the time, “there were puddings and puddings.” 
It was with this aspect of the matter that the Dirha theologians
concerned themselves. When is a black pudding not a black pudding or, to put it
another way, what are the chief characteristics of a sinful pudding?

more tomorrow 

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The Next U.S. Ambassador to Ireland ?




Ohio businessman Ed Crawford has emerged as the front-runner to become the next US ambassador to Ireland. 

A long-time Republican party donor, Mr Crawford is the chairman of Park-Ohio Holdings, a Nasdaq-listed manufacturing and supply-chain company which has operations across the world, including in Cork. 

He was the finance chairman for the Republican National Committee’s Ohio campaign during last year’s presidential race, and was an early supporter of Donald Trump. 

Mr Crawford, whose grandparents came from Co Cork, has also been centrally involved in the Irish community in Cleveland, hosting the then taoiseach Enda Kenny at an event to mark the rededication of the Irish Cultural Garden in the city in 2012. 

His emergence as the top candidate to become the next US ambassador comes after Brian Burns, a Florida businessman and friend of Mr Trump, withdrew from consideration for the post.

I read the above in The Irish Times and I decided that the next time I passed through Newmarket, I’d stop for a look around and see how this man’s ancestral place was doing now.

Newmarket is a neighbouring town to my own Kanturk and , apart from the old tribal rivalries of the G.A.A. Newmarket people were friends.

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Listowel Boy Scouts and Leaders



Photo from Mike Hannon from the John Hannon archive.

This looks like a St. Patrick’s Day parade passing through Main Street. I’m guessing the 1970s because the Spinning Wheel is where Footprints is now. I could hazard a guess at some of these men and ladies  but, for fear of mistakes, I’ll let it up to you. Tell me if you recognise yourself.

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Sam In O’Connell’s Avenue



The man on the far left is Tom Sweeney, a man whose family is steeped in football. The others are Tom Lyons, Mick Carey and Gigs Nolan R.I.P.

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One for the diary


On Sunday next, April 22 2018 Kay Moloney, formerly of Gurtinard House, Listowel will give a talk in The Seanchaí at 7.00p.m.

The subject of her talk will be an incident that was very significant in the history of Listowel.

One hundred years ago a group of local men ploughed up Lord Listowel’s lawn.

Who were these men?

Why did they convert Lord Listowel’s lawn into a tillage feld?

What were the consequences? 

These questions will be answered by Kay on Sunday evening and the answers might surprise you.

You won’t want to miss this one.



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