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: May 2022 Page 1 of 5

Illumination

By

On May 31, 2022

In Festivals, Listowel, Listowel Races, Listowel Writers Week

Listowel Town Square in May 2022

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Clarification

I posted this picture yesterday and I wondered why there were so few boys in the class. Vincent Carmody solved the mystery.

There were always junior (locally called Babies) classes in both the boys and girls schools in Listowel. There was a custom for boys who lived in O’Connell’s Avenue or other houses near the convent or for boys who had an association with the convent to go there up to First Communion class.

I presumed that the full class of communion boys must have been in the new school. Not so. Éamon ÓMurchú remembers boys communion classes in the old school and in The Carnegie.

Everyone agrees that Quirkes of Church St. was the place to go for the best after communion breakfast.

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Lovely Listowel

This Church Street shop has very elaborate and unusual embellishments on the first storey.

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St. Vincent de Paul Society Honours Hannah

Listowel St. Vincent de Paul Society recently honoured one of its most treasured members, Hannah Mulvihill.

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Illuminated Parchment Presentation

This photo was shared by Mike Hannon on Facebook. I recognise the occasion. It is the handover during race week 1958 of an illuminated work of art to the directors of Listowel Race Company.

The picture being presented is the work of Bryan MacMahon and Michael O’Connor.

Jer Kennelly found a great clip online that explains the work of an illuminator.

Bishop Barron

It is well worthwhile to watch this to appreciate the genius that was Listowel’s Michael O’Connor.

I am looking forward to developments at Kerry Writers’ Museum which will see O’Connor’s work displayed for us all to see. Many examples of the great artist’s work have been promised by their owners, often his family members, to the museum as soon as it has a place to conserve and display them.

Example of a Michael O’Connor illuminated letter

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Betty Remembered at The Races

In memory of Betty McGrath, her good friend, Larry Buckley, has organised a race at this weekend’s race meeting. The race will be run on Sunday June 5 2022, Ladies Day

In The Lingerie Room, Elaine is a is also remembering. Her window display remembers Betty, a queen of style.

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New on Church Street

I checked out their website. I think it is a kind of government recruitment agency. This is what the website says;

“Get the tailored support you need Turas Nua is delivering the JobPath programme to help long-term unemployed people get the support they need to move into suitable, sustainable employment….”

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NCBI Window Display

NCBI Listowel is getting behind Writers’ Week with this apt window display.

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Mary O’Halloran was pictured at Navan recently.

Mary is a frequent visitor to Listowel Races where she is always one of the best turned out ladies on the course.

Mary is living with Motor Neurone Disease.

I can’t give her the 2 page spread Charlie Bird got in last Sunday’s Independent. But I can tell you that I greatly admire Mary and all the other people with MND who are quietly getting on with life.

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Old Days, Old Ways

By

On May 30, 2022

In Listowel, Listowel Races, Personal

Listowel Town Square in May 2022

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Carroll’s of William Street

On William Street this shop is being renovated and, keeping true to Listowel tradition, attention is being paid to the upper stories.

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First Holy Communion Time

I don’t have a date for this class photo but since its all boys it has to be after Scoil Real na Maidine moved into the new school.

Before the boys moved into their new school they used to go to the convent until communion year and then transfer to the boys school. Marie Gorman kept this lovely souvenir of her First Communion Day. The cohort of boys seems small by comparison with the girls.

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Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann in Listowel in 1972

Photo shared by Mike Hannon

Joan Kenny and a friend from Dublin, Eileen Kelly, enjoying a wafer ice cream at the fleadh.

Back in the day, you could buy this delicacy in a shop. The shop assistant took a block of ice cream from the fridge and with a big knife, usually kept close by in a jug of cold water, cut a slice of ice cream and put it between two wafers for the customer.

Joan and Eileen appear to have got a very generous slice.

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The Maid of Erin, Then and Now

Mike Hannon shared the old photos. I took the recent one last week, May 2022.

Potters
Galvins

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Official Opening and Blessing of The New Stand

Photos shared by Listowel Races on Facebook.

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Lovely Listowel Shopfront

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A Thought for U.S. Politicians

In the wake of the Uvalde Elementary School massacre, a rabbi posted this thought.

In Judaism there are many actions that are preceded by a prayer. If one says the prayer and then does not do the action, e.g. eat the bread that one has blessed, that is considered a sinful act.

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Pub Theatre returns to John B.’s

Pub theatre has made a welcome return just in time to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the death of the great dramatist. John B. Keane passed away 20 years ago today.

His spirit and memory is still very much alive, never more so than at this time of year, Listowel Writers’ Week.

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Castlemagner

By

On May 27, 2022

In Listowel, Personal, Schools

Wild Garlic in 2017

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Now and Then

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Listowel Writers’ Week 2022

In 2019 we took a stroll around The Square with contributions from singers, readers and players. These are the kind people who helped me out then.

They are Paddy MacElligott, Clíona McKenna, Dave O’Sullivan and Éamon ÓMurchú, Mary Fagan, Mary Moylan and Mike Moriarty

This year we will have a slight change of personnel but we’re all looking forward to doing it all again.

Listowel Writers’ Week Morning Walk around Listowel Town Square is planned for Friday June 3 2022 starting at The Listowel Arms at 10.00 a.m.

No charge

A little taster here;

Paddy sings Isle of Hope

Friday promises to be a great day at Writers’ Week. Why not come to town early for the walk and stay for the day. Poets’ Corner in Christy’s with the wittiest of M.Cs, Sean Lyons, starts at 9.00p.m.

Some of the people in the 2019 audience have told me that they will be back again.

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Edel Quinn

I come from Kanturk in Co. Cork but my home was in the parish of Castlemagner. I was back there last weekend for my lovely grand niece’s First Holy Communion.

Jessica Ahern on her First Holy Communion Day, May 21 2022

Castlemagner is also the parish of Edel Quinn and they have erected a little grotto to her in the Church Grounds.

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From Pres. Yearbook 2006

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Laundry for the Elderly

The generous volunteers who work in this vital service attended their annual mass and get together recently.

Standing; Helen Kenny, Majella Stack, Margaret Leahy (hidden), Jenny Tarrant , Eileen Sheehy,  Anne Doran, Bridie ORourke,  Josephine Cronin, Mary Commerford,  Eleanor Cronin, Joan Kenny,  Olwen Keane Stack, Joan O’Donnell,  Bridie O’Connor, Joan Buckley,  Jean Quille, Anne O’Connor,  Margaret Murphy

Sitting; Nora Scanlon , Mary Walsh, Julie Gleeson, Helen Moylan, Fr.  Jack O’Donnell, Mary Hanlon, Norita Keane Killeen 

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Remembering Old Times

By

On May 26, 2022

In Listowel

The Dandy Lodge

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Another Friend Gone

The late Joan Carey walking her dog near her home on Church Street

When you reach my age you have to accept it as a fact of life that friends will pass away.

I got to know the late Joan Carey as part of my knitting group. How we used to enjoy our Saturdays in Scribes before Covid. Neither of us was too interested in the knitting. It was an opportunity to meet people and to chat. Joan was always gentle and peace loving. When the odd disagreement broke out, Joan always stayed well out of it.

Joan had a long battle with illness over the last two years.

She will be sadly missed by her family, neighbours and friends.

May she rest in peace.

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From the 2006 Pres. Yearbook

A trip down Memory Lane to 1953

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Amateur Drama Remembered

One of the great stalwarts of Listowel drama was the late Bill Kearney. It was fitting that his three daughters were guests of honour at the launch of the new exhibition, Raise the Curtain, in Kerry Writers’ Museum.

The Kearney family have contributed much of their late father’s memorabilia to the museum.

This photograph was shared by Paul Murphy a few years ago. It is Bill Kearney at the mike at one of the famous Doodle dinners.

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A Fairy Door

This fairy door is in Ballybunion. I knocked but no one answered.

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The Square Cone

Derry O’Carroll hard at work in Listowel Town Square, installing our new ice cream kiosk. Official opening June 1 2022.

Because the weatherman says it will be fine this weekend, they’ve decided to open early. As well as ice cream they will have brownies, cream cakes and other treats.

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St. Michael’s

By

On May 25, 2022

In Listowel Writers Week, Personal, Schools

Photo; Éamon ÓMurchú in Bantry

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St. Michael’s Centenary Gala Day

Mike Hannon has shared lots of photos recently of a gala day to mark 100 years of St. Michael’s in Listowel. A big day of fun and games, stalls and the army band rounded off a weekend of celebrating.

Babe Joe Wilmott
Beatrice and Jack Carmody
Breda O’Mahony and Bill Hartnett
Fr. Antony Gaughan and

I have memories of that weekend too. On Saturday we had a mass with a raft of priests who were old boys of the college concelebrating. We had a gala dinner and then the big day on Sunday.

I was one of the volunteers manning the food and crafts stall. Health and safety regulations were more lax in those days. We sold eggs still warm from the hens’ bottoms. We had home made cakes and jams and all sorts of knitted and hand sewn goods, bric a brac and white elephants galore.

John OFlahery was in charge of our committee.

One of our number was the lovely Elsie Geale. Elsie was scrupulously honest and this caused a bit of the bother on the day before the fair.

We had collected egg boxes for weeks to box the promised (by the parents of the country boys) fresh eggs that had been pledged for the Sunday morning. Of course the egg boxes had the names and branding of the egg companies who had supplied them to the shops. No way would Elsie tolerate us selling our eggs in boxes that declared they came from somewhere else. So, at the height of our preparations, we had to cut rectangles of wallpaper and paste them over the names on the lids of all the boxes.

I think the competition was to guess the weight of the cake.

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I had Visitors

Aoife read about everything that’s on during Writers’ Week 2022. Then she chewed the brochure.

It’s decided. She is coming back on June 1 for the festival.

Aoife and her Mammy, Clíona

That smile says, “I have my daddy exactly where I want him, wrapped around my little finger.”

We took her to see the changes in The Square. In fairness she did not really remember how it used to look so she was happy enough with the new set up.

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From Pres Yearbook 2006

In 2006 the magazine committee decided to ask a former teacher, Aileen Hayes, now Scanlan, for her memories of her time in Pres.

Here is an extract from her article.

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Two Listowel Men

Billy Keane and Jimmy Moloney

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