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
Martin Chute’s mural on the gable of the Pitch and Putt clubhouse
<<<<<<<<<<
Wrong Way Corrigan
From the Capuchin archive
Douglas ‘Wrong Way’ Corrigan, Dublin, 1938
An image of Douglas Corrigan (1907-1995) at a reception in Dublin on 24 July 1938. As noted in the original caption, Corrigan (left) is shown with James Montgomery (1870-1943) who was the Irish film censor from 1923 to 1940.
Corrigan was a pioneering American aviator who earned the nickname ‘Wrong Way’ after ‘accidentally’ flying across the Atlantic when his original intention was to fly a cross-country route from New York to California. He took off from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn on 17 July 1938 and bizarrely landed on 18 July at Baldonnel Aerodrome in County Dublin after flying for just over twenty-eight hours. His first reported words after stepping off his plane in Dublin were ‘Just got in from New York. Where am I?’ His only provisions were two chocolate bars, two boxes of fig bars, and a small quantity of water.
In the aftermath of his adventure, Corrigan became something of a celebrity with a ticker-tape parade on his return to New York, a meeting with President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the White House, a Hollywood movie about his life and a best-selling book.
Corrigan insisted that his accidental flight was caused by navigational error and a malfunctioning compass, but almost immediately suggestions were made that it was always his intention to undertake the risky transatlantic crossing. Corrigan was a skilled aviation engineer and experienced pilot who had previously worked on Charles Lindbergh’s aircraft in advance of his first solo nonstop transatlantic flight in May 1927. Despite claims to the contrary, never once in public did Corrigan budge from his story that this historic flight was purely accidental.
The photograph forms part of a file of press images assembled by the editors of ‘The Capuchin Annual’.
<<<<<<<<<
The Thomas McAuliffe Window in St. Mary’s
A picture of this generous man from Vincent Carmody’s Snapshots of an Irish Market Town.
(Note to self…If you’re looking for information on any Listowel business from 1850 to 1950, Vincent’s books have a lot more information than Google.)
<<<<<<<<<<<<
Christmas in Abbeyfeale
The book gives no clue to the identity of the author. Maybe someone knows Shane?
<<<<<<<<<<
And the Winner is…..
Listowel Writers’ Week sponsor the prize for best poem at the A Post Irish book awards. An established and very well regarded poet, Mary O’Donnell won for this poem called Vectors in Kabul.
Confession here…I have only a vague idea of what it’s about. Once it gets into the nitty gritty of Maths I’m lost but I think it is a very clever poem.
The irony for me is that, while it is about educating girls in Taliban controlled Kabul, it is also about this Western educated woman failing to understand mathematical concepts but understanding freedom only too well.
<<<<<<<<<
A Fact
This is what Christmas was like in rural Ireland in the 1950s and 60s.
Further research by Kay Caball and David O’Sullivan has led us away from the wrong track and has revealed that the true donor of the window was a Thomas MacAuliffe of Main Street. He is described as a merchant and a stationer and he lived “two doors up from the Town Hall”.
The cutting below identifies the E F Boylan commemorated in the window.
This marriage certificate gives Mamie McAuliffe’s address as Main Street
Then I got this email from Vincent Carmody and he has all the details;
Mary,
I was away yesterday but somebody contacted me in relation to an item on a Thomas McAuliffe, who donated the stained glass window on the right hand side of the church, I was asked, who was he and was he anything to the plasterer. There was no relationship. His daughter (Mamie) got married in Dublin to Edward Boylan, From my notes, McAuliffe himself was married to a Mary Brodar, they married in Duagh in 1879. They had 2 children, John 1880, and Mary (Mamie) 1882, McAuliffe died in Ballybunion in 1935. Mamie and her husband, E. Boylan took over the running of the shop and Boylan’s garage, next door. McAulliffe’s shop was bought by M.A.Hannon in the late 1930s, the garage was bought by the U.D.C., for years it housed the council office and also housed the town’s fire engine. Interestingly, 2 Brodar sisters (Broderick) from Duagh, worked as shop assistants at McAuliffe’s until 1904, they then opened their own shop in William Street in 1904, one of these married Paddy Fitzgibbon’s grandfather.
If required, you will find all the information on pages 180 and 181, of my 2013, Snapshots of an Irish Market Town.
The old Listowel saying holds true, There are more Jack Barry’s in town than one.
Vincent.
<<<<<<<<<
I Know his Grandmother
I was reading Kerry’s Eye when this story about this handsome young man popped out at me.
The lady on the left, with me and friends in Boherbue this summer is Óisín’s very proud grandmother, Maureen Ahern.
<<<<<<<<
Ah!
The dollies and teddies are planning a sleepover at Listowel Library on Dec 1 2023.
<<<<<<<<<
Christmas in Abbeyfeale
Apologies to the writer who is not identified in the above anthology.
<<<<<<<<
From the Capuchin Annual Archive
Windy Gap, County Kerry, 1945
A quaint image of a cottage sitting at the crossroads of the Windy Gap near the village of Glenbeigh in County Kerry in about 1945. The Windy Gap is now a very popular walking and hiking route along Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way offering a variety of picturesque views of Lough Caragh and the MacGillycuddy’s Reeks in County Kerry. The photograph was taken by J.H. Williams who submitted it for potential publication in ‘The Capuchin Annual’.
<<<<<<<<<
In Upper William Street
This may not be new but I didn’t notice it before. I was parked outside it on my way to the Vincent de Paul shop on Thursday last.
<<<<<<<<<
Deora Dé
An article for a cold Wednesday
When I was buying my summer bedding plants this year I saw some lovely potted fuchsia plants which I admired and bought. The shop assistant said I should be familiar with them because they were native to Kerry.
On my way home that day I remembered my grandmother had a great ditch of fuchsia and we were never allowed to pull the lovely red belled flowers because they represented Christ’s tear drops on the cross. Deora Dé as she respectfully called them.
In our teen years years we often cycled from Blennerville around Slea Head and I fondly remember all those lovely fuschia bushes on the road back by Derrymore and then again west of Dingle as we headed to Ceann Sléibhe with a stop off in Kilmalkedar to follow the path of the 636 AD Saint Maolcethair and down into that seaside marsh of Muiríoch where I spent my Gaeltacht days.
After my visit to the garden centre and my youthful reminiscences I came home and opened up my gardening encyclopaedia to check out our native fuchsia. Sadly we couldn’t lay claim to it as it was native to Haiti and first found there in 1696 and named after a German Botanist named Leonhart Fuchs . He was famous for writing and illustrating the first herbal book which he wrote in Latin.
When I look out at the garden today I see our many hydrangeas losing colour and shape and when I check I see that they are native to Korea, China, Japan and the name comes from a Greek word meaning watershed.
Our back Garden is adorned with eight lovely clusters of agapanthus which burst into flower mid July every year and yes you guessed it. The name is not of Irish origin. The flower name comes from two Greek words agape meaning love and anthos meaning flower and are originally native to South Africa.
I quit and admire our native shamrock in the lawn which comes from the Irish seamair óg or young clover.
If you want to pass away an hour on some wet and dreary winter day look up the word Shamrock.
As the song “The Dear little Shamrock “goes ‘Sure Twas St Patrick himself sure that set it’. It’s probably as Irish as you get.
Mick O Callaghan
<<<<<<<<
A Fact
Christmas 1929
Kerry News Friday, December 27, 1929;
A STORMY CHRISTMAS. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were marked by the stormiest weather associated with the great Christian festival for very many years. Almost incessantly from the afternoon of Christmas Eve until five o’clock on the evening of Christmas Day gales continued to rage with a force which at times reached the velocity of a hurricane. Though much damage was done to property in town and country, it is fortunate that no injury to life or limb has to be recorded, in the Tralee area at all events, though there were many narrow escapes from storm swept slates. It was a great tribute to the deeply religious fervour of our people that they were found braving the elements going to the confessionals in St. John’s Parish Church and the Dominican Church of Holy Cross in the teeth of the storm on Christmas Eve, and again attending the early Masses and receiving Holy Communion in such vast numbers in both Churches on Christmas morning.
I returned to St. Mary’s in the afternoon of Tuesday, November 22 2023 because I knew that by then the beautiful window pane would be back in place.
This is the one that was removed and releaded.
The newly renovated one is not as bright as the pane on the far right.
Now that the donor’s dedication has been fully restored I see that it commemorates both the McAuliffe and Boylan families. These families were connected through marriage.
Dave O’Sullivan has done a bit of research and it looks like the Thomas MacAuliffe who donated the magnificent window is one of the famous McAuliffe family, plasterers.
The rose window at the top is lovely now.
<<<<<<<<<
Second Sign of the Approach of the Holy Season
I was in town on Thanksgiving Thursday and work was underway on several windows. The theme for this year’s Christmas windows is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
The New Kingdom has gone for a jokey pun.
Harp and Lion Antiques never disappoints. The window was in the process of decoration by a delighted big child, who loves to give her creative talents free reign.
Mr. Duck was in his best Willy Wonka attire as he carried his golden ticket. BTW the tree is decorated with real sweets and the garland is made of candy canes and gold and silver chocolate coins. Gorgeous!
Another Listowel shop with a very creative owner is Taelane Store
Giant candy canes and muffins here.
Mags is in on the act as well with candy canes and treats galore.
Jade was just plotting out her window at Jumbos.
<<<<<<<<<
Christmas according to another Local Writer
Unfortunately the booklet gives the names of all the writers but it doesn’t say who wrote what.
<<<<<<<<<<<
A Fact
Today’s fact is a true Christmas story from a great storyteller, Mattie Lennon
My Best Christmas.
It was mid-December in the third decade of the twenty-first century. I was at a Table Topics session. Because of my dubious ability to read upside down, I could make out the Topicmaster’s list of questions at the top table. One jumped out at me. “What was your best Christmas ever?” I hoped I’d get that one. I had an answer.
My best Christmas was Christmas 1956 but I didn’t know it at the time. About the eighth of December that year I developed a pain in my stomach which didn’t feel all that serious. . Various stages of discomfort, ranging from relatively mild to severe pain, continued until the end of the month. By this stage a hard lump could be felt in my stomach. All kinds of remedies from the relic of Blessed Martin de Porres to Lourdes water to many folk “cures” were applied. None of them did me any harm. Medical intervention hadn’t been sought. And because of the thinking of the time and the climate in which we lived I don’t blame anyone. On Sunday December 30th Doctor Clearkin from Blessington was called. As the December light was fading he examined me. His work was illuminated by lamplight as rural electrification was still in the future. . He told my parents that if it was appendicitis then I was “a very strong boy.” He was puzzled and didn’t make a Diagnosis. His best guess was that one of my testicles hadn’t descended and he insisted that I was too ill to be out of bed.
He called the ambulance and on arrival I wanted to sit in the front but Mick Byrne, the driver, was adamant that I would be parallel with the horizontal in the back. I don’t know what time we arrived at Baltinglass Hospital but the doctor there was equally puzzled.
I was loaded up again and hit the road for Mercer’s Hospital in Dublin. It was only my second visit to the Capital. The previous May my father brought me to Frawleys in Thomas Street to buy my Confirmation suit. Two years earlier I spent some days in hospital with a knocked-out elbow so I wasn’t all that perturbed by the clinical environment. My details were taken as well as the name of the local postmaster as the post office in Lacken was our nearest phone.. I received a penicillin injection every four hours and I still remember the taste of liquid paraffin. Many doctors examined me and all were confused. One of them described me as “intelligent” but very few people have agreed with him since.
Whenever I hear the ballad “Sean South from Garryowen” I’m transported back to the radio of Patsy Cavanagh from Craanford County Wexford, who was in the corner of the ward. It was New Year’s Day 1953 and the main news item covered the shooting of South and Fergal O’ Hanlon at Brookeborough, County Fermanagh.
I’m not sure if I turned off the immersion this morning but I’m amazed at how many names of my fellow patients I can remember after more than three score years. There was Seamus Osborne also from Craanford, Tony Hand, from Arklow, who was younger than me and whose father was in the army. Pipe smoking Kerryman, Tim Toomey, who was a guard in Enniskerry. When he learned that his father had died he asked me to say a prayer for him. George McCullough, a farmer, from Goresbridge who was a seanachai and didn’t know it.
As an eleven year old rus-in-urbe, who had a sheltered childhood, I was mesmerised by the antics of one patient, “Midget” boxer and aerial acrobat Johnny Caross. He died in the same hospital a few months later.
Later, on the first day of the New Year, my father came to visit me. He was able to tell me that one of the surgeons in Mercers had “his hands blessed by the Pope.” When, not quite out of earshot, he asked a doctor about my condition, he was told. “Well, He’s an unusual case.” ( I was still a mystery to the medical profession.)
I was operated on the next day. They found an appendix abscess which was removed and arrangements were made to remove the appendix some weeks later. The second operation was duly performed and I didn’t ever ascertain how close to death I was. I meant to look for my medical records before Mercers Hospital closed in 1983 but procrastination got in the way.
Oh, at the Table Topic session I was asked “If you had to cook for eight people on Christmas Day what would you do” . I wasn’t disappointed. How would I have fitted my prepared answer, to the other question, into two minutes?
So far I have lived through 77 Christmases. But the best one was in 1956, because I was alive to see it.
The first sign of local festivity is the putting up of the Christmas street lights.
Kerry is still high and wide but from now on will be even more handsome. This was the scene on Charles Street on November 21 2023.
<<<<<<<<<
A Restored Window
In the grounds of St. Mary’s I met Glynn Palmer as he was just arriving to restore the refurbished stained glass window.
Over the adoration chapel, you will notice the boarded up section of the beautiful window.
The window in question was donated by Thomas McAuliffe. Does anyone know anything about him?
The panel on the right is already renovated and restored.
<<<<<<<<<<
A Christmas Poem
The unvarnished truth about Christmas from John McGrath
<<<<<<<<
Our Wildflower Garden in Winter
Where have all the flowers gone? Some have gone to seed and will bloom again next year. Some of the annuals are gone never to return’
<<<<<<<<<<
A Fact
This is the beautiful Reggie, a rescued lurcher. Larger dogs are harder to rehome for various reasons but this one found a great welcome in Ballincollig.
This is an image of a farmer with a traditional horse-drawn plough in rural Ireland. The image dates to about 1945. Attracting an annual attendance of nearly 300,000 people, the National Ploughing Championships is the flagship event for Irish agriculture and is one of the largest outdoor exhibition and agricultural trade shows in Europe. The event runs for three days.
The photograph forms part of a bound volume containing a collection titled ‘Views of Irish life’ intended for publication in ‘The Capuchin Annual’.
<<<<<<<<<<
What I’m Reading
The Lyreacrompane and District Journal is full of interesting little stories.
I was happily reading these when I spied a photograph of my postman.
Pat Hickey’s story is on page 12.
In 1979 Pat’s grandfather made a find in a bog in Banemore…a casket of bog butter that could be 2,000 years old.
This is just one of the great and extraordinary tales in this marvellous journal. The best value in town at only €15.
<<<<<<<<
In Ballylongford
I was in Ballylongford last Sunday for the annual craft fair. The community centre where the fair was held shares a carpark with St. Michael’s church.
I arrived at mass time. Big mistake! Cars parked and some more abandoned everywhere. I’ll know better next year.
<<<<<<<<
When Your Granny Played a Role in History
The Ballyseedy massacre has to be one of the the worst atrocities of a very bitter civil war in Kerry.
Here is Mick O’Callaghan’s story;
Granny Curran and The Civil War
Granny Curran said her rosary nightly and prayed for people who died in wars. We were always very aware of the significance of her home place and civil war politics. My granny played a role in saving a man’s life. On March 7th, 1923, nine republican prisoners, six from the jail in Tralee and three from the workhouse, were taken from Ballymullen army barracks in Tralee. They were taken in a lorry, lying down, to Ballyseedy, on the Killarney Road. They were secured by the hands and legs and to each other and arranged in a circle around a landmine at Ballyseedy and they were blown up.
This barbaric event was in reprisal for the killing of Capt. Michael Dunne, Capt. Edward Stapleton from Dublin, Lieut Patrick O Connor from Castleisland, Private Laurence O Connor from Causeway, and private Michael Galvin from Killarney. They were killed in a booby trap bomb set off by anti-treaty forces at Talbot Bridge near Knocknagoshel on March 6th1923.
One of the men at Ballyseedy, Stephen Fuller, was blown clear. He landed in a ditch, suffering burns and scars. He crossed the little river Lee and hid in Ballyseedy Woods. He followed the stream until he came to the gable of a house owned by Mike and Hannah Curran, my grandparents.
They took him in and hid him in the hayshed and tended to his wounds. The following day they took him to the home of Charlie Daly. His injuries were treated by a local doctor, Edmond Shanahan who found him in a dugout. He moved often in the coming months including to the Boyle and Burke families in the locality. Then he stayed in a dugout prepared by the Herlihy family for seven months until they were able to contact people who could get him to safety and back to health. The Dublin Guards scoured the country for Fuller but failed to find him.
He joined Fianna Fail led by Eamon De Valera in 1926 after a split with Sinn Fein. He returned to full time farming. Later he became a TD for North Kerry and won elections in 1937,1938, 1943.
My grandparents were not actively involved in any movement but just did the Christian thing in saving a man’s life. They were shocked at the barbaric act that had been committed so close to them at Ballyseedy Cross.
This was a time when brutality was everywhere with pro and anti- treaty sides involved in terrible atrocities with brother fighting against brother and families split over civil war loyalties.
My first cousin Michael, who is now in his eighties and resides in Connecticut, lived with Granny Curran, and I asked him if he ever spoke to her about the Troubles and he wrote to me as follows: “She described the Stephen Fuller episode to me many times. It struck me as a one-off event. He came up along the river that runs behind our house and saw the gable in the distance and headed for it. She said they put him up – I think in a loft, maybe in one of the outhouses overnight and passed the word to wherever they needed it to go that he was there. I had the impression “they” came for him the next day in a pony and trap and took him away. As I say I think it was a one-time event. I don’t believe she ran a “safe house” although it was safe for Stephen Fuller that night. She never impressed me as a fan of either side in the civil war. I think she was too practical for that.
She had a large family at home – my father was 14 at that time – and the civil war was an extension of what they went through with “the Tans”. I think she just wanted to be left alone. She was sympathetic to Fuller on a human level but was shocked by the atrocious brutality of what the Free State did on that night – the tying of the men (I’m told) to a landmine.
But there was so much ambivalence. I think she admired Michael Collins for his looks. She talked about that.
I remember the crowning of Elizabeth II. Our grandmother (and every other female I knew) was enthralled by the spectacle. No resentment was shown about old issues.
Come to think of it, I teared up when the much older Elizabeth stood in Dublin, dressed in green, and gave a toast in Irish. And when she got into the joking back and forth with the fishmonger in the English Market in Cork it was more than I could take. There’s so much more to all these relationships.
There was an RTE program presented by Pat Butler some years ago about Ballyseedy [a reprisal for an event in a field in Knocknagoshel]. My Auntie Kitty was interviewed for it and spoke about her mother’s role and her reluctance to speak about her role in it confirming my cousin’s story.
Our grandmother had a great interest in and knowledge of the family tree. At one point in my teen years, realising that she would not be around forever, I asked her about the ancestors, one by one, going back through the generations. She took me back three or four generations, I think. I wrote it down, drawing it as a family tree or chart and kept it. In fact, I was looking for it about six weeks ago to show to my granddaughter but couldn’t find it. It was a pencil sketch of the tree as she described it to me. We were raised as Catholics but there were Protestants in our background and people with German ancestry. The name was Poff, and they lived in Killorglin. It may have been one of the Palatinate people”.
Some five days after Ballyseedy another five republicans were chained to a landmine at Bahaghs near Cahirciveen, having their legs first being shot to prevent them from escaping. Five men were also chained to a mine in Countess Bridge in Killarney, but one Tadhg Coffey was blown clear. All this was done under the command of Major General Paddy O Daly, and all were exacting revenge for Knocknagoshel.
It is interesting that during his life as a public representative Stephen Fuller never spoke about the Ballyseedy massacre. He spoke publicly about it for the first time in 1980 in an interview with Robert Kee’s ground-breaking BBC series Ireland: A television history. This happened a few years before his death.
In this interview, as on many other occasions, he never mentioned my grandparent’s role in the rescue. They knew each other and respected their privacy.
He never wanted to influence his own family in their political beliefs. I remember reading that Stephen Fuller told his son that Civil War divisions should not be passed on to the next generation. He also stated that he bore no ill-will towards his captors or those who were involved in his extrajudicial attempted killing.
Granny Curran, like most women of her era, was a strong-willed person. She had her own strong religious and political beliefs, but they were not shared. She spoke about the five years she had spent in America at the turn of the century and how it had influenced her life and she in turn influenced us. We heard a lot of stories about different cultures and beliefs. Her chats with us during our formative years had a very positive influence on our attitude to people during our lives especially in respecting difference. We had regular lessons in tolerance and inclusion, and this was very important to her since they lived in a mixed religion area.
She said her rosaries and had the Stations in the house which were held with due respect and reverence. She was progressive in her thinking, but she never crossed the line with politics. She never wanted her political beliefs passed on to the next generation. As she often said to me ‘You are too young for that information” or “somethings are best left unsaid and kept to yourself”.
The Ballyseedy monument was opened in 1959 and the Curran family was represented but no mention was made of their involvement in the 1923 explosion or incident as it was euphemistically called. Ballyseedy was a sad event which happened long before we were born but the story has been part of the folklore of our lives down the years and whenever we pass the Ballyseedy monument on the way into Tralee we recall Granny Curran and the many memories we have of her long life.
It is interesting that the Curran and Fuller families, in Ireland and America, are still in contact. Although all members of the family are fully au fait with the tragedy of Ballyseedy, they never speak about it. Is binn béal ina thost.
Let the past look after itself as my granny used to say.
<<<<<<<<
A Poem
This poem by Robert Louis Stevenson was one of the first I learned by heart.
<<<<<<<<<<
A Fact
A sleeping man’s snore can be as loud as 69 decibels, i.e. the same as a pneumatic drill.
