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

Author: Listowel Connection Page 7 of 482

A Fact, a volunteer, Bridge Road and a Sister

John Kelliher’s Listowel

John Kelliher is an exceptional photographer. He captured the mood of Listowel perfectly on this St. Patrick’s Day in The Square  in 2021.

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Strange but True

Today’s fact for you

Having already given birth to 19 children, Emily, Duchess of Leinster (1731 to 1814) eloped with their tutor, William Oglivie, after the duke’s death. She had another two children with him.

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 Dilligent Tidy Town Volunteer


In the midst of a pandemic this intrepid volunteer is still weeding and sweeping and doing his bit to keep Listowel looking its best.

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Bridge Road Through the Millennium Arch



Photo taken in 2009


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An Unexpected Response

This is the earliest photo I have of myself and my sister. I’d say she is between 2 and 3 and I’m 14 months younger.

Last week I wrote about her and particularly about the weeks prior to her death. She was in hospital a lot of the time in her last year of life and she matured a lot during that time. It was as if she experienced old age as well as childhood in those few weeks. She made friends with a lovely cohort of much older ladies and she blossomed in their company.

I knew people would be moved by Ina’s story and I am grateful for the sympathetic response from blog followers and Facebook friends.

What surprised me was the number of people who contacted me to say that they remembered Ina aka Chrissy. It is now 57 years since her passing. I knew that she was fondly remembered by our family and by her ever faithful best friend, Marion, but many other people remember her too and the tragedy of her untimely passing.  

The heading that I put on last week’s piece was a line from Thomas Moore’s Believe me if all those endearing young charms…   “The heart that has truly loved never forgets’. 

How apt it was.

 

Old Coins, A Proud son of Kerry, a Happy Day in Listowel in 2009 and a Shout Out to Blog Followers Living Abroad

 Sheep in Firies

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Our Beautiful Old Coins

Here are some of our beautiful old coins which were replaced by the uniform european ones. Will we see the demise of coin in our lifetime?

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Remembering a Very Proud Kerryman



From Moyvane website  by Eileen McElligott

Maurice O’Connell was born at Glin Road, Moyvane in May 1936. His parents, Thomas and Mary (nee McMahon) O’Connell were both Principal Teachers in the local National School. Maurice must have been a very welcome addition to their family of six daughters! Another son, Thomas, followed later but died in infancy, and another daughter, Anna.

Following in the footsteps of his father and uncles, Maurice commenced his secondary education in St. Michael’s College, Listowel of which his grandfather, also Maurice O’Connell, was a co-founder and a brilliant Classics master for fifty years.

After a remarkable Intermediate Certificate in which he got first place in Ireland in Greek, he studied in St. Brendan’s Seminary, Killarney where he was also an outstanding student having got an illustrious result in his Leaving Certificate at sixteen years of age. He then went to Maynooth Ecclesiastical College and after three years he commenced a teaching career in Dublin, completed his M.A. in classics and subsequently taught in the International College in St. Gallen before returning to Dublin to embark on a Civil Service career. He was appointed Administrative Officer in the Department of Finance, and later Second Secretary in the same Department before his appointment as Governor of the Central Bank in 1994.

Married to Dubliner Marjorie Treacy, they have four adult children. Their sons Thomas and Martin, like five of Maurice’s nephews, chose the medical profession, while his two daughters Catherine and Marjorie is working on a Master’s degree.

Though he has traveled widely in Europe and beyond in the course of his career and has conferred with Princes and Prime Ministers, his family, his staff and the people of Moyvane – and his Glin Road neighbours in particular – come first.

Asked in a newspaper interview where his favourite place was, he simply replied “Kerry!”. 

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Listowel was a Different Place in 2009

This photo was taken on the Monday after the All Ireland Football Final 2009. We have just enjoyed a great race week and Kerry has just won the football. Jerry Ryan is doing his best to clear up after all the celebrations.

These times will come again.

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A Project for you (And time is running out)



This project is tailor made for some of you, my loyal blog followers. 

You can make the video on your phone.


Here is the message from Listowel Community and Business Alliance


Are you from Listowel Living abroad?
We’re working on a new project and need your help!
PM us or email us at info@listowelalliance.ie before April 1

Remembering my Sister

November Walk

 Mallow Camera Club;  Grade 1. Third Place. Ann O’ Mara.

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“The heart that has truly loved  never forgets”


This is the last photo of my only sister. She was Nora Christina Ahern, called Ina at home and Chrissy in school.

This photo was taken in Mallow Hospital. She had put on the jumper over her nightdress so she would look “dressed”.

She is not smiling because it is a passport photo. Indeed she has little reason to smile anyway because she is very ill.

It is  March 1964. She is 15 years old. A month later on April 10th she passed away. She never got to Lourdes so the passport was never needed after all.


In this photo, Ina is wearing a yellow jumper she knitted herself. Because she was 15 she was too old for the children’s ward so she was in a ward with all the old women. They were lovely to her and she became one of them. Their pursuits became her pursuits. She knit with their encouragement and she joined in the exchange of patterns. She read Ireland’s Own and discussed the latest adventures of Kitty the Hare. Best of all she prayed with them. Every evening the women of the ward took out their rosary beads and said the family rosary. Ina, who, before her illness, had been a bit of a tearaway, fell into line with her new friends. She took consolation and support from the communal prayers. She knew that many of the older ladies were praying for a peaceful death for themselves and for each other. They desperately wanted their youngest patient to get better.

I know now what I didn’t know then. Ina was never going to get better. She was in the departure lounge too.

I think of my sister often, especially at this time of her anniversary. She is part of everything I do. Today she is part of my blog.


Through the years;



Aged 4 and 5


Aged 13 and 14 on our Confirmation day


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Another local phrase remembered


Mary, I like to phrase ‘out beside it.’  In South Meath, we say, ‘You’re out by the side of it’ when we point out to someone  that they are wrong or mistaken about something. One memorable instance of this was when a school-mate of mine, having had a few clips about the ear from the Master, retorted: ‘If you think you can ‘bate’ me like that, you are out by the side of it!’ Well, he would have been if it had happened these days… Nicholas L.



Cycling, Market Street and a New Book to Look Forward To

Helping Hand

 Mallow Camera Club;  Jim McSweeney

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Market Street Listowel, March 2021


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A  Book to look forward to


BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT – COMING SOON

Charlotte & Arthur by Pauline Clooney, October 2021

This work of historical fiction tells the story of Charlotte Brontë’s marriage to Irish curate Arthur Bell Nicholls. The book takes place in a last year of Charlotte’s life as the unlikely couple set off on their honeymoon to Ireland. Set against the backdrop of the recent famine, their tour exposes the contrasting lives of the poor and the privileged of Irish society.

Available to pre-order at merdogbooks.com/product/charlotte-arthur/

Spoiler alert: Charlotte and Arthur took in Listowel in their Irish honeymoon.

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Official Opening at Presentation Secondary School



This photograph was taken at the official opening of the extension to the school.


Left to Right; Fr. O’Mahoney, Bishop Diarmuid OSuilleabháin, Jimmy Deenihan, ? maybe Minister for Education, Dick Spring, Sr. Sheila, Fr. Clifford and Sr. Eileen

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Strange But True


Ireland’s rarest fish is the Goureen, or Killarney Shad. It is found in Lough Leanne, Killarney and nowhere else in the world.

Source; Foster’s Irish Oddities, Allen Foster


St. Mary’s in Green, Some Jokes and Some Listowel People Remembered

Heron

Mallow Camera Club;  Eamon O’ Donnell


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St. Mary’s Listowel goes Green



Our Church on St. Patrick’s Day 2021


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Remembering the Old Stock


This photo brought back memories for Billy McSweeney. Billy wrote;


Hi Mary,

I remember Tasty Cotter well and I also remember the man in the photo 
looking back over his right shoulder as Gerald McElligott, the Listowel 
Arms Hotel owner.

I hope you washed all the green paint from St Patrick off! Our 
children’s joke was that you had to go to the Sluagh Hall the day before 
to get your behind painted green

Billy McSweeney


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Some Funnies


Vincent Doyle sent us these to help us raise a smile in these unsmiling times.

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Sweep Ticket from 1960



Photo from Glin Historical Society on Facebook

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