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
Covid 19 wasn’t all bad. I was the recipient of much kindness during the pandemic lockdown. One of the kind gestures made to me was the gift of this plant from the kind people at Listowel Garden Centre. In the four years since, it was continued to thrive and give me pleasure every time I see it. Thank you, Nick and Co.
On their website the garden centre gang shared this Kerry’s Eye photo of the official opening 40 years ago.
Here’s to the next 40!
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A Poem
Vincent Doyle sent us this email
I wanted to share this with you: An Old Woman of the Roads by Padraic Colum.
I remember learning this poem in Dromerin school and feeling sorry for this poor woman.
This old poem has a new resonance today in our world of millions of homeless and displaced people.
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A Listowel Lady Making a Name for Herself in the U.S.
Photo and text from the Providence College website
Dr. Elizabeth Stack
Executive Director
American Irish Historical Society
991 5th Ave., NYC
February 2, 2024
Photo: James Higgins
(Providence, RI) – American Irish Historical Society Executive Director Dr. Elizabeth Stack will be the featured speaker at Providence College’s Third Annual Murphy/Healy Lecture in Irish Culture. The event, which is free and open to the public, will take place on Friday, March 1 at 6:00 p.m. in ’64 Hall on the Providence College campus. Free parking is available in the College’s Wardlaw Ave. lot, adjacent to Slavin Center, where ’64 Hall is located.
Dr. Stack’s topic will be “Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears: Ireland’s Immigration Story.” In this lecture, Dr. Stack will trace the changing patterns of emigration and how the diaspora has adapted to life in America. She will also look at how Ireland has coped with the exodus of her people, and how for the first time in her history, Ireland has recently received more people than have left.
Dr. Stack was previously the executive director of the Irish American Heritage Museum in Albany, NY and before that she taught Irish and Irish American History and was an Associate Director at Fordham University’s Institute of Irish Studies. She completed her Ph.D. at Fordham, writing about Irish and German immigrants in New York at the turn of the twentieth century, as they grappled with the immigration restriction movements of that time. She has a master’s degree in Anglo-Irish Relations in the 20th Century from University College Dublin in Ireland.
Originally from Listowel, in Co. Kerry, Dr. Stack sees a huge connection between her own experience as an immigrant, and the important mission of the Society to preserve and share Irish contributions to American history.
The Murphy/Healy Lecture in Irish Culture series was founded in 2020 with an endowment gift from John M. Murphy, Sr. ’19. The lecture aims to bring together students, faculty, staff, and the broader Rhode Island community in a greater understanding of Irish history.
Founded in 1917, Providence College is the only college or university in the United States administered by the Dominican Friars. The Catholic, liberal arts college has an undergraduate enrollment of approximately 4,100 students and offers degrees in 56 academic majors. Since 1997, Providence College consistently has been ranked among the top five regional universities in the North according to U.S. News & World Report’s“America’s Best Colleges.”
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A Fact
Japan experiences approximately 1,500 earthquakes every year.
I peeped in and the interior has had all the fridges taken out and Mr. Price type shelving installed.
In Listowel now I count 4 shops selling helium inflated balloons. We must be doing some celebrating.
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Another Honour for Mike the Pies
Mike the Pies is a huge Listowel success story. It is now one of Ireland’s topmost music and comedy venues.
The latest accolade is for Hot Press Live Music Venue of the Year.
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An Old One from Irelands Own
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From Pres Yearbook 1988
Artwork on the back cover
Denise, one of the many talented artists in the school then .
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All Grown Up
On the left is my granddaughter, Aisling. She was in Dublin at the weekend with her cousin, Charlotte. Aisling is dressed formally for her first gig as a gymnastics judge.
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A Fact
The winter of 1740 was so cold that rivers and lakes froze. People, unaccustomed to these new playing surfaces, held dances and carnivals on the ice. A hurling match took place on The Shannon and a Fair on the Lee.
Muskerry Local History Society meeting in February 2024
This artefact was brought by an American Irish man, Michael Loehr. It is a prison ring. It was made from a nail by his ancestor, a republican prisoner. Prison jewellery and ornaments are prized within families. This ring was taken to the US and now brought back home by a descendant.
Another republican artefact was brought by Bert Ahern. This flag draped the coffin of his ancestor. The name and details were embroidered on to the flag after his burial by 2 neighbours of Jeremiah. The flag is kept in the family and is put on coffins of Ahern descendants to this day. This was in keeping with a request by a sister of the dead man. She was anxious that he would never be forgotten and his senseless death at the hands of men who had fought by his side a few short years earlier would not be in vain.
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Early Days of the Folk Group
You hear them at mass on Saturday evenings. Well, this is where it started. Matt Mooney (fourth from left in the back row) sent us this treasure.
Research is underway on putting names to faces. Check back here soon. I hope to have all the names.
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New Kerry Logo
We’ll be seeing more of this
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Looking Forward to This
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Fake News
My Eurovision “fact” was not, in fact, true. Sweden has also won seven Eurovision competitions. Wikipedia needs to update its facts and I need to fact check better,
A kind blog follower gently corrected my misinformation. Thank you.
Photo; Irish Mirror
If Bambi wins we’ll regain our record.
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A Fact
Every tweet the American people send is archived in The Library of Congress.
We had neighbours one time, That lived under the hill. In my prayers I remember, And think of them still. And sometimes I think, it was just yesterday. But it fact it is really, A lifetime away.
Two brothers, two sisters, A dog and a cat, There was Katherine and Celia, And Tomas and Pat. All single, unmarried, Their name is long gone. And its sad there was no one, To carry it on.
The sisters kept house, It was neat as a pin. And a welcome was there, For whoever went in. The brothers they worked, On the farm every day. And at nightime together, They knelt down to pray. While auld Ringo the dog, By the fire lay quiet. Where himself and the cat, Settled in for the night.
Now Pat could play music, And Tomas could sing. At parties in old times Great joy they did bring. Celia sang also, and Kate In her chair, Read stories for children, From Kitty the Hare.
Old customs, old fashioned, Indeed this was true. And the ways of today’s world, These folk never knew. No modern components, back then In the day, Their work was all done in the old fashioned way. And I can remember when nightime would fall, Their light it then came, from a lamp On the wall.
With the turf from the bog on an open hearth fire, All the cooking was done, that your heart would desire. And a fine soda cake, it was baked as a rule, And left on the window sill, outside to cool.
To see this house now, it would make Your heart sore, For the weeds and the briars grow up through the floor. No windows or doors, and the roof has Caved in, Never more to be lived in, in this life again. A fine happy home, one time back in the day. Taken over by time, as the years passed away.
God be good to them now, There all gone to their rest, To the place that the good lord Reserves for the best. But my memories of childhood, sometimes let me see, The old ways of life, that one time used to be. And sometimes I think back, And remember them still, Our auld neighbours one time, That lived under the hill.
“On Saturday , at a reading of JB Keane’s hilarious and sometimes poignant Letters of a Matchmaker, are Elizabeth Stack PhD William street Listowel , and Mary ORourke R.N.C of Church Street Listowel at the Irish Historical Society NY.
Elizabeth is the new appointed Executive director of the IHS and hosted a wonderful gathering.”
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Interesting Artefacts
While visiting family in Ballincollig I attended a great night tripping down memory lane. Ten members of the society each brought an artefact and they got 5 minutes each to tell us about the item they brought.
A good crowd gathered for the meeting, mostly people of my own vintage but I did meet Niamh who had just done her Pre Junior Cert.
First up was Rod McConnell. Even though he is Scottish his family artefact was from Northern Ireland. It was a Repeal card. It dates back to Daniel O’Connell and the move to repeal the Act of Union in 1831.
Rod’s great great grandfather, James Gallagher, worked in a mill owned by the Leslie family. He said they were the same Leslies as the Ballincollig Leslies who lived in Wilton in an estate later owned by the SMA and now Wilton Shopping Centre. I wonder if they are the same Leslies as the Tarbert family of the same name.
Rod’s card had a map of Ireland on one side and some facts about Ireland on the other side.
Ireland had a population of 8.5 million people. It now has about 5.1 million so I don’t think we are “full” .
Ireland had 2.5 million acres of bog according to this 1844 artefact.
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A Marian Grotto
Marian grottos are dotted all over the countryside in Ireland. This one is in the carpark of the Bon Secours Hospital in Cork.
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A Fact
The population of Ireland is around 5 million. There are 80 million people around the world with Irish passports or Irish roots.
