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
His friends in Presentation Primary School helped their dancing teacher celebrate a big birthday lately.
They shared the pictures on Facebook.
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A Poem about Ballinruddery
From North Kerry Landscape
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Point to Point
I love this book. It’s the third in Healyracing’s horse racing books and, in my humble opinion, the best.
If you love horses; if you love history; if you love photographs; if you love stories, if you love people, they are all here in Point to Point.
Many p to p races are held in gorgeous settings, a photographer’s dream.
It’s not all glamour. Many big day winners at Cheltenham or Fairyhouse started off in muddy fields in rural Ireland.
There is the usual sprinkling of dramatic dismounts.
I love this book and I’ll be dipping into it for a while yet. You dont have to know anything about horses or racing to enjoy this one. It will be a best seller.
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The Greenway
I went to investigate where the greenway enters the park. Here are a few photos to give you an idea. This section is not finished yet.
I haven’t seen this one yet so I’m giving you advance notice of what sounds like a must for all local historians.
Lyreacrompane native, Joe Harrington, has just published a book on very first Butter Road from Kerry to the Cork Butter Market. Joe describes the book, ‘Once Upon a Road’ as a “search for the olden days on a sixty-mile journey through 275 years of time”.
The subject of the book is the road from Ballyduhig, near the Six Crosses, through Lyreacrompane, Castleisland, Cordal, Tooreencahill, Millstreert, Aubane, Vicarstown, to Kerry Pike outside Cork City. It was originally built as a tollroad/turnpike, under a 1747 Act of Parliament. The man behind the venture was a John Murphy from Castleisland. ‘When I was growing up, I remember the dispensary at Pike, halfway between Lyreacrompane and Listowel. I often wondered why it was named Pike. Researching the history of this road over recent years I discovered that Pike in fact alluded to a turnpike/toll gate on this spot from the early 1750s to 1809. It was one of six that John Murphy was entitled to erect on the road all the way to Cork up until the latter date”, Joe explained.
The book ‘Once Upon a Road’ with 364 full colour pages and 315 images, maps and photos which Joe was delighted to have printed locally by Walsh Colour Print, Castleisland with graphic design by Easy Design, Causeway.
Joe has been researching the history of the road for the past five years and it initially led to him writing a song on the subject; ‘The Road John Murphy Made’, which won the Sean McCarthy Ballad Competition a couple of years back. “The ballad was about one man’s trip on the road in the 1750s and the book broadens the story of the road that connected the dairy lands of north Kerry and the famous Cork Butter Market”, Joe explained.
‘Once Upon a Road ‘dips into the local history of the townlands, towns, villages, and settlements through which the road passes. Every mile on ‘The Road John Murphy Made’ has a story to tell and along the way we will meet Whiteboys and Hedge Schoolmasters, Freedom Fighters and Moonlighters, Famines and Natural Disasters, Mass Rocks and Wedge Tombs, Bronze age hoards and Bog Butter, Lost Estates and Evicted Tenants”, Joe explains. The road even played a part in the slave trade he reveals.
From Ballyduhig, where the road began near the present day Six Crosses, to Kerry Pike near Cork City the book is a travelogue in time and place. Like the rest of the book, the Listowel to Lyreacrompane section is packed with the happening in the area since the road was built in the 1750s. The killing of the Earl of Desmond at Gleanageenty is revisited as is the adventures of the Earl of Kerry who owned much of the land through which the turnpike was built. Matchmakers, bog slides, new and ancient, and the story of the Lyreacrompane man who oversaw at least three hundred executions in an American Prison fill the pages as do heroes like Amelia Canty and villains like Lucy Ann Thompson. The visit of William Makepeace Thackeray, of Punch fame (or shame) to Listowel is recounted.
I would like to thank all the local historians along the route who unstintingly related to me all they had discovered about their own area and, on a road known for its ‘straight as a gunbarrell’ stretches, to Kay O’Leary, who, so to speak, kept me on the straight and narrow.
Once upon a road is widely available including from Joe Harrington, Lyreacrompane. Joe can be contacted at 0872853570.
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A Few More from Ladies Day 2022
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A Piece of History
the source
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Back in 1949
This was Marie Neligan Shaw’s found treasure which I shared with you yesterday. I had found no one to tell me who Pat Crowley was. No one that is until Dave O’Sullivan came to our rescue.
Dave searched the papers and found that Pat Crowley was a big name on the dance scene in 1949 and for years afterwards. Here is what Dave found
Now this begs the question; Does anyone remember Des Fretwell or the Pavilion?
Marie Neligan Shaw was doing a clearcut when she unearthed these treasures.
Back in the days when we had old time and new time Listowel Musical Society crossed the border to hold a concert in Abbeyfeale.
Back in 1949 they used to have what they called “All night dances”. This is obviously one of those.
The Astor was where the Classic Cinema was more recently. It functioned as a cinema and occasionally as a ballroom.
Does anyone know who Pat Crowley was?
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A Few More from Ladies Day
I met a former Kerry Rose, Anne Marie Hayes, always smiling and always friendly. She is a doctor in Crumlin now.
I also met the lovely down- to -earth Edaein O’Connell, the current Kerry Rose. She was a about her rosely duties.
Local people were out in force on September 23 2022
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A Thought to Ponder
This one is sent to us by Mattie Lennon.
DON’T ARGUE WITH DONKEYS.
The donkey said to the tiger:
– “The grass is blue”.
The tiger replied:
– “No, the grass is green.”
The discussion heated up, and the two decided to submit him to arbitration, and for this they went before the lion, the King of the Jungle.
Already before reaching the forest clearing, where the lion was sitting on his throne, the donkey began to shout:
– “His Highness, is it true that the grass is blue?”.
The lion replied:
– “True, the grass is blue.”
The donkey hurried and continued:
– “The tiger disagrees with me and contradicts and annoys me, please punish him.”
The king then declared:
– “The tiger will be punished with 5 years of silence.”
The donkey jumped cheerfully and went on his way, content and repeating:
– “The Grass Is Blue”…
The tiger accepted his punishment, but before he asked the lion:
– “Your Majesty, why have you punished me?, after all, the grass is green.”
The lion replied:
– “In fact, the grass is green.”
The tiger asked:
– “So why are you punishing me?”.
The lion replied:
– “That has nothing to do with the question of whether the grass is blue or green.
The punishment is because it is not possible for a brave and intelligent creature like you to waste time arguing with a donkey, and on top of that come and bother me with that question.”
The worst waste of time is arguing with the fool and fanatic who does not care about truth or reality, but only the victory of his beliefs and illusions. Never waste time on arguments that don’t make sense…
There are people who, no matter how much evidence we present to them, are not in the capacity to understand, and others are blinded by ego, hatred and resentment, and all they want is to be right even if they are not.
When ignorance screams, intelligence is silent. Your peace and quiet are worth more.
More Photos from Coffee Morning for Listowel Hospice
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The Ghost Train
As fans of the Kerry team prepare to travel to Dublin this weekend, let us remember the famous Ghost Train that departed from Caherciveen, when t’was midnight by the clock, on the eve of All Ireland day. From the 1920’s up until 1959 this was the way fans journeyed to Dublin for the match. The journey took about eight hours as the steam trains of that era travelled at a maximum of twenty five miles an hour plus the odd break down thrown in. Fans fortified themselves for this epic journey with bottles of Guinness, Nash’s lemonade and buttered marietta biscuits for the children, crubeens and an assortment of sandwiches usually carried in shoe boxes to spare them from being crushed. Melodeons and mouth-organs were also carried on board. Good singers and reciters were in constant demand to while away the hours. Decks of cards for the game of ‘Thirty Wan’ which went on in every carriage. The Ghost Train got its name from the fact that it travelled through the night but also because of the low lighting in the carriages which made people look ghost like to those looking in, as it made its way through the country. Another reason was the eerie and lonesome sound of the whistle from the train. This of course woke every barking dog along the way. Caherciveen’s renowned poet, Sigerson Clifford immortalised this epic return journey in his poem ‘The Ghost Train for Croke Park’. The Journalist, Con Houlihan, sized up this famous outing, which was the longest train journey in Ireland in its time when he said it was, ‘Puck Fair on Wheels’.
From the Killorglin Archive
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The Longed For Day arrived
Jimmy Moloney one of the many campaigners for this facility shared a photo of Facebook to welcome the opening of our stretch of this great amenity.
My daughter Clíona spotted this sign in Cahirdown on her way home to Listowel for the weekend.
I took the photo and appealed for captions.
Catherine Moylan won with the one I’ve chosen as the heading.
She was also a close second with
Ground control, major wrong!
Geraldine O’Connor was also in the running with Fake News
I like Breda OSullivan Ahern’s “No true road but a destination.”
This sign on the approach road from Tarbert is sure to raise a smile in the midst of roadwork disruption.
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Presentation Girls Reunion
On the evening of their reunion the convent girls from the sixties remembered their previous reunion. There was talk and remembrance of the ladies who had passed away since then.
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We’re a Sound Town
The radio station Today Fm has awarded Listowel the accolade of September’s Sound Town. Cora O’Brien of Listowel Community and Business Alliance convinced the judges that Listowel was one of the best towns in Ireland to live in. We’re Sound Out!
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One Brave Lady
Get up, dress up and show up could be the motto of the lady on the right of these photos. She is Mary O’Halloran and she has Motor Neurone Disease. She is living with it and trying to do all the things she enjoyed before. Her lovely voice has gone but she retains her enviable sense of style. She is a regular at Listowel Races and she came back in style this year, earning herself a place on the stage as a finalist in the Ladies Day fashion competition.
My friends, Peggy O’Shea from Firies and Bridget O’Connor from Ballyduff joined me to lose some money and spot some style on Friday Sept. 23 2022.
My great friend, Jimmy was joined by his friend Ted for the day out.
Lilly and her dad Simon were enjoying the racing.
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I wonder what John B. is so certain of in this lesser known poem I found in a penguin anthology of Irish verse.
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A Fact
Carnivorous animals will not eat another animal that has been hit by a bolt of lightening.
