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

Category: Listowel Page 45 of 182

Keeping Listowel Lovely

By

On June 7, 2024

In Listowel

This is the recently released special edition Brona chocolate bar. It costs €4. I haven’t tasted it yet but it comes from a good stable.

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Please, Please, Don’t do this

On Wednesday morning, June 5 2024 I met two of the hardest working Tidy Town volunteers. They had been out since early morning, washing and sweeping and generally keeping our lovely town lovely.

Breda was scraping and hacking trying to remove a poster that had been stuck on to the litter bin. Tidy Town judges don’t like posters on bins or poles. The worst part of this postering is that whoever stuck the posters used some kind of superglue which cannot be removed by the usual solvents.

If you want to draw attention to your cause, please do not glue posters anywhere. Think of Breda. Think of the local hard working Tidy Town volunteers. Think of Listowel. Think of the environment.

Just don’t do it!

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Selling Listowel

On my way home from morning mass where I was besieging Heaven on behalf of my 3 grandchildren doing state exams, I ran into Rose Wall of Listowel Chamber Alliance.

Rose was doing a bit of research for a big marketing day they have planned for later on this month. This group do as great job of marketing Listowel.

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Lego Lartigue

Image and text from Lartigue Monorail and Museum on Facebook

Lego & Railway enthusiast Trevor Leen brought along his Lego built replica of the Lartigue Monorail to the Lartigue Museum.

Trevor said “I recreated the Lartigue Monorail over the course of a few weeks using reference photos from the original and modern day engine. Two carriages were built to give it a train to pull along with a step car to cross the rail. I’ve always had a love for railways and the Lartigue Monorail has always been an interest of mine as it is unique and had a bold experimental take on railways in years gone by.” 

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Michael O’Connor, Celtic Art Illuminator

Ahead of the International Day of Celtic Art tomorrow, here is a little resumé I did a while ago of Michael O’Connor.

Michael O’Connor,: His Art

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A Fact

In 2004 a woman in the US bought a lock of Neil Armstrong’s hair for $3,000

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Art and Literature

By

On June 6, 2024

In Listowel, Listowel Writers Week

Civic Plaza, Listowel in June 2024

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Update

Cashell Solicitors, I’m told

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I Love Listowel Library

The library has to be the best free facility in town, lovely building, lovely staff, well stocked shelves and always a surprise in store.

Today’s surprise; Colm Tóibín’s latest book had no waiting list. I have it for 10 days. Yippee!

Last week when I was in the library I met these lovely people who were on a mission of appreciation to one of their favourite places.

They are the Pathways Level 3 learners from Kerry College, Listowel Campus. The course co ordinator is Rena Liston.

Holding the plant they brought as a thank you to library staff is Maria and fellow librarian, Susan, is in front.

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All is Slowly Being Revealed

The pages my friends are reading are the first proofs of my new book. It will be called Moments of Reflection. Just now it is in the capable hands of Paul Shannon at Listowel Printing Works. He is doing a splendid job.

It will be a while yet, but I’ll keep you posted.

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2 Day International Day of Celtic Art

The International Day of Celtic Art 2024 is actually 2 days. Coming from a town where Writers’ Week is 4 days we can hardly quibble with that.

I think I may have had the link wrong yesterday so here again is the link for registration.

Register

I think it’s all free. They didn’t ask me for any money anyway.

The lady in the above photo is Susan Corr, Ireland’s leading conservator. I took this photo of Susan in The Brendan Kennelly room in Listowel Writers’ Museum on the day she returned the Michael O’Connor pieces after conservation.

This is not the piece in the picture. It’s another of O’Connor’s magnificent letters.

Here is the schedule for the 2 days this weekend.

June 2024

Sat Jun 812:00pm – 1:00pm 

ZOOM SUPPORT1:00pm – 1:20pm 

— WELCOME & INTRODUCTIONS —1:20pm – 1:40pm 

Donncha MacGabhan (How long did it take to make the Book of Kells?)1:40pm – 2:00pm 

Catherine Crowe (Celtic Art and Enameling)2:00pm – 2:20pm 

Stephen Walker (Naming Knots; challenging symbolism and meaning in the marketing of modern Celtic art)2:20pm – 2:40pm 

— BREAK —2:40pm – 3:00pm 

Ruth Black (Celtic Ecclesiastical Embroideries)3:00pm – 3:20pm 

Stephen Rynne (Celtic Art Podcast Discussion & Launch) 3:20pm – 3:40pm 

Steven Lawes (Fibonacci Celtica)3:40pm – 4:00pm 

Hamish Douglas Burgess (Creating a Celtic art whisky label – an interesting story with many twists and turns.)4:00pm – 4:20pm 

— WRAP-UP —Sun Jun 94:00pm – 5:00pm 

ZOOM SUPPORT5:00pm – 5:20pm 

— WELCOME & INTRODUCTIONS —5:20pm – 5:40pm 

Alix Sandra Huntley-Speirs (Finding the Music in Celtic Art: The Journey to Findlaystone)5:40pm – 6:00pm 

Jeff Fitzpatrick Adams (Irish Celtic Illuminations)6:00pm – 6:20pm 

Aidan Breen (Chasing Early Irish Saints & Celtic Bangles)6:20pm – 6:40pm 

— BREAK —6:40pm – 7:00pm 

Susan Corr (Conservation of Michael O’Connor artwork) 7:00pm – 7:20pm 

Stephen Rynne (Listowel, The World Capital of Modern Celtic Art)

7:20pm – 7:40pm 

David MacGovern (Monakie Rock Art)7:40pm – 8:00pm 

Nicola Dixon8:00pm – 8:20pm 

— WRAP-UP —

Susan Corr, as you can see, will talk about her conservation work on Sunday at 7.00 pm

Stephen will give his not to be missed presentation about Listowel on Sunday at 7.20

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A Fact

Running hell for leather, the first woman to record a sub 5 minute mile was Diane Leather. The British runner recorded this time in 1954

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After Writers Week 2024

By

On June 4, 2024

In Listowel, Listowel Writers Week, Personal

Listowel Arms Hotel, scene of much of the action last weekend.

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Listowel Printing works in Tannavalla

I’ll be a frequent visitor here for the next while. Watch this space.

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June Weekend 2024

As predicted, there was way too much on last weekend. I got to see a small fraction of Writers’ Week and I never got to The Races.

May 29 2024 started out with an early morning trip to the hospital. This trip took a little longer than planned.

When you’re in a hurry there is always roadworks.

Muskerry Golf Club to the right. My late father in law was once president here.

Pastureland and grazing cattle to the left of me.

Home at last in time to see Uachtarán na hEireann in The Listowel Arms.

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When your Friend goes to The Chelsea Flower Show

and the whole village is a flower show.

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A Fact

New York city keeps train tracks free of ice by setting them n fire.

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Jimmy Hickey, Dance Master

By

On May 31, 2024

In Listowel

On the John B. Keane Road

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Jimmy Hickey among his Dancers

Jimmy Hickey has given a lifetime to doing and teaching the thing he loves. Here he is with pupils of Presentation Primary School, many of whom are 70 years younger than him. Jimmy has taught their parents and in some cases grandparents. He has passed on the steps and the old figure dances and is as passionate today about Irish dancing as he was when he himself attended Liam Dineen’s Saturday dancing classes in Scoil Realt na Maidine.

I am so lucky to call this genius my friend.

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St. Michael’s Class of 2024

From the school’s website

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Great Houses in the Coolard area…

from Maurice O’Mahony’s History of Coolard School

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Yeats in Melancholy Mood

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A Fact

This is, in fact, a definition from my Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce.

to abscond…to move in a mysterious way, commonly with the property of another.

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Because It’s Writers’ Week….

By

On May 30, 2024

In Listowel

In Church Street

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Shared by David Kissane on Facebook

And more wild orchids flourishing in our land in Lisselton, with a host of bees and butterflies in the May sun! That’s the top of Cnoc an Fhómhair in the background.

And a poem about a strange man who cut turf here one time…

                                  The Man With the Sleán

                                               By David Kissane

I met a man on Lacca Hill

On a summer day when the sky was still

There were larks’ song’s music all around

But his head was turmoiled towards the ground

His sleán was idle in his hand

An uncut turf-bank was his stand

His gait said soon my world will end

In style and substance he was condemned.

His drooping shoulders said let it be

There were stitches dropped in his tapestry

His essence drained by the every day

His unstoried life in a raging May

I looked away for words to speak

That wisdom’s wings would touch my cheek

I absorbed the valley down below

Saw a blackthorn flower that would be a sloe

I perused the bridge by the rippling stream

Where old Brennan ironed the wooden wheels

There were shimmering fields down in Loughanes

And bees were buzzing round buachalláns

There was hope and beauty in every patch

From Rathoona’s waters to Farnastack

So I turned to him who was sad that day

With an arsenal of words I had to say

But when I arched to see his face

There was no one there, just an empty space

And a splink of wisdom on me did dawn

-That I was the man with the idle sleán

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In My Favourite Charity Shop

Happy, Smiling volunteers, Nuala, Hannah and Mary in the St. Vincent de Paul shop, Listowel on Friday May 24 2024

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The Maid Of Sweet Coolard

A poem I found in Maurice O’Mahony’s History of Coolard School.

The poem is by D.C. Hennessy.

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A Fact

Today’s fact is not a fact per se. It is a definition from my newly acquired Devil’s Dictionary. Since it has more than a grain of truth in it, it is nearly a fact.

Eloquence; The art of orally persuading fools that white is the colour that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any colour appear white.

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