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
Nancie, Hannah, Mary and Liz volunteering in my favourite charity shop on Friday March 7 2025. It is always a pleasure to meet these ladies and they are always so helpful and hard working.
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Listowel and Curraghcroneen
Deborah Cronin has been in touch with pictures of her Irish ancestors. These McAuliffe and Fitzmaurice people are the Chicago branch of a very Kerry family.
McAuliffe sisters; the child standing is Deborah’s grandmother, Maude Fitzmaurice
These two people are Deborah McAuliffe Fitzmaurice and John J Fitzmaurice
Deborah gave us a full list of the family;
John J. Fitzmaurice was born in Listowel in 1861. His parents were James Fitzmaurice (1833-1898) and Mary Dee (1840-1905.) John arrived in Chicago in 1879 and ultimately became a Police Sgt. Deborah McAuliffe was John’s second wife. She was born to Thomas McAuliffe & Margaret McCarthy in Curraghcroneen in 1870. She died in Chicago in 1896. John & Deborah were parents of my grandmother, Margaret (Maud) Fitzmaurice born in 1892 in Chicago. Deborah died when Maud was 3 so she (standing child) was raised by her Aunts (Deborah’s sisters.) All the Aunts moved to Chicago, their brothers stayed in Ireland.
The McAuliffes: Johanna 1861-1945 John 1862-1926 Bridget 1864-1944 Nell 1867-1914 Margaret 1868-1958 Deborah Ellenor(1872-1915) Michael (1874-1933) Catherine (1876-1954) Daniel (1879-1912) Thomas McAuliffe’s children from a prior marriage to Honora Fitzgerald. Hannah (1856-?) Patrick (1858-1948) Mary (1858-1917)
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We only have now
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Just because
A horse is a horse, of course, of course
And no one can talk to a horse, of course…
Not true. This fellow was out to the door posing for the camera with his ears cocked as soon as he heard my voice.
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End of an Era
Postboxes in Copenhagen…(picture from the internet)
The Danish post office has been collecting and delivering letters since 1624. After December 2025 that service will be no more and the postboxes will be removed from the streets. 1,500 jobs will be lost. Parcel post will still be handled and I think you will still be able to send or receive a letter through the post office mail room.
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A Fact
The first Irish St. Patrick’s Day Parade took place in Dublin in 1931.
The Sheehy family of Main Street remained proud of their Listowel roots to the end.
I wish someone would write the life stories of all these people who are commemorated on benches in town. All of them contributed to Listowel, and Listowel is justly proud of them. Their stories, as well as their names, deserve preservation.
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Different Times
Jer Kennelly found this one.
I did a bit of research and it seems that the dance in question may have beein in 1940.
Here are extracts from an article I found online. The interview awas with a Bray saxophonist in The Irish Independent in 2003.
“…One piece of memorabilia Charlie keeps is a diary in which he recorded all the gigs he played and what he was owed for each. The entry for March 1940, when playing with the dance band, was £2 and 16 pence! ‘That’s what I earned that month,’ laughs Charlie.
In 1942 Charlie joined the Phil Murtagh band, who had a residency in the Metropole on Dublin’s O’Connell Street.
This was the biggest gig in the country and the band was the best in the business. They played all around the country and had a summertime residency in Tramore.
Bandleader Phil Murtagh abhorred alcohol and had a strict rule ‘Whether you were driving to the top of Donegal or the bottom of Kerry, you didn’t stop for a bottle of stout. We drove in two cars – I drove and Phil drove and he always drove behind me to make sure I couldn’t stop at a pub!’ recalls Charlie.
‘In 1946, we were driving to Tramore and on a straight stretch of road I flew on ahead of Phil, went around a corner and he sailed on past. So me and the three I had with me went in for a few drinks, but when we came out I had a puncture. Because it was just after the war and cars weren’t long back on the road, we had no wheel brace to change the wheel. So we went back in for another few drinks!’ Someone eventually came who could help them, but by the time they got to Tramore there it was 10.30pm and the dance started at 8pm!
Given their status as top band in the country, any notions Charlie and his bandmates might have had about themselves were shot down at an enormous dance run by the army in the RDS, also in 1946.
Arriving with their instruments they were stopped by an army officer as they had no tickets. After over an hour waiting around outside they were eventually marched a quarter of a mile down the road to an entrance normally used for horses! ‘That ended any thoughts we had of ourselves as big shots,’ laughs Charlie.
Again he recalls also how little they were payed compared to today – on St. Stephen’s night in 1939 he played from 9pm until 5am and was payed one pound! In 1940 they drove to Listowel, earned two pounds each and crashed the car on the way back!
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Deltiology
According to the internet, deltiology is the third most common collector hobby, after money and stamps. This is surprising since so few people send postcards any more. I once had a huge collection and I used to display them on my kitchen wall., where they eventally got grubby and had to be thrown out.
Máire MacMahon is a deltiologist and she has sent us pictures of a few of her cards.
William St.
St. Michael’s College
Presentation Convent
You can see why postcards were so popular. They were ideal for holiday correspondence with a very favourable picture of your location and just enough room to tell everyone (including the postman) that you were having a good time.
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Reunion
Me, Geraldine, Mary, Breda and Bridget in Lizzie’s Little Kitchen in March 2025.
I was dining in Lizzy’s last week with some old teacher friends when we met a lovely past pupils out to lunch with her family.
By the way the lunch, in my opinion, was better than The Carriage House of last week’s fame.
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Update
The market in the boys’ school yard is now planned to be held on Sundays, not Saturdays as previously advertised. The first market will be held on Sunday May 4 2025 and from then until October, markets will be held from 11.00a.m. until 3.00p.m. every Sunday.
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A Fact
The reason we have a feast day to commemorate Saint Patrick is down to Fr. Luke Wadding. This Waterford missionary petitioned the Vatican in the 1600s to grant St. Patrick a dedicated feast day. Apparently the choice of March 17th was a bit arbitrary. It is believed to be the date of his death but that’s not too certain, like many otherm things about St. Patrick.
When I was in the park last week, the coucil outdoor staff were busy clearing fallen and dangerous trees.
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Lixnaw
A man called Alan Young posted this photo and the following text on a Facebook page about disused railway stations.
LIXNAW was a station in County Kerry on the line between Tralee and Listowel. Lixnaw closed in February 1963 when passenger services were withdrawn between Tralee, Listowel, Newcastle West, and Limerick. Goods services were then withdrawn in stages from the route, and the section through Lixnaw was closed to all traffic in January 1977. I took this photograph in April 2008 .
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Pick Yourself Up and Dust Yourself Off
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More from Kilkenny
Jenkinstown House is located in a lovely wood and forest park, popular with local dog walkers. On the Saturday of our visit some of us went for a stroll.
There were historical artefacts like this all around but no explanation nearby to satisfy our curiosity.
Anne and Aoife posed in front of a more modern shelter cun picnic area.
Aoifew having her nails painted in preparation for the birthday party.
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Date for the Diary
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Mattie Lennon on Pat Ingoldsby R.I.P.
By Mattie Lennon.
“In 1893, W. B. Yeats referred to Zozimus as ‘the last of the gleemen’ but he obviously failed to foresee the coming of Pat Ingoldsby- an old fashioned travelling bard to rival the best of them.” ( The words of Bobby Aherne in his book , D’you Remember Yer Man ? A portrait of Dublin’s famous characters.)
Irish film director Seamus Murphy made a documentary film about much-loved Dublin poet Pat Ingoldsby.
Pat has presented children’s TV shows on RTÉ, written plays for the stage and radio, published books of short stories, and been a newspaper columnist but is mostly known for his unconventional and often humorous poetry.
The award-winning Murphy, speaking to RTÉ Entertainment, Murphy said, “Pat is suddenly back in fashion. I talk about him any time I’m doing interviews because I’m trying to raise money for the film but also because I’m trying to build his profile back up again and then there was a poetry festival recently where people were re-enacting his work.”
Writing for the website Just Six Degress, Murphy has said: “I got to know Pat while I was making Home is Another Place, a short film I made for The New Yorker over the summer in Dublin in 2013.
“Pat appeals to our reason through invention and surrealism, in a voice understandable to everyone. He is a rare and sympathetic witness and champion of the underdog – of which there are many in Dublin. Above all he is very funny.
“There is no better company than Pat and his poems to roam with around the streets of Dublin; absorbing its stories and conspiring with the mirth and darkness of the city.”
Murphy says that Ingoldsby, who has recently passed away , was initially reluctant to appear on screen again.
“He wouldn’t appear because he doesn’t want to appear in front of the public but these performers were performing his poems so there seems to be a bit of a comeback without him doing anything,” the director said.
“His poetry is extraordinary and every year he produces another book, self-published, and he could really have done with a good editor so this film will really try to pick out the best of him.
“He said to me, `you can make the film, I’d love you to make the film but I’m not going to be in it’. I said OK, it was almost like the PJ Harvey thing, but slowly I’d go out to him and I’d recorded him and we got to know each other and slowly he started trusting me and now I’ve got lots of stuff.”
“I’ve almost shot all I need of him, it’s the other stuff I need to do.”
Most of Pat’s poems are about his personal experiences, observations of life in Dublin, or mildly surreal humorous possibilities.
Topics of personal experiences vary from the death of his father, or the electroconvulsive therapy he received (c. 1988), to his appreciation of the natural world or his pets (mostly cats, but also some fish).
Observations of Dublin are mostly humorous conversations overheard on the bus, or the characters he sees and talks to while selling his books on the streets. Some observations are not so cheerful as he also sees the drunks and the homeless of Dublin city, and the some aspects of modernisation which he isn’t pleased with.
His most distinctive style of poetry is his humorist style. A recurring character, Wesley Quench, appears in roles such as the driver of a Flying See-Saw Brigade. Another poem, “Vagina in the Vatican,” depicts a vagina sneaking into the Vatican unstopped because no one knew what it was – except for a few who couldn’t let slip that they did.
He also occasionally produces stories for children. These are a childish version of his mildly surreal style.
During the rapid increase in the use of mobile telephones, he offered a “Mobile Phone Euthanasia” service on the streets of Dublin, where he would destroy phones for annoyed owners.
His cousin Maeve Ingoldsby is a playwright.
When Pat is selling his books, more often than not, he can be found on Westmoreland Street.
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His poem For Rita With Love was selected as one of the Ireland’s 100 favourite poems as voted for by readers of the Irish Times.
You came home from school
On a special bus
Full of people
Who look like you
And love like you
And you met me
For the first time
And you loved me.
You love everybody
So much that it’s not safe
To let you out alone.
Eleven years of love
And trust and time for you to learn
That you can’t go on loving like this.
Unless you are stopped
You will embrace every person you see.
Normal people don’t do that.
Some Normal people will hurt you
Very badly because you do.
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A Fact
Until 2008 Nelson Mandela was banned from entering the USA and needed a special waiver any time he wanted to visit.
One of the great joys of shopping in charity shops is finding treasures like this.
There are thousands of Irish books published each year. They are often short print runs and when they are gone they’re gone. Every now and again a great one turns up in a charity shop. This is one such.
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Cora, My Little Footballer
This is Cora Darby, my granddaughter. She loves football, both Gaelic and Soccer.
When her team, Lakewood Under 14s, played Ballyouster of Kildare in the National Cup, Cora was captain for the game.
Lakewood girls Under 14
They won. Now their next game is against a Drogheda club and they have home advantage. I’ll keep you posted.
Meanwhile in Dublin…
Sean is in tennis action with his intervarsity team.
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Tolka Row
Tolka Row is an Irish television drama serial that aired on RTE One from 1964 to 1968, set in a fictional housing estate on the northsideof Dublin.[1] Based on Maura Laverty‘s play of the same name, Tolka Row was first broadcast on 3 January 1964 and aired weekly for five series until it ended on 31 May 1968.[2 Wikipedia
These two pictures were published in Ireland’s Own. The late Maura Laverty is also the same Maura who wrote Full and Plenty.
This scene from the soap depicts the the Nolans and their neighbours in the sitting room of the Nolan house. The Nolans and their neighbours, the Feeneys, were working- class Dublin families living in the North side of the city.
It was a very regrettable practice in the early days of Telefís Eireann, to wipe the videotape after an episode was broadcast and reuse the tape. So, only the final episode of the four year series is extant.
I loved the show and like me many others loved the glimpse inside a part of Ireland we never saw in real life. Before television, there was huge urban rural disconnect. Tolka Row and its successor, The Riordans, introduced city folk and country folk to one another. It was a great learning experience.
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If you have Money Problems
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Exciting Opportunity for “Mid- Career Artists’
St. John’s in February 2025
St. John’s Theatre, Listowel, Co. Kerry, and the Irish Arts Center, New York, are inviting applications for the County Exchange international residency for mid-career artists.
Supported by the Arts Council of Ireland and Kerry County Arts Office, the County Exchange residency aims to connect artists from the experimental theatre, dance, and performance sectors in Ireland and New York.
Seven selected artists (four from Ireland, three from New York) will spend two weeks in Listowel (19 May–2 June 2025) and one week in New York (January 2026, dates TBC). The residency provides accommodation, travel, a daily subsistence allowance, and a €1,000 fee.
Interested applicants should submit a 100-word statement of purpose, contact details, a brief bio, and links to previous work by email to newyorklistowel@gmail.com by Monday, February 24th, 2025, at midnight.
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A Fact
The first Winter Olympic Games were held at Chamonix in 1924.
St. Brigid window in St. John’s church, Ballybunion
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St. Brigid of Kildare
St. Brigid mural on a wall in Kildare town
According to tradition Saint Brigid was born in Faughart, Co Louth, where there is a shrine and a holy well dedicated to her. The Saint found a convent in Kildare in 470 that has now grown into a cathedral city. There are the remains of a small oratory known as Saint Brigid’s fire temple, where a small eternal flame was kept alight for centuries in remembrance of her. She is one of Ireland’s patron Saints and known as Mother of the Gael. She is said to be buried along with St Colm Cille and St Patrick in Downpatrick. Throughout Ireland there are many wells dedicated to St Brigid.
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Growing up in 1970’s Listowel
More memories and photographs from Carmel Hanrahan…
Do you remember the Lartigue Little Theatre? No stage and the seats were on a steep incline. I visited the Writers’ Museum on a recent visit and was surprised to find that nobody seemed to know about it. That is, until a lady of my own vintage came in and remembered it. Where I now live, they have a Theatre which is of a similar design. Mind you, the cast don’t come out with tea and biscuits for the audience at interval time as they once did in the Lartigue.
We had a Youth Club which was held on Friday night. I think the venue was the Sluagh Hall. Every now and then we had a disco there and that was a highlight. Dominic Scanlon usually provided the music being DJ (there’s a term no longer used) as he was probably one of the few of us with a comprehensive record collection. I seem to remember there were parents on duty at these to chaperone us. A bit like the “Ballroom of Romance” if you remember that film. Seamus G, I know you’ll read this, I don’t remember you in connection with the Youth Club. We must have split into different groupings by then.
December 28th was the date set in stone for the Student’s Dance/Ball. Held in the Listowel Arms Hotel and the only proper dance for years. My sister dressed quite formally for the first one she attended but I think it rapidly became more casual after that. I certainly don’t remember dressing up a lot for it. Later, we occasionally went by bus to Glin on Saturday Nights for a showband-type dance that was held there. My memory is of an over-crowded, sweaty, marquee with little or no facilities. But, I imagine we wouldn’t have complained too much at the time. Who organised those buses I wonder? Of course, there was also the Central in Ballybunion where we went for discos in the late 1970’s. Possibly only during the summer months. That was also the venue for our Leaving Cert Results night out. What a motley crew we were.
School tour, to Killarney (Lady’s View). Left to right: Bottom Row; Catherine Lynch, Christina Caffrey, Catherine Sullivan, Violet Nolan and Linda McKenna. Top row; Dana Mulvihill, Carmel Hanrahan, Sr. Edmund, Jacqueline Quill, Sr. Therese, and Denise Mulvihill
One of myself and dad sometime in the early 1980’s. The dog arrived very shortly after I left. I was so upset as a child when we lost “Sooty” our dog that dad swore there would never be a dog in the house again while I was there.
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A Special Birthday
Four of my six grandchildren have birthdays in January. so last Sunday we had a combined celebration for them.
Sean and Killian, no longer boyeens, now grown men, are nineteen.
Aisling turned 18. Róisín is 16.
Róisín and one of her friends from the yard.
When Aisling was born her uncle Bobby and Aunt Carine lived in France. Every baby in France has a comforter which they call a doudou so they sent one to Aisling. It became her favourite toy. It was carried everywhere, on trips to Kerry and Dublin and on holidays abroad. It filled the role of a faithful friend and confidante over the years. But at 18 it is now the worst for wear.
Carine decided to buy a new one for Aisling’s 18th birthday. But this particular squirrel is a discontinued line, replaced years ago by the more popular teddies and rabbits. There was none to be got anywhere.
Not to be defeated, Carine put out a call on a website that sells old and discontinued items and there she found a second hand but little used one.
When Aisling opened her birthday present on Sunday she was overcome with emotion. It was like meeting a long lost child. It reminded her of how handsome and cuddly Doudou looked all those years ago.
Here are the two boys, Doudous mark 1 and 2, memory banks to treasure for ever.
Best birthday present ever!
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A Fact
Popeye appeared as a comic strip for the first time in 1929.
