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: Personal Page 2 of 27

Christmas 2024 Remembered

By

On January 15, 2025

In Personal, Poem

Chris Grayson in Killarney on January 7 2025

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Molly’s Visit

I had the pleasure of Molly’s company for a few days before Christmas.

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In Ballincollig

Nothing beats a family Christmas. I spent it in 2024 with my family in Ballincollig.

Church of St. Mary and St. John

Nice touch from the 220 bus

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A Postbox Story

Chris Courtney on Facebook

P & T POST BOX

‘SE’ Saorstat Eireann (Irish Free State) post box in County Monaghan. Cast at the Jessop Davis foundry Enniscorthy sometime between 1922 and 1937. (Source: Irish Archeology). Photos also include Thomas Jessop Davis born 1864, died 1946, founder of St. John’s Ironworks and Foundry which was located in Enniscorthy, County Wexford. Wall tie plates, Manhole covers, Agricultural machinery components, ESB and P and T items testify to some of the many contracts he undertook at the Enniscorthy plant.

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Acts of Neighbourliness

The internet was alive with amazing stories of helpfulness during the recent cold snap.

Beatrice shovelling snow on Charles Street

Pat rescuing a stranded motorist

Eddie cleared my path so that I could safely go to his house for Sunday lunch.

This is a milk delivery to Centra in Dromcollogher. The internet was awash with images of good samaritans delivering milk, drinking water, vital medicines, food, post and other essentials to stranded neighbours, friends and strangers.

Bridie Murphy’s picture of her husband heading out to help a neighbour almost broke the internet and rightly so. This picture of early January 2025 in Co. Limerick says more than 1,000 words.

In the midst of it all Mattie Lennon found a laugh.

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Carmel Hanrahan’s Memories of Growing up in Listowel

Before you read today’s instalment, I have to give you an update.

Muireann O’Sullivan remembers the milkman. Here is Muireann’s comment

I think Carmel’s man on a bike delivering milk:cream was Martin Daly RIP late of Market Street ( the house now lived in by Máiréad Carroll). He certainly delivered to Charles St. on his bike. The late Tom Scannell, Skehenerin, took over the milk round when Martin retired. Our milk was now delivered in glass bottles with silver foil tops. The delivery was made extraordinarily early and, when we collected it from the window sill or doorstep, the cream would have risen to and settled on top – ready to pour on our porridge. 

If you have commented in the past, you will probably have noticed that comments no longer appear. I have no idea why. I will try to fix it. Meanwhile dont stop commenting. I can see and approve them even if I can’t upload them to the blog.

Carmel’s Story continued

… Tony O’Callaghan lived at the end of the road and I remember some of his brass works from the house especially a beautiful piece at the fireplace.  Working up the road, there were the Landers, then the Jones, Mai Watkins – sister to Aggie Nolan who filled in as surrogate mother to my sister and myself, a wonderful person and I can’t do her justice here, O’Donnell’s, Crowley’s, Us, Givens, Molyneaux’s, Nurse McMahon, Fitzmaurice’s, Moore’s, and a little further up O’Sullivan’s. (I hope I have the order right).

The Givens lived next door.  I can still remember our first morning in the new house when Seamus called to my dad through the fence enquiring if we were coming out to play.  Seamus, John and Peter were the sons of the house.  Pat had been to America which seemed a very exotic and exciting thing to us at the time.  Lisha and Pat drank coffee every day after lunch (my first introduction to that magic concoction) and I used to be given a cup also, made on milk and a spoonful from a little tin of Maxwell House powdered coffee.  Thus started my lifelong passion (some would say obsession) for anything coffee.  

Paudie and Sadie Fitzmaurice lived further up the road.  On Sundays, dad gave Sadie a lift to 12 o’clock Mass.  She used to allow several of us to come in and play with Mary’s dolls house which with retrospect was a spectacular affair and David’s Fort and his soldiers.  Personally, I remember that I preferred the soldiers.  Apologies here to Mary and David for commandeering their toys in their absence, but a great memory.  I also recall that Mary had a pair of Beetle Boots (white, if I remember correctly), the closest we ever got to a pair and a collection of Beetles records.  You must remember this was in the late 60’s when things like this were not common place.  Hilda O’Donnell also had a record collection which contained a lot of Elvis records.  I remember that Paudie went on holidays several times to Spain and returned with a gift for every child on the road.  A doll in Spanish costume was one and a Fan on another occasion.  I don’t remember what the boys got (too busy admiring my own).

More tomorrow

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A Poem for all the stressed parents with children under their feet for too long

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A Fact

Food rationing was introduced in the UK in 1940 due to shortages brought about by WW2.

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Christmas 2024

By

On December 19, 2024

In Athea, Listowel, Listowel Races, Personal, Poem

Lizzie’s with Fairytale of New York themed windows

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Seamus Heaney Poem

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A Delightfiul Christmas Present

This lovely gravity defying fieldmouse was carved for me from lime wood by a superb craftsman, Tony Woulfe.

Tony lives in Gorey, Co Wexford but he has family roots in Athea. He has a Listowel connection in that one of his many wooden creations was presented to the connections of a winning horse at Listowel Races.

As well as wood carving, Tony likes to write. He is a keen family historian and a great recorder of life as it was in his young days. We will hear more from him here in 2025.

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Christmas 2024 in Listowel

A few photos from our lovely town at Christmas 2024

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Memories of Christmas in Listowel in the 40s and early 50s 

By Marie (Canty) Sham

Maria grew up in O’Connell’s Avenue Listowel. Here she looks back on a very happy Christmas time

I remember

Going to the wood to cut the holly which grew wild, and the moss to put on the crib. 

Christmas Eve cleaning the house, the excitement of setting up the crib filling jam jars with sand and putting the candles in them, decorating them with crepe paper, putting up paper chains, my mother would have made a large Christmas pudding in a gallon and put it aside 

The turkey or goose was bought at the local market and plucked by our neighbour Bill Boyle. He must have done it for everyone because the road would be covered in feathers. The innards were still warm when it was cleaned out, that was all on Christmas Eve so it was fresh.

We were not well off but we were lucky as my father was always working, we were not short of anything. At that time in Kerry there was a lot of unemployment.

The shops mam shopped in during the year gave a Christmas box. One shop would give tea, sugar and maybe a pot of jam. That shop was called Jet Stacks and it is not there now. The butcher Murphy’s would send Danny to deliver us maybe a large piece of lamb, of course it would be delivered by him on his bicycle with a basket in front

I can also remember a donkey and cart outside the shops with a tea chest and all the shopping would be put into it. These people would be from the country and would not come to town again until after Christmas.

There was a shop called Fitzgibbons and we would pay in whatever we could afford for toys or anything else. I paid in sixpence a week for a sewing box and I still had it when I got married. Mam paid every week for the Nativity figures for the crib. I have never seen anything so beautiful since.

The ham would be on the boil and the crib set up. The candles would be lit by the youngest member of the house, I think at 7 o’ clock .

Our clean clothes would be kept warm over the range ready for midnight mass.

Going out on the frosty night and seeing all the windows with lighted candles was wonderful.

Home after mass a warm fire in the range, a slice of the ham or maybe a fry! Our stockings would be hanging at the end of the bed. We did not get much; my dad was very good with his hands and would make things for us. He made a scooter once and a rocking horse.

My brother Neil wanted a mouth organ and it was like in the song Scarlet Ribbons, dad went to so many shops until he got one for him. I was too young to remember that but mam told that story.

Christmas morning I will never forget waking up to the smell of the turkey roasting.

Up quickly and look if Santa had come, our stockings might have an orange, we always got something. I remember getting roller skates; I also remember getting a fairisle jumper from Santa. The problem was I had seen my aunt knitting it. All the children would be out in the Avenue with their new toys to show off.

Before dinner our neighbour Paddy Galvin would come in to wish a Happy Christmas and mam would give him a bottle of stout. I think that was the only time he ever called in. We would have lemonade and stout in for Christmas.

Dinner was wonderful, our Mam was a great cook. There was Mam Dad, Nelie, Paddy, Doreen and myself. My brother Junie came along later, and after we would wrap up warm and visit the cribs; one in each church, hospital, convent and St Marys and bring home a bit of straw for our crib which I think was blessed.

More food when we got home 

Bed and looking forward to St Stephens day and the Wren Boys, no cooking on that day we finished up the leftovers.

What wonderful times!

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Flavin’s Window

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Moments of Reflection

Mary Hanlon met me on Church Street and I accompanyied her to Woulfe’s to sign my book for her.

If you are stuck for a Christmas present, don’t forget my Moments of Reflection is available in Woulfe’s, Eason, Listowel Garden Centre, Garvey’s, Prifma and Kerry Writers’ Museum.

It is also in Watsons in Duagh, OMahonys in Tralee and The Friary Bookshop in Killarney, in Presents of Mind and The Kanturk Bookshop in Kanturk

On Radio Kerry at around 7.25 a.m. and after the news at 12.00 you can hear me read my Thought for the Day. Some of this week’s Thoughts are in Moments of Reflection.

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A Sean McCarthy Poem

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A Fact

We know about fingerprints, but did you know that each of us has a unique tongue print?

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Country Folk Come to Town

By

On December 16, 2024

In Listowel, Personal, Poem

Charles Street on a frosty morning in December 2024

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John O’Connell’s Christmas Memories

( as related to his wife, Noreen)

“In our house in Curraghatoosane ( Botharín Dubh), Christmas preparations started with white washing. Lime was mixed with water and a little bluestone added and this was painted on with a wide brush or sometimes the sweeping brush.

Red berried holly was picked up in the Hickeys and a few red or white candles were stuck in a turnip or a 2 pound jam crock filled with sand and decorated with a piece of red crepe paper if we had it.

The crib was set up on the wide window sill and decorated with holly or laurel.

On Christmas Eve I went off shopping with my mother on  our ass and cart. My job was to hold the ass  as mother leisurely shopped, in all the shops where she left her  loyal custom throughout the year. Here she got a “Christmas box” as a present. This was usually a fruit cake wrapped in festive parchment with a lovely little shiny garland around it or a small box of biscuits.

There was no rush on mam, or no great worry about poor me in my  short pants, patiently awaiting by his docile ass. Throughout the long shopping  trek, I got   a bottle of Nash’s red lemonade and a few thick  ha’penny biscuits.

It was up  Church street to Barretts  shop and bar, Lena Mullalys,  O Grady’s Arch store, to Guerins in Market Street, John Joe Kenny’s in the Square and many more smaller shops in town,  for flour and meal, tea and sugar, jam, biscuits, jelly  a cut of beef, lemonade,  and lots of stout and a bottle or two of sherry.

Eventually with our cart laden with the provisions and the bottles rattling away  in long wooden boxes ( which would be returned with the empties after Christmas), we set off home, poor Neddy and me, tired and cold but mother content and fulfilled and warmed by perhaps the drop of sherry or perhaps a  little  hot toddy she might have shared in a Snug  with a friend she met on her shopping expedition!!

The last stop was at Jack Thornton’s for a few black jacks, and slab toffee which revived my drooping spirits. As we travelled home the homes were ablaze with lighted  candles . It was a sight to behold, which I can still see as plain today as it was 70 years ago. There was very little traffic back then but I lit the way home  with the torchlight for mam, me and Neddy . The “ Flight to Curraghatoosane”!

Next it was to  untackle and feed and water our gentle, compliant ass, unload the messages and join my father and 3 brothers for a welcome bite. I was the 2nd eldest of four boys and felt high and mighty to be chosen to chaperone my mother. “Mother’s pet,” says Noreen!!

 Next morning we were awake at cock crow to open our purties. (These were sometimes hidden in the meal bin and one year we were informed of this by an older neighbouring boyo and when the coast was clear one day, we searched and found the hidden cache.We were smart enough to remain  silent  so nobody  spilled the beans. ) We  walked, fasting, down to 7 a.m Convent Mass.  Then home to play with and maybe dismantle a purty to investigate its workings.

The stuffed goose was roasting in the bastible. What a glorious smell . I loved the delightful brown gravy, carrots, turnips  and pandy, all from our own garden. As well as supplying milk in town, we had a fine market garden and so we had plenty of fresh vegetables. The trifle dessert was such a treat. 

Next day –St Stephens day was gambling day in our house, when the neighbours congregated to play 110 which could last for days, even into weeks. Plenty porter was gratefully accepted and savoured as well as  tea and cake.

As I got older St Stephen’s day was the day for the wran (wren). We started getting ready early in the day and it was the day that the fancy cake garland that came around the  “Christmas box” cakes, were recycled and transformed into part of the” wran “head dress. We had a fantastic wrenboy group, known as the Dirrha wrenboys, captained by the well -known Sonny Canavan. A wren dance followed in a few weeks, hosted often in our  home and was the event of the year with music, song and dance and 2  half tierces, and attended by locals and visitors and denounced from the pulpit  by the parish priest, if he came to hear of it.”

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Small Taste of the Marvellous Tractor Run

John B. Keane Road on Sunday December 8 2024

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A Poem and a Memory

Johnny Joy shared this lovely memory on Facebook.

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Woodford Pottery

Pat has been so busy this year that he didn’t have enough stock to do the Christmas craft fairs. So the mountain had to come to Mohammed. Woodford pottery pots are absolutely beautiful. His lovely shop is well worth a visit for a hand crafted special present. He sells online now too, if you can’t make it to Woodford or to one of the many shops he supplies.

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A Lovely Door deserves a Lovely wreath

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A Timely Poem for Christmas 2024

SILENT NIGHT

by Mary McElligott

Please Santa, will you help us,

Wake the world for all to see 

What has happened to my home

And all the ones here ‘round me?

I search the sky with my stinging eyes

Hoping to see your sleigh

But bombs and rockets just keep falling

And will frighten ye away.

Our new house has just 3 walls 

And carpet for the door.

There’s loads of us which keeps us warm

As we’re squashed down on the floor.

I miss my nan and mom I do

As we all here just moved on.

I don’t believe my dad no more,

I’m worried that they’re gone.

I don’t want toys at all this year,

Just bring lots of food like bread

And rice and flour and coats and shoes,

Just stuff like that instead.

When you’re up around the stars

Can bombs be turned around?

Maybe you can stop them 

Before they hit the ground. 

Why are we here like this?

What did we all do wrong?

I hate to go to sleep at night.

I hope you won’t be long

‘Cause Santa can you bring us peace

And oil too for our light?

I’m tired now, I hope I sleep.

I’d love a silent night.

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A Fact

Ice age people used human skulls as cups

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Kanturk Remembers the Famine

By

On December 11, 2024

In Listowel, Listowel Writers Week, Personal, Poem, Schools' Folklore

Upper Church Street in December 2024

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In Ballincollig

Castlewest shopping centre, Ballincollig

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Remembering Hard Times

When I was in Kanturk I went to see the Famine Pot in St. Patrick’s Place.

This pot was still intact when a local farmer dug it up. Kanturk Tidy Town committee have placed it at the entrance to the site that once housed the Kanturk Union workhouse.

Six acres were donated by the Earl of Egmont, the local landlord, to the Board of Guardians to erect a workhouse and fever hospital.

The workhouse was built to accommodate 800 people but during the tragic period of the famine almost 1,800 people lived there. North Cork was thought to have suffered some of the worst effects of famine during this catastrophic period of history.

Many of these large cauldrons were donated to the Irish People by the Quaker community during the height of the famine in 1846.

They were used to make soup or stirabout, a kind of porridge made from the cheap meal that was imported to feed the starving hordes who converged on the workhouses.

This is still a health centre. It used to be a dispensary.

It’s worth enlarging this to read about the full horror of those awful years. The pot is a timely reminder of what our ancestors came through.

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A Poem

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Ushering

As essay by Mick O’Callaghan

 Ushering in and out

I was reading in the papers that the election of Donald Trump in America would usher in a new era in American/China relations as Donald was proposing the introduction of a 60% surcharge on all goods entering America from China.

I also saw that all our own political parties were promising that if elected to government that they were going to usher in new priorities in Housing, Education, Health and many more areas of government. This word usher was an ‘in’ word which I just had to explore.

The word usher has been around a long time with God being the very first usher – as he ushered in day and light (Gen. 1:3-4). God ushered man into the Garden of Eden (Gen 2:15). Ushers or forerunners are depicted throughout the Bible.

In the New Testament, Temple ushers were given unusual authority as uniformed guards. In Acts the “captain of the temple” is referred to in connection with arrests and general handling of crowds. It was these ushers who carried out the orders of the high priests to persecute the apostles.

The word comes  from the Latin ostiarius (“porter”, “doorman”) or the French word huissier. Ushers were servants or courtiers who showed or ushered visitors in and out of meetings in large houses or palaces.

My first encounter with usher was in the 60’s when we went to the Picturedrome Cinema in Tralee to see a film or a movie as they call them nowadays. We bought our tickets at the little box office in the hall and waited to be admitted. Sam from Ireland ushered everyone to their seats guiding them down the steps with his long torch. If there was any play acting or noise during the film, he shone the torch on the person involved. Any couples who were getting too close, as they said in those days, got similar treatment.

In those pre-equality days, the usherette sold the tubs of ice cream from her usherette tray during the intermission.

Then of course there were the church ceremonies, particularly at Christmas when the big crowds turned up for midnight mass. There were quite a few people who went straight from the pub to church. The church ushers went around trying to get a seat for everyone. They also had a role at the front door discouraging those whom they adjudged to be carrying a sup too much on board to go home rather than heading up the aisle. This became a problem and mass time was changed to 9 o clock. I don’t think they have that same overcrowding situation today with less people attending services.

I was recently at a funeral of a relative in Kinnitty, County Offaly. The church was in a small rural area named Cadamstown and I just loved it when the parish priest and the usher went around getting people a seat .It was a fine day and there was a reluctance of locals and others, including myself, to be ushered up the church and so there was a sizeable group in the church grounds discussing local topics and the state of Offaly hurling and football. It was a nice social occasion despite the circumstances.

Later when the funeral was over, we were all invited back to the community hall where 140 people were served a beautiful meal. Local people acted as ushers, finding seats, serving desserts and making everyone welcome. It was all so nice, friendly, sociable and a relaxed civilised occasion.

I noticed ushers at a few weddings I was at recently and their names were noted in the wedding booklet. They were all young men who were family members or close friends of the groom who were showing people to their seats but were not members of the inner bride and groom party.

I just love those scenes in films when in a courtroom a male attendant leads in the judge. I looked up the dictionary for a fuller meaning of court usher and found this” Court ushers ensure that everyone involved with a court case is present, that they know what they must do during the hearing, as well as providing personal assistance for the judges to whom they are assigned”.

 We all encounter occasions when people are ushered into meetings or concerts because the event is just about to start. The ushering is usually preceded by an announcement over the P.A. 

In newspaper accounts we regularly read that officials and security personnel have quickly ushered the protesters out of the hall after a protest or interruption at a public meeting.

 We have of course got Usher’s Quay in Dublin which reputably is named after a prominent Dublin family named Usher/Ussher who were supposed to be descended from Gilbert de Neville, admiral of William the Conqueror’s fleet in 1066.

In Ashford in County Wicklow, the garden of Ireland, we have the lovely Mount Usher Gardens.

In literature many of us will have encountered that tragic short story by Edgar Allan Poe entitled “The Fall of the House of Usher” and first published in 1839.It was serialized for TV last year by Netflix.

Finally, I refer to the ushers in Dail Eireann who are always immaculately dressed in their state uniform.

I am now happier that I am a trifle more educated about the lovely word usher so whether you are ushering in or out or being ushered in or out there is an absolute certainty that we will all usher in the new year of 2025 at the end of December 2024 with the usual ushering aplomb. Nollaig Shona.

Mick O Callaghan 03/12/2024

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Some Listowel Christmas Windows

DIY Christmas Crafts

From the Schools’ Folklore Collection

Candles; “My grandmother used make candles out of the fat of cows.”
My grandmother used make candles out of the fat of cows. She used buy the fat from the butcher and after they killed a cow for their own use. First of all she used put it into a mould and put a cord in the hole at the end of it and knot it. Then she used pull the cord through the mould and pour in the fat and leave it so for a day or two. The candles are about as wide as Christmas candles now.
Patrick Fitzgerald used make baskets out of twigs. The twigs grew near his own house. He used pick them in the month of October and leave them so for a week or two.
My grandmother used spin and weave. The flax used be sown in Spring and pull it in August. They used take it to the bog and put it into a bog hole and leave it so for a couple of weeks. Then they used pound it with a mallet.


Collector- Nora Shine, Address, Derreen, Co. Limerick (Kilbaha School)
Informant, Patrick W. Shine. parent, Address, Derreen, Co. Limerick.

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Killarney at Christmas

Their bauble is bigger than ours. I was in this corner of Killarney yesterday dropping off copies of Moments of Reflection to the The Priory Bookshop.

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A Fact

Charles Dickens is believed to have popularised turkey as the centrepiece of the Christmas dinner. When the reformed Scrooge brings Christmas dinner to the Crachit family he brings them turkey.

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On Nana Duty

By

On December 10, 2024

In Listowel, Personal

John R.s, part of Listowel Christmases for 3 generations.

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Kildare Village

There are two places where I spend a bit of time when visiting my grandchildren. Both places are called a village and neither is a village. The places are Kildare Village and Ballincollig.

Kildare Village was looking festive when I visited.

Weather again this year was against us.

We went in The Head Plan shop because Mammy wanted to buy her journal for 2025. The lovely shop assistant spotted a bored child and invited Aoife to be her assistant in the personalisation section.

Aoife “assisted” by standing and looking bewildered. It seems that was enough for she was rewarded with stickers and praise.

Personalisation done, and Aoife was allowed to share the credit.

We tried the new place, new since my last visit anyway, for our elevenses.

Look at this and tell me is this is what a three year old finds inviting in a café.

The excellent service, passionate baristas, pretty pictures and good conversation failed to impress Aoife who found nothing to her liking except the posh overpriced crisps, which made her thirsty and they had no drink suitable for her either.

Come to think of it, it’s a bit rich to claim good conversation as one of the selling points of your coffee shop since the customer has to provide this himself.

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Christmases of Yore in West Kerry

Image and text from Facebook

This is St. Vincent’s Church in Boulteen, Ballyferriter in Kerry on a Christmas Night 

MEMORIES OF CHRISTMAS IN GORTA DUBHA

by Maurice Brick

                            There was a touch of frost, enough to stiffen the grass but it limbered with the noonday sun. The grown ups were in good humor and we were very sensitive to that. The farm work was done and only the cows needed tending. There was an easiness. 

A great day was when Mam and Dad went to Dingle to bring home the Christmas. Dad had rails on the cart. We were bursting with excitement upon hearing the cart coming with its iron band wheels which could be heard for miles. They had a sack of flour, a sack of yellow meal, various foods, wellingtons, some clothes, decorations and most important, sweets and biscuits and icing clad Christmas Cakes. They also had several bottles of Sandiman Port which were presents from Dingle merchants in appreciation of their custom through the year. 

Searching for discarded jam jars which we would wash and fill with sand to hold the candle we put in each window of the house. Holding the ladder for Dad as he retrieved some ivy from the gable end of the house. Going to the Reen, a field on our land that was reputedly a Fairy Fortress and had some scattered Holly Bushes. The house would be spotless and there was a silent buzz as we went about our chores. The turf fire was blazing and added to the glow. 

On Christmas Eve for dinner we had Langa (Ling), a long stringy fish that had hung for weeks from the ceiling. It was salty and boney but Mam’s white sauce with onions, pandy (potatoes mashed with generous helping of butter) and spices made it palatable. After, there was lashings of Christmas Cake with inch thick icing and we made short work of that. 

Going to Midnight Mass to St. Vincent’s in Boulteen was a treat. We went up the Tóchar a Bohereen and pathway through the fields. Dad had a lantern and led the way. At one point we climbed a few steps to climb over a claí (an earthen stone fence that separated fields) and on top you could see all the houses in the Parish with candles in the windows and it was like a glimpse of Tír Na nÓg (Land Of Youth) if such a place ever existed. 

The Church was small and comfortable. It was full and the smell of molten wax permeated the air. And there was a quietness. My Dad sang in the Choir and his cousin Paddy Brick, Riasc played the violin. It was magical listening to them, performing for us a hauntingly soft rendition of Oíche Chiuin (Silent Night) in honor of the Birth of the Baby Jesus. I remember now, I will never forget, Dad singing his heart out & Paddy Brick his cousin on the violin, watching one another with sideway glances making sure each of them was putting out the best. 

After Mass all the people greeted one another and offered Christmas Blessings. All was done in hushed and calming voices and that has stayed with me down through the years. My friend Pad accompanied us once going home by the Tóchar and he was given to speeching all the way. When we passed by the Cemetery he proceeded to name everyone who died in Gorta Dubha for the past fifty years. I shifted closer to Mam and Dad for the rest of the journey. 

At home, we put up our stockings for Santí and reluctantly went to bed. Dad went to the haggard and pulled a gabháll (bunch) of hay which he spread at the front door to feed the Donkey that was bringing the Holy Family for a visit to our house on Christmas Night. 

After a fitful night’s sleep we arose with excitement and checked our Santí stockings. We compared what we got and though at times it wasn’t much we were happy. Off we went running to every house in the the village. We’d get a piece of sweet cake or a bun and sometimes, even a sip of lemonade. We joined the other children and traipsed about joyfully in and out of the houses. It was Gorta Dubha and all the houses were ours. NOLLAIG SHONA……..HAPPY CHRISTMAS.

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Continuing my supportive tour of Grandchildren

Róisín in pale green, fourth from right.

Billy Elliot was this year’s Coláiste and Gaelcholáiste Choilm TY musical. It was an excellent show, produced to professional standards.

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German Christmas Treats

I am a member of a bookclub in Ballincollig library. Our newest member is Rebecca, who is on a gap year from Germany.

She made us eiserhornchen, which her grandmother taught her to bake, for our last meeting.

They were delicious.

In case you were wondering, the book was The Stationery Shop of Tehran by Marjan Kamali. It got a lukewarm reception from our club.

Our next book is Politics on the Edge by Rory Stewart, which promises a look inside British politics by a disillusioned Tory. Wouldn’t be my first choice for Christmas reading.

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More New Businesses Opening in my Absence

I turn my back for one minute and the town is changed utterly.

Least said, soonest mended in regard to my opinion of this one

New tattoo shop opening soon on William Street.

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A Fact

In 1951 10,000 turkeys were flown by Aer Lingus from Ireland to England.

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