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
I had the pleasure of Molly’s company for a few days before Christmas.
<<<<<<<<<
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
<<<<<<<<
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.
<<<<<<<<<
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.
<<<<<<<<<
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
<<<<<<<<
A Poem for all the stressed parents with children under their feet for too long
<<<<<<<
A Fact
Food rationing was introduced in the UK in 1940 due to shortages brought about by WW2.
Photo; Chris Grayson in Killarney National Park on January 7 2025
<<<<<<<<
A Tree of Hope Knitting Project
This is the St. Conleth’s Parish newsletter which was sent to me by Mary McKenna.
As you can see this was a massive undertaking, a huge credit to all involved. In Newbridge, knitting is a huge community thing. I have seen and documented here their previous yarn bombing and St. Brigid projects.
Detail shows how each branch and bauble was made.
And someone wrote a poem.
<<<<<<<<
A Birdseye view of Snowy Listowel
John Kelliher took this fabulous photo of the recent snow.
<<<<<<<
Growing up in Listowel in the 1960s and 1970s
By Carmel Hanrahan
(Continued from yesterday)
… My father grew a lot of vegetables alongside all the flowers and ornamental plants he had – he was a passionate gardener and I inherited that gene. There seemed to be a type of barter system going on amongst the other gardeners and himself as it wasn’t unusual to look out the window and see one of the neighbours collecting some vegetables, (or strawberries in the Summer), but we also picked peas and other items in Hilda O’Donnell’s Garden. Between us and the O’Donnell’s was the Crowley’s house. Kitty Crowley was also a keen gardener. Together, Hilda and Kitty (it seems strange to call them by their first names as, growing up, most people were addressed as Mr or Mrs) often did “a run” to Ballybunion during the fine weather. It seems in my memory that no invitations were issued but if you spotted a car being packed you just turned up with your towel and your togs and joined the group. I think we may have broken a few Guinness records for the amount of people in those cars. Kitty drove a Mini and Hilda a VW Beetle and yet, their combined 6 or so children – Susan and Nuala may not have been born at that time, – plus whatever number of neighbour’s children all travelled in layers to the beach – often only one car was taken. A veritable “Lasagna” of people.
We were taken fruit picking by Mrs. O’Donnell, to give her her full title, to a fruit farm where you picked your own. She would then spend several days making jam and marmalade. Her Kenwood Chef was her pride and joy and I later visited her when I was in my 20’s and the machine was still going strong. Mrs. Jones, further down the road taught me to make apple and rhubarb tarts which I proudly brought home. Sometimes we were sent to the Creamery for bottles/jars of cream which you filled from a tap and then paid for through a window on the side of the office building. I also recollect a man with a bike, not unlike a butcher’s bike but with a churn of milk or cream on the front and ladles in pint and half pint measures hanging from the bike, possibly called PJ – end of an era I think.
Another instalment tomorrow
<<<<<<
Just a Thought
I have been fairly busy on Radio Kerry over the holidays. Here is the link to some reflections you wont have herd before. Some of these are included in my recent book, Moments of Reflection.
I was just going through an old photo album from around 2002 and came across the photo on the left of an Edward Rex Letter Box somewhere in south-west Wexford and said I’d share this with ye.
Many of you will know this already but in case you don’t, when ‘The Free State’ was setup, the old red boxes associated with the British Empire were rebranded and painted green. To this day, you’ll spot these around the country and obviously this one in Wexford caught my eye some 22+ years ago.
The letter box on the right is from over in Buckinghamshire in England and as you can see, they are almost identical in design. I’m no expert on this but I believe these were installed/made between 1901 – 1910.
A great bit of rebranding and a sensible and practical thing to do back in the day.
<<<<<<<<<
<<<<<<<
A Fact
The first cheque written in decimal currency in the UK was for £50.30p in March 1968.
Health warning to the squeamish…A turkey is harmed in this one.
Cold Turkey
Cyril Kelly remembers Christmas in his childhood home in Church Street
My mother was a milliner and her scissors chirped relentessly in the shop. Each pattern was cut to a chorus; straw crackled, silk zipped across the bias and there was a soft wheeze from fur and leather. Hats preened on chrome stems everywhere; sequined veils, beads fantails of velvet in Yule tide red. Looking down at me, those hats were like a flock of exotic birds roosting.
I was kneeling at the stool beside the old Singer sewing machine doing my lessons. My headline, Christmas is coming and the geese are getting fat was wrought with an N nib. The letters trembled between the red and blue lines. My mother was at the counter, ceaselessly stitching in silence, working against the clock towards some elusive image of style and beauty. Having agreed to make a gown for Mrs. Mac, she was struggling to have it ready for the Hunt Ball on St. Stephens night. Forty button holes had to be sewn into the gown. With every stitch, she drew the needle up in a long, sighing arc while, beside me, the murmuring from the stove was like a lullaby. The place was a cocoon of warmth and the imminence of Christmas.
But from the way my mother oiled the needle, prodding it through the roots of her hair; I could see that she was agitated. If she caught you with a rap of that thimble it was worse than the wooden spoon! Out in the backyard the turkey was fasting under the solitary tea chest. I sensed that the time was nigh. She had arrived from her free range fields the week before. Even though the daylight hours were failing fast, I went out each afternoon in the December gloom to feed her as soon as I got home from school. Almost as tall as myself, she had a funny way of standing on one leg, the other one gathered up under her as if she were going to produce a fob watch at any moment from a pocket in her plumage.
Her gait was ungainly and I loved to watch the neck craning in syncopated rhythm to every step, head poised at every pause, eye alert for a sign of any smirk from me. Sometimes, the slanting, midwinter light made her feathers gleam; metallic pewters, coppers and bronze. Gazing at her, I often felt sorry for her, away from her friends, away from Clounmacon and her breezy fields of freedom. She had a lopsided look because my mother had clipped one wing so that there was no flying into Dillon’s yard next door.
But worse, far worse, was yet to come. She had to spend her last 24 hours on earth in starving solitary, crammed under a tea chest that had a nine inch block planked on top. Whenever the coast was clear, I sneaked out to press a few scrawny crusts in under the tea chest. Suddenly, exasperated with the intricacies of forty buttonholes, my mother snapped; Aw here, and in a flurry the gown was cast aside onto the sewing machine. Swerving around the corner of the counter, she shut the shop door for the night. The iron bar clunked irrevocably into the sockets on the door jamb. Trailing after her, I left the cozy warmth of the shop behind.
When I got into the kitchen, the place was cold. She was rattling through the cutlery drawer for the knife with the bleached bone handle. It had a short blade, worn to a vicious concave shape from repeated sharpening. Now it screeched mercilessly as she honed the edge to a sliver of steel. I had to pull the kitchen curtains apart to throw light on the corner of the yard. A vague illumination fell on the scene outside, the theatre of operations so to speak. I could barely distinguish the rusty tin outline of the tea chest. All thoughts of the style and warmth in the shop were banished.
In the yard, I could not stop shivering. There was a bit of a shumozle as the tea chest was upended and the turkey hauled towards the shore hole. And then it was my job to grasp one warm wing and the trussed feet. The other wing was secured between my mother’s knees. Gripping the beak with her left hand, she stretched the scrawny neck and bent low over the grating. I braced myself for that dreaded sound; the lisping hiss of two distinct incisions on the loose goose-pimpled flesh of the neck. I felt it as keenly as if I had been slit myself. Immediately there was a splattering of blood near my shoes but in those initial moments the bird remained absolutely motionless. Then, as if realizing that my mother meant business, the legs and wing convulsed. I had to hang on desperately. The frenzy seemed to last an age, tugging and dragging me all over the slippery, sloping surface. Eventually the struggle subsided and, after one final spasm, the bird went limp first, and then heavy. A faint trickling continues into the shore. Head hooded in tissue paper, the turkey was rushed inside to the kitchen; had to be plucked while the flesh was still warm. Sitting on the sugán stool, my mother draped the bird across her lap. At that stage of the procedure my job was to hold the mouth of a pillow case open for the down and feathers. With soft explosive sounds, fistfuls of plumage were ripped out, always against the grain. Sneezing frequently, my mother stuffed every fistful deep into the pillow case. Whenever the dead entrails of the bird sighed a splutter of grey green shit, I had to wipe below the Pope’s nose with a page of The Independent. For days after, the cold clammy turkey hung by the feet from a rafter in the back porch. Plucked and pale, she wore a muffler of congealed newspaper. Every time I passed, she was staring at me through a slit in her slate-blue lids.
Even by Christmas Eve when my father, a commercial traveler, returned to hear what a worthy man of the house I had been in his absence, my response to the accolade of his handshake was wan. And late that night, after I’d hung my stocking from the mantelpiece and was ready to go up the stairs, I could hardly smile when my mother paused to admire the stuffed turkey and chuckle; There’ll be many a bird at the Hunt Ball on St. Stephen’s Night who won’t have such stylish stitching decorating her craw.
<<<<<<<<
New Shop Popped Up
The people behind the delicious Brona chocolates have opened a shop at 3 William Street. As well as selling all their lovely chocolate products, they are selling hot chocolate…delicious!
<<<<<<<<
An Exiles Christmas
Martin OHara wrote in 2021…
This time last year we posted a poem called the Exiles Christmas, about an old retired Irishman, living in a small flat in London, reminiscing about his childhood days in Ireland in his youth.
I based that poem on a man called Joe I worked with in England over thirty years ago. He was from county Tipperary, and he was actually living in a one bedroom flat from the time he came to England, up until I came to know him, a period of 22 years.
He had never been back to Ireland in all that time. When the job finished, I lost contact with Joe, no mobile phones in those days. I often wondered what became of him as he had a fondness for the drink.
To make a long story short I based that poem on Joe, and as it proved so popular last year, I thought we might post it again. And Joe, if your still out there, a very Merry Christmas to you.
Lizzie’s with Fairytale of New York themed windows
<<<<<<<<<<
Seamus Heaney Poem
<<<<<<<<
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.
<<<<<<<<<<
Christmas 2024 in Listowel
A few photos from our lovely town at Christmas 2024
<<<<<<<<
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!
<<<<<<<<<<
Flavin’s Window
<<<<<<<<<<
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.
<<<<<<<<
<<<<<<<<<
A Sean McCarthy Poem
<<<<<<<<
A Fact
We know about fingerprints, but did you know that each of us has a unique tongue print?
Christmas Recalled in Garry MacMahon’s Nostalgic Poem
A Kerry Christmas Childhood
Garry MacMahon
Now I cannot help remembering the happy days gone by,
As Christmastime approaches and the festive season’s nigh.
I wallow in nostalgia when I think of long ago,
And the tide that waits for no man as the years they ebb and flow.
We townies scoured the countryside for holly berries red,
And stripped from tombs green ivy in the graveyard of the dead,
To decorate each picture frame a hanging on the wall,
And fill the house with greenery and brighten winter’s pall,
Putting up the decorations was for us a pleasant chore,
And the crib down from the attic took centre stage once more.
From the box atop the dresser the figures were retrieved,
To be placed upon a bed of straw that blessed Christmas Eve,
For the candles, red crepe paper, round the jamjars filled with sand,
To be placed in every window and provide a light so grand,
To guide the Holy Family who had no room at the inn,
And provide for them a beacon of the fáilte mór within.
The candles were ignited upon the stroke of seven,
The youngest got the privilege to light our way to Heaven,
And the rosary was said as we all got on our knees,
Remembering those who’d gone before and the foreign missionaries.
Ah, we’d all be scrubbed like new pins in the bath before the fire
And, dressed in our pyjamas of tall tales we’d never tire,
Of Cuchlainn, Ferdia, The Fianna, Red Branch Knights,
Banshees and Jack o Lanterns, Sam Magee and Northern Lights
And we’d sing the songs of Ireland, of Knockanure and Black and Tans,
And the boys of Barr na Sráide who hunted for the wran.
Mama and Dad they warned us as they gave each good night kiss,
If we didn’t go to sleep at once then Santa we would miss,
And the magic Christmas morning so beloved of girls and boys,
When we woke to find our dreams fulfilled and all our asked for toys,
But Mam was up before us the turkey to prepare,
To peel the spuds and boil the ham to provide the festive fare.
She’d accept with pride the compliments from my father and the rest.
“Of all the birds I’ve cooked,” she’s say, “ I think that this year’s was the best.”
The trifle and plum pudding, oh, the memories never fade
And then we’d wash the whole lot down with Nash’s lemonade.
St. Stephen’s Day brought wrenboys with their loud knock on the door,
To bodhrán beat and music sweet they danced around the floor’
We, terror stricken children, fled in fear before the batch,
And we screamed at our pursuers as they rattled at the latch.
Like a bicycle whose brakes have failed goes headlong down the hill
Too fast the years have disappeared. Come back they never will.
Our clan is scattered round the world. From home we had to part.
Still we treasure precious memories forever in our heart.
So God be with our parents dear. We remember them with pride,
And the golden days of childhood and the happy Christmastide.
<<<<<<<<<
More Fairytale of New York windows
<<<<<<<<
Cookery Book Memories
Memories of Maura Laverty and her complete guide to good cooking, Full and Plenty, bond Irish mothers and daughters still.
Helen Moylan, Judy MacMahon, Bidgetta O’Hanlon all remember their mothers using recipes from this book.
The daughter in today’s Full and Plenty story cherishes the cookery book as a link to her mother but for a different reason.
Carmel Hanrahan told me her mother daughter Full and Plenty story.
Carmel’s parents, John and Breda Hanrahan at a social in the 1950s.
Breda bought her copy of Maura Laverty’s book in 1960. She wrote her name and the date she bought it on the flyleaf. This is precious to Carmel because it was just 2 months before she was born.
Carmel was only two weeks old when her mother passed away. So Carmel has no memories of her mother making the recipes. She treasures the book and she herself uses it.
<<<<<<<<<
Christmas Stories from the Schools Folklore Collection
Christmas Day Christmas comes but once a year; When it comes it brings good cheer, When it goes it leaves us here, And what will we do for the rest of the year.
When Christmas morning dawns everyone is up early and goes to early Mass, and many receive Holy Communion. When people meet on their way to Mass their salutes to each other are:- “A happy Christmas to you” and the reply is – “Many happy returns”. The children are all anxiety to see what Santa Claus has brought them. When Mass and breakfast are over the children play with their toys while the elders are busy preparing the Christmas dinner. The chief features of an Irish Christmas dinner are – roast turkey, or goose and a plum pudding. The remainder of the day is spent in the enjoyment and peace of the home, and the family circle. Christmas customs vary from country to country but the spirit of Christmas is the same the wide world over. It is the time of peace, and it is also the feast for the children, because it was first the feast of the Child Jesus who was born in Bethlehem nearly two thousand long years ago.
Collector Máighréad Ní Chearbhaill- Address, Ballybunnion, Co. Kerry. Teacher: Máire de Stac.
>>>>>>>>>>>
In the year 1839 on little Christmas night there was a fierce storm. The people were very happy and enjoying Christmas ; they had the Christmas candles lighted and the night was very calm. At ten o’clock they went to look at the cows and took lighted splinters as candles were very scarce in those days. It was so calm that the splinter kept lighting till they had secured the cattle for the night. Afterwards they went to bed, and were sound asleep when the storm arose at midnight. It was so bad that the people ran out of the houses. The houses were thrown down, cowstalls were flying half a mile away, and cattle were bellowing with no roof over them. The people were screaming for help, and tried to hold on to each other, and were very much exhausted. The storm lasted from twelve o’clock at night till seven in the morning. Then the people collected and made up little houses that they could sleep in, until a time came when they were able to build their houses once more. Afterwards when people talked of it they used to call it the night of the Big Wind. Pat Stack, Told by Nurse Stack, Newtownsandes, 62 years.
<<<<<<<<<<
Holly
Picture and text from Killarney Outlook online, December 2024
Saving the Holly
By Anne Lucey
The Brehon Laws had particular provision for the Holly Tree. So it is good to see the reminder from the Killarney National Park not to decimate this ancient tree.
The holly was one of the seven noble trees – along with oak, hazel, yew, ash, scots pine, and wild apple.
Cúchulainn made his carriage and spear shafts from the slow growing cuileann tree with the white wood. During the winter, then as now, birds visiting and native, survived on it.
Not only birds – the badgers, pine marten and wood mice – and the squirrel if he woke up feed on it.
The national park has an interesting line on the spikey leaves – these mainly occur at lower levels.
“If you look closely next time you see a holly tree, you might notice that they also produce many leaves without spikes, these are normally up higher up in the branches of the tree.”
The tree was seen as a fertility symbol and a charm against bad luck. The druids and Celts brought evergreens into their homes during the winter, believing that the plant’s ability to keep its leaves was magical and assured the return of spring. It was thought to be unlucky to cut down a holly tree, the park tells us.
But it wasn’t just “luck” that preserved the trees – many of which are hundreds of years old. The sophisticated Brehon laws had a penalty for cutting down holly. You could be fined two cows and a heifer for cutting a holly down on your own land. If you cut the branch of a neighbour’s holly the fine was a yearling heifer.
The national park is warning against collecting holly or other greenery from the park for Christmas decorations. I have news for them: the holly around Mangerton is nearly gone already. So, they might want to go back to the Brehon laws and confiscate a few cows!
<<<<<<<<<
A Fact
Nelson Mandela was not removed from the terrorist watch list in the U.S. until 2008
