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: Schools Page 1 of 21

When is a Book Club not just a Book Club?

Evening in Ballybunion in June 2025

Summer Visitors

Bobby, Carine and Reggie out and about in Ballybunion

Reggie loves the beach

Cora gave me a good excuse to lunch in Lizzie’s.

The weather was a bit rainy so we made a jigsaw. Cora made most of it.

The Book Club

A post from someone who wished to start up a bookclub in Listowel got me thinking about how marvellous and varied an institution the book club is.

I’m a member of a library based book club in Ballincollig. I spend a lot of time in Ballincollig with my family and I thought a book club would be a good way to meet up with like minded people. I was right.

There are many advantages to this type of bookclub. We don’t choose the books so every month is a surprise and we get to sample books we may never have chosen to buy. There is no obligation to attend so if one of us is otherwise occupied we just go ahead anyway. We have a warm comfortable venue with tea and biscuits provided, no washing up and no tidying the house. What’s not to love?

Of course like most bookclubs I know, setting the world to rights in the chat after the book discussion is a vital part of every meeting.

My sister-in-law’s book club is very different. They were mostly friends or friends of friends already. They meet in one anothers’ houses. They cook a meal for each meeting and they each take a turn to choose a book. It is usually a book they have read and so are recommending to the others.

Then my daughter’s book club is a different kettle of fish altogether. They formed online and they meet every month in a local tapas bar. The chat and the socialising is more important than the book. That club is 10 years on the go this year so after a glass or two of wine one winter’s evening, one lady suggested they go to Spain for their tapas to mark their 10th anniversary.

Here they are in Bilbao, not a book in sight, enjoying their 36 hour getaway with their bookclub mates.

The Corpus Christi Procession

A few photos from this year’s procession on Saturday, June 21 2025

Turning into Courthouse Road

People I met at the Sunday Market in Scoil Realt na Maidine

These lovely people from just over the border in Newcastlewest have a lovely product, wax melts. I bought a lavendar one and my house smelled of old world charm for hours.

The boys from 3D & Me have a steady repeat business every week.

Bobby met a man he hadn’t met since schooldays. Tom and Bobby were in the same class and played on the same soccer team.

Karen’s River Crafts are absolutely beautiful. They are made locally using local fallen trees, pebbles, foliage and flowers.

I bought this one. I love it. I’ll be back for another one.

The market is a great place to meet and chat, have a cup of coffee or a baked potato. Bobby and Carine met their friends, Dulce and Sylvestre. Reggie and Rian were welcomed in the market as well.

A Fact

Marks and Spencers were the first to laser barcodes into fruit. This saves tonnes of paper and glue every year.

<<<<<<<<

The Return of Local Cinema

Listowel Library in June 2025

Good News

First with the news, The Kerryman

A Kerry man is hoping to bring the big screen back to Listowel after finalising plans to setup a new cinema in a historic building within the town.

Tom McElligott, a retiree from Listowel, revealed to The Kerryman that he purchased Sluagh Hall on upper William Street for €99,000 at auction last Christmas. He hopes to repurpose the building into a ‘family leisure and entertainment centre’.

A bit of history from Vincent Carmody’s Snapshots of a Market Town:

The Sluagh Hall ( Old F.C.A. headquarters )

” Patrick O Neill, egg and poultry exporter, located his place of business from the 1890s at the top end of Upper William Street, by the side of the old railway bridge. The building was afterwards used , along with adjacent properties, as headquarters for the L.D.F. ( Local Defence Force) during what was known as ‘ The Emergency’, or the years of the Second World War. The post-war period saw the emergence of the F.C.A. ( Forsa Cosanta Áitiúl) and a refurbishment of the hall. It became known as the Sluagh Hall. It was equipped with a stage, and this served two purposes – to facilitate the mounting of a boxing ring and also a much sought after venue for the newly-formed Listowel Drama Group to stage their plays “

Along with the central hall, it contained offices and store rooms on the street side, the long room on the opposite side was used as a firing range.

Events to look forward to

We’re delighted to unveil the full programme for the Cornelius Lyons Harp Summer School 2025, taking place June 20–22 at Teach Siamsa Finuge, Co. Kerry.

 Friday, June 20

 6–8 PM

 Harp Workshop with Janet Harrison

 Saturday, June 21

 10 AM–3.30 PM

 Harp Workshop (lunch break at 12)

3.30–4.30 PM

Talk by Niamh O’Brien – “From the Parlour to the pub: Irish Harping from the 1950s”

 €5 (public)

 7.30–9 PM

 Concert & Album Launch – Janet Harbison & Two for Joy

 €15 (public)

Sunday, June 22

 10.30 AM–2 PM

 Final harp workshop

3.30–4.30 PM

 Concert at Rattoo Round Tower with Summer School performers

Tickets are available on Eventbrite:

Were you in First Year in St. Michael’s in 1979?

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders Fields

by John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place, and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

A Fact

The creator of the safety pin — this simple object present in almost every home — was a man named Walter Hunt. But his story goes far beyond a bent piece of brass.

Walter Hunt was born in 1796 and was one of the most prolific inventors in American history. Creator of various devices, like a primitive sewing machine model, Hunt had a restless mind — but, like so many geniuses, he lived surrounded by financial difficulties.

In 1849, in debt with a friend for 15 dollars, Hunt did the unthinkable: he took an 8-inch brass wire, began folding it with his fingers, and in a little while, one of the most useful objects ever created appeared — the safety pin.

But Hunt didn’t just create a pin: he had the ingenious idea to include a spring and a protected tip, which would prevent accidental drilling. It was a small touch of genius with a giant impact.

He registered patent No. 6,281 on April 10, 1849 — and soon sold its rights for $400 to W.R. Grace and Company. Enough to pay off debt and, as always, continue your life as an anonymous inventor.

It wasn’t just an ingenious creation. It was a definitive solution to an everyday problem. Before him, common pins were dangerous, loose, unstable. Hunt’s model has radically changed it — with a design that endures to this day, almost unchanged.

While older versions exist, such as the Roman fibulaes, it was Hunt who created the model that is modern, functional, safe — and accessible.

Walter Hunt was not a millionaire But his little invention has become immortal. The safety pin is the perfect reminder that even the simplest idea, when done ingeniously, can transform the world.

<<<<<<<<

Correction

When is a fact not a fact?

When it’s out by 200 years.

Following its capture, New Amsterdam’s name was changed to New York, in honor of the Duke of York, who organized the mission. The colony of New Netherland was established by the Dutch West India Company in 1624 and grew to encompass all of present-day New York City and parts of Long Island, Connecticut and New Jersey.

(Thank you, Jim Kennoy for the correction)

Visitors and Visiting

Church Street, Upper

Post boxes

On my recent trip to Kildare I photographed some railway station post boxes along the route. I travelled from Kent Station in Cork to Kildare via Portlaoise.

Pillar box in Listowel town Square.

This one is in Kildare. This station that is currently undergoing a huge expansion as it now comes within the Dublin commuter belt.

Clíona and Aoife say goodbye to me at Kildare train station

In Portlaoise

This one is in Glenflesk on my way home to the Kingdom.

I have a dread fear that someone in An Post might consider these surplus to requirements. They are, in a way but they are part of our landscape and our history and so valuable in their own right.

May Weekend Visitors

Reggie brought his human family with him to Listowel for the bank holiday weekend

We went to Woodford Pottery where Carine fell in love with Pat Murphy’s beautiful colourful tableware.

She bought three different colours in the end as she failed to pick a favourite.

We went to Pad Thai. Their English may be a bit hit and miss but they got the inportant thing right…the food. I’d recommend you give it a try.

We were in John B.’s for one.

Reggie did the river walk.

Ballybunion

Three French Visitors

In Lizzie’s, five retired teachers and one working one.

Nathalie Léger, far right with me and Catherine Moylan.

Nathalie spent a very happy year in Presentation Secondary School, Listowel in 1989. Catherine was one of her pupils.

Joanna Keane befriended Nathalie and introduced her to her parents. John B.’s became Nathalie’s local and she remembers John B. and Mary and their great kindness to her. She was delighted to meet Lily O’Flynn in Lizzie’s.

A Fact

The Rolling Stones released their first album in 1964.

<<<<<<<<<

In The National Stud

Bee at work;

Photo: Mick O’Callaghan

Changes

Dough Mamma on Lower William Street in August 2024.

Here are some of the previous iterations of that premises.

Europe

Off the Square Café

Oscar Wilde

Lizzy’s Little Kitchen

Resilience in a Poem

In The National Stud

Aoife is a regular visitor to The National Stud. She introduced me to this magical place.

It isn’t all about horses. Aoife’s favourite part is the playground.

There are really famous horses at close range.

There are magnificent gardens and flowers all around.

William Street Mural

People loved yesterday’s photos of Cora posing with the beautiful murals. Here is another one.

I’m waiting for the artists names. When all the GDPR hurdles are jumped I hope to bring the names to you.

Down Memory Lane

Sr. Patricia’s class in Listowel Girls Primary School 1971

Front: Mary O’Flaherty, Siobhán O’Shea, Maura Walsh, Bridget O’Brien, Kathleen Dillon, Geraldine Kenny, Breda Sugrue R.I.P. Deirdre Sullivan

Middle: Theresa Conway, Kathleen Curtin, Margaret Doyle, Isobel O’Dowd, Joan Loughnane, Anne Costello, Margaret Canavan, Bernadette Costello

Back: Marie Scanlon, Margo Kennedy, Cora Stack, Marie O’Sullivan, Marie Stack, Veronica Corridan, Eileen Kennelly and Bernadette Walsh

Thank you very much to all who helped with the naming the girls.

A Fact

The music video Gangnam Style was so popular it broke YouTube’s view counter. The view counter had to be upgraded as a result.

<<<<<<<

Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer

Horse chestnut tree at the entrance to Gaelscoil Lios Tuathail

I Love Brendan O’Connor’s Writing

From last Sunday’s Independent

Maytime

Crazy Hair Parade

Presentation Primary School marched through town last Thursday with their hair in every kind of crazy style. It was a great laugh and raised a few euros for the school.

Graduation Day

Sometimes I feel very old….. My boyeens who featured here so often on their many trips to the Kingdom are all grown up. Here they are with their emotional parents as they finish secondary school and prepare to head out on a new adventure.

McCrohan’s of 15 Main Street

This is the Kennedy home today. It was here that the last of the Listowel McCrohan’s spent his last days in the care of Dr. Johnny Walsh.

This is how it looked in 1983 when Tim and Karen visited Listowel.

No. 15 Main Street is where the McCrohan family lived.

This is how No 15 looks today.

It was Larkin’s in 1983

Look at how much more beautiful it is now, embellished by the superb paintwork of Martin Chute.

Changes afoot

This premises, the former ESB office, has had this enormous window installed. I don’t know what is going in there but I’ll tell you as soon as I know.

A Fact

All pet hamsters are descended from a single female wild golden hamster found in a litter of 12 in Syria in 1930.

Page 1 of 21

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén