Charles Street junction with Mill Lane

Great plans for Listowel Community Centre

Photos from Listowel Community Centre on Facebook.

A Black Diamond

Image and story from Folklore.ie

Black Diamond – Funeral Custom 

Here are some original black diamonds given to me by an undertaker from Kilmuckridge, Co. Wexford a few years which he had left over from the 1960s. 

For those of you who don’t know, there was once a tradition of wearing black diamonds on your left arm for a year after someone close to you died. This was to show you were in mourning and people claimed that it had to be on your left arm as it was closest to your heart. These were sewn onto you jacket and given to you by the undertaker at the time of the funeral.

I was showing a group of older people these today in a day care centre and they brought back many memories and naturally many did it. Interestingly there was one older man from Herefordshire in England and he remembered it too from his youth. It appears to have lasted longer here in Ireland but was mostly gone by the 1970s. You’ll still see the diamond on peoples arms in old photos and many people will still have the diamond in with the their memory (memorial) cards.

Flowers in Town

One of the first signs of summer is the return of flowers to our streets.

Here are a few from last week.

From My Yearbook Archive

A Fact

When humans first set foot in Iceland the only native land mammal they encountered was the Arctic fox.

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