Listowel Connection

Be My Valentine

Cork  Street Photography during Covid by John Tangney

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Families!

I posted Fr. McNamara’s poem a few week’s ago. It was sent to me by Frances Kennedy. It evoked this response.

Hi, Mary, the poem about the prodigal daughter is most apt. It also points up the fact that in past times a girl ‘in trouble’ was often treated most cruelly by her own kith and kin- at times for ‘practical’ family or property reasons, as they saw them; at other times out of a perverse sense of ‘righteousness,’ or even of shame or a false sense of pride.

It brought  to my mind a most heart-rending account an old landlady of mine gave me many years ago in a Munster town- not Kanturk, but not far from it. She had a visitor- a lovely, friendly person-  and I later asked her who she was. She told me the  tragic story and I repeat it as best I can after all the years.

The woman was an only daughter of a couple who had become pregnant in her younger years. Of course, she was not supported by the baby’s father. Her own father was furious when he learned of her situation and ordered her out of the house; her mother had little say in the matter. The daughter pleaded and begged to be left stay at home but her father would not bend, no matter what pleas were made. She packed her belongings and, with dread, prepared to leave. Before she left, she said, “If I leave here tonight, I will never set foot in this house again! Even that did not soften her father’s heart. She left and went to a city where she managed to get settled and got a responsible job. I believe she kept her baby and reared it. Over the years, she used to visit my landlady and her husband, who were always kind and helpful to her.  There, she got the local news and, I presume,  account of her parents. The years passed.The landlady kept the daughter updated- and probably the mother, too.  In any case, in time the parents died without meeting their only child ever again. Her mother died, crying out in vain for her daughter. 

It is a story that one could hardly believe today. Yet it is a true story, even if it is poorly recalled and recounted by me. I often wondered what on earth would cause a parent to abandon their own flesh and blood in such a manner. There are many monuments erected to those in our history who spilt the blood of enemies, and even of their former friends and neighbours. Yet, the creation of human life, in certain circumstances, was often counted a ‘crime’ and punished without mercy by some. That is to say, one party, the most vulnerable, was punished; the other party was protected from any consequences and could cravenly walk away without responsibility or reproach. There must certainly be a day of reckoning.

N.L.

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A Look back at a Story from January 2012

Ned O’Sullivan, who is the fourth generation of his family to trade in Listowel is retiring.  His four sons  have taken different career paths. The tradition of the next generation taking over the family business  is being broken in this as in many other businesses in town.

The O’Sullivan’s began business in Listowel in Upper William Street in the 1860s. Ned’s great-grandfather, Michael O’Sullivan from Ardoughter in Ballyduff began a tailoring business in Pound Lane, now Upper William St.  Ned’s grandfather, also Ned, moved the business to Market St. to a new premises near where  Tarrant’s Garage is today. The business was thriving. Eight full time tailors were employed there at one time. Ned’s father, Seán, took over the business in the 1960s and he made the move away from tailoring and into off -the- peg and general menswear. The Man’s Shop moved into its present location in 1962. Ned left teaching in 1989 and went into the family business. In recent years, as his political commitments became more onerous, the shop has been run by Mark Loughnane.

Mark Loughnane accepting mail from Pat Hickey at the shop door.

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An Acrostic for Vincent

Vincent Carmody’s friend, John Fitzgerald, has written a poem about Vincent’s book.

Snapshots of an Irish Market Town

Verily it can be said

In poetry or in prose;

New aspects of a town like this

Can always be extolled.

Exquisite though the diction be

No text can hold more dear

Than Vincent’s take on history,

      This cherished treasury.

Come all of you who come from here

And you from anywhere,

Rekindle memories of the past

Mindfilling page on page.

On printed word or picture,

Demands on the billheads show

You’ll find no better record of

     This Market Town I know.

 Some days you’re the statue. Some days you’re the bird. Cork Street photography 

by John Tangney.

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The Creamery

This photograph was posted on Vanishing Ireland’s Facebook page. Unfortunately it should be Vanished Ireland.

In the 1940s and 50s, most Irish famers were dairy farmers. Before we joined the EU with its talk of quotas and industrialisation, the small local branch creamery was a hub of activity in rural communities.

The creamery in the photograph is in Rowles near Meelin in North Cork. You would be hard put to find 12 dairy farmers in Rowles today.

Milking was done early in the day. The trip to the creamery was the first trip of the day. Men stood around chatting until it was their turn to come to the top of the queue. There was an unwritten rule that you went up to help the man before you  to pour his milk from the churns into the big vat.The milk was tested for fat content immediately after it was weighed and the details entered in your creamery book. Sometimes you might buy back skim milk for feeding calves. A man might combine a trip to the shop with his trip to the creamery. I dont think there was shop in Rowles.

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Press Button A

Does this bring you back?

Learning how to use this phone used to be a task the scouts and brownies undertook. A leader would take his troupe of scouts to the phone box. He would be armed with a purse full of small value coins. Each boy would be given his few pence and taught how to contact the operator and ask for the phone number he was given. When instructed he would insert the appropriate amount and press button A. If nobody answered he would press button B and get his money back.

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Listowel Town Square

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From the Archives

This Listowel Writers’ Week group from a few years ago is 

Máire Logue, Eilish Wren, Jimmy Deenihan, Mike Lynch and Rose Wall

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Cork street photography during Covid by John Tangney

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Mangan’s Then and Now

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River Walk Remembered

By John Fitzgerald

From Back the Bank at Latchford’s Mill

To pass the trout filled waters still

Above the cliff the market deals

Where farmers grip and purchase seal

See how Tae Lane can pierce the flow

A spear into its middle goes

An ugly wound to spread the bile

Murk the bank on the Island side

See the footbridge taking shape

Through  buttresses the waters break

Below the castle’s long shadow

A fearsome hold of years ago

Memory takes the journey back

To wriggling pools where eel fry pack

Where every fistful feels alive

In some electric pulse to thrive

To silver pools where with curved hands

To cage white trout between our palms

Beneath that bridge break waters flow

Salmon circle in wait to go

Past Poilin deep a place to swim

To Corporals a race to win

Along green banks in shine or rain

Where children once played children’s games

Among the tree lined banks to walk

Hear silence now where once was talk

To mix memory and desire

And see the Big Bridge come alive

Giant centipede on stone cut feet

Arching ‘til the keystones meet

Along the river to feel free

Be happy as happy can be

Between the banks, along the flow

The teaming waters, the silver glow.

John Fitzgerald

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When Money was Money

Do you remember £sd? Our pre decimal currency was made up of pounds, shillings and pence There were 12 pence in a shilling and 20 shillings in a pound. Our children dont know how lucky they are. Computing with decimal coins is so much easier. God be with the bad old days.

A Man Sent us This

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Bryan MacMahon Commemorative Weekend 2009

The four surviving MacMahon brothers at the statue off their father during a Bryan MacMahon Commemorative event in Kerry Writers’ Museum in 2009.

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When Tae Lane Boutique was located in Tae Lane

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It was once the Las Vegas Ballroom

 Photo: John Hannon Archive

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Knitting in Scribes on November 4 2017

We were happy that day. This was a typical Saturday with my knitting group gathered in Scribes to knit and natter and forget the troubles of the world for a while. We are, clockwise from gap at front, Mary Boyer, Patricia Borley, Joan Carey, Brigitta(Scribes owner) Mairead Sharry, Maureen Connolly, Ruth O’Quigley, Mary Cogan, Una Hayes, Mary Sobieralski who called in for a chat on her way to Brenda Woulfe’s Bookshop, Peggy Brick, Anne Moloney R.I.P. and Carmel Hartnett

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Learning and Teaching New Words and Old

Nicholas Leonard wrote to us

Never knew the difference between a graveyard and a cemetery, Mary. Not the most appealing topic, but nice to learn some ‘old news’. Only priests seem to be buried in church grounds nowadays; usually apart from their flock. Now, the word ‘gob’ is interesting. Such a high-flying ‘authority’ as the Irish Times published in 1999: “gob”, the shortened form of “begob”, (itself a corruption of “by God”)… I have known a chap with nickname ‘Begobs’ from his characteristic use of that epithet. Another man, long since with the God he adored, regularly used ‘Jaybus’ for ‘Jazes.’ Of course, he himself was universally known as ‘Jaybus!’ Another refined friend used ‘Jeekers.’ There are myriad such terms in the English speaking world- the cowboy films turn to Jumping Jehosophat; the British uppity class favoured ‘By Jove.’ Jove, of course was the Devil. The Irish language had ‘Dar magairlí an Diabhail! (By ‘orchids’ of the Devil).  A man I knew whilst living in the Laois/Kilkenny border area, when ‘rizz’ as they say there, would roar his battle-cry, (usually in a ‘rizzen’ pub), ‘Be the Jawsus, Min! if yirr not wud me yirr agin me!’ More irreverent was my Meath neighbour’s, ‘Be the crass a Christ.’ He also used ‘Be the Holy Smoke’- I am not sure what that referred to, maybe incense’; another of his was ‘Be the Holy Saint Paatrick,’ and also ‘Be the Holy Moses,’ and ‘I declare ta Moses.’ Betrothal was also referred to in the Meath utterance ‘By my troth’ or ‘I troth you won’t’ – both used as a crude form of a pledge of the truth of what was said. Such pledges usually pointed up the fact that anything but the truth was being ‘betrothed!’ Something similar in Meath was the ubiquitous ‘Dam’ the lie in it,’ indicating a cast-iron lie! When questioned, the reply was, ‘I was never found out in a lie yet!’ A more authoritative utterance was my Mother’s saying, when laying down the law (usually to an argumentative me): ‘I’ll go bail you won’t!’  There must be hundreds of such phrases still remembered, if not still in use.

 

To finish with ‘Gob’ and to add to your phrase for the fellow talking through sh**e- you most likely have heard it given to someone -other than yourself, of course – the advice to ‘Shut your a*se and give your gob a chance!’

You may have heard the story of the distinguished Vet leaving Mass in Kanturk long ago, happy in the most genteel and refined female company and engaged in a high-toned, polite conversation, when they were approached at speed by an old woman who roared as she drew near, ‘Come Quick, Mister XXX- the pig’s boondoon is out!’ (i.e. Búndún, a prolapse of the fundament). The Vet’s high status was levelled instantly when the ‘fundamentally’ distasteful nature of his next Sunday duty was proclaimed to all! N.L. 

A Time for Reflection

Cork street photography during Covid by John Tangney

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Faces in The Crowd

Blog followers are still puzzling over this old photo. Billy McSweeney sheds some light on people he recognised and he tells us a bit about them.

 I believe the man in the glasses on the right, beside Michael Kennelly, 
is my uncle T.J. (Timmy) Gleeson of William Street; ‘Jumbos’ Take-away 
today, Gleeson’s Bar at that time.  At the time of the photograph he was 
a pharmacist in Kimmage in Dublin and would have been on a break in 
Listowel.

Owning a Chemist shop business at that time meant that he and his wife, 
Eileen, could not both be away on a break at the same time. This also 
explains why he would not be wearing his Dress Suit. Incidentally, 
Eileen (nee Murphy) his wife, was a cousin of the famous singer Delia 
Murphy and her’s was the first photograph used on the Irish Hospital’s 
Sweepstake Tickets. She was a ‘stunner’ in every way, a beautiful and 
kindly lady.

Billy McSweeney

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A Bogán

If you have ever kept hens you will probably have seen this. It is a soft shelled or shell less egg. In Irish it’s a bogán as in a softie. I don’t think we have any word for it in English.  It happens to young immature hens when their egg laying apparatus is not fully developed. Sometimes it happens to older hens was well when that same apparatus is in decline.

In my youth there was  a lady called a poultry instructress whose job it was to know all about such phenomena and to help out the hen owner. If I remember rightly, the recommendation for this was to put more grit and sand at the hen’s disposal.

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A Poem to Set You Thinking

Misfit: A Poem by Tito Mukhopadhyay (2010)

 

There was the earth, turning and turning.

The stars receded, as if

Finding no wrong with anything.

 

Birds flew by all morning—

The sky lit

From the earth’s turning and turning.

 

My hands, as usual, were flapping.

The birds knew I was Autistic;

They found no wrong with anything.

 

Men and women stared at my nodding;

They labeled me a Misfit

(A Misfit turning and turning).

 

And then I was the wind, blowing.

Did anyone see my trick?

I found no wrong with anything.

 

Somewhere a wish was rising,

Perhaps from between my laughing lips.

Why stop turning and turning

When right can be found with everything?

Poem retrieved from Disability Studies Quarterly

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A Gripping Read

If you like crime fiction, you’ll love this…and it’s set in Cork