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

A Sense of Place, a Chimney Fire and a Family Historian seeking help

River Brick from Ballinagare Bridge


Photo: Bridget O’Connor

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Home Truths


An extract from Dick Carmody’s memoir


Growing up around Clounmacon School, we were scarcely aware of the riches of history, culture, folklore and, indeed, nature that were in abundance all around us.

Our history and geography lessons often focussed on people, places and events far beyond our native shores. Little did we realise that our own country, county and locality contained a virtual repository of all the elements that make for a vibrant and viable community. As we left our homes and town lands we would soon come to realise what it is that moulded us and what would become that invisible thread that draws us back to our roots. 

   All around us we had people who were enterprising and resourceful. Families were relatively self-contained and self-sufficient in material terms while the spirit of comharing and co-operation provided that extra support and re-assurance to allow people to become part of a wider community. Whether working the land, playing our national games or in pursuit of religious duties, we were ever in each other’s shadow.

Despite the passage of time, there remains a strong sense of local identity, a sense and a pride of place that transcends the many changes that have taken place, including the advances in communications and technology.

   The North Kerry landscape is like a tapestry of farms and bogland, separated by a network of roads, pathways, rivers and streams. Individual holdings, in turn, are comprised of fields, haggards, farm and domestic dwellings divided by ditches, dykes, walls and hedging. The quality of land has been greatly improved over the last half-century or so through the public drainage schemes and through land improvement initiatives by landowners themselves.  Mechanisation of most farm work and the advances in farm machinery have greatly facilitated this. Demographic, economic and other changes have contributed to the decline in small farm holdings as a way of life and the resultant consolidation of farm activity among a smaller new generation who choose farming as a viable business and career. 

   Despite all the changes that have taken place in the community and on the land, there remains for us a wonderful and rich legacy that is the range of placenames which adorn our local landscape. These names originate from the Irish language but through political or other influences have become anglicised and diluted over time and yet have not lost their distinctive and descriptive origins. Thankfully, through the work of local historians and scholars, together with the more recent interest in genealogical research both within Ireland and by an increasingly enthusiastic Irish diaspora, local placenames and town lands now have a new and even greater relevance.


Clounmacon Cluain Meacan The meadow of the root or tuber

Clounprohus Cluain Pruis Meadow of the fox’s lair

Clountubrid Cluain Tiobrad The meadow of the well

Coilagurteen Coill na Goirtin Wood of the little gardens

Coolatoosane Cuil an tSuasain The corner of the long grass

Coolaclarig Cuil an Chlaraigh The corner of the wooden bridge or structure

Derry Doire An oak wood

Dromin An Dromainn The little ridge

Ballahadigue Bealach an Daibigh The route of the tub or vat

Ballygologue Baile Gabhloige Townland of the fork

Bunaghara Bun an Ghearrtha The bottom of the cutting

Knockane Cnocan na Croise Hillock of the cross

Kylebwee An Choill Bhuí The yellow wood

Meen An Mhín Smooth green patch of land

Pollagh Pollach Place full of holes

Skeherenerin Sceiche an Iarainn The Bush of the iron

Placename translations and interpretations courtesy of ‘Logainmneacha – Placenames of North Kerry including Tralee and Ballymacelligott’ by Dan Keane, 2004.


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January 2 2013


On the evening of January 2 2013, we had a spot of unwelcome excitement at Craftshop na Méar in Church Street. We had a chimney fire.


Because it was a three storey building, putting out the fire was a big operation. I took some photos of some of our saviours on the night.


Meanwhile down the road people were queueing for the pantomime unaware of the drama going on a short distance away.

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Tracing his Listowel  Connection


Every so often I get an email from someone who is anxious to trace his Listowel roots. I’m printing Paul O’Connor’s email in the hope that someone will know something about his Charles’ Street family.


Hi There 

I came across your page while looking for information on Listowel. I’m doing up some family history and tracing the roots. My great grandfather Daniel Connor was born on 27th November 1881 and the address was given as Charles St Listowel. In 1896 his grandfather also Daniel Connor died and the address is given as Charles St. 

I was wondering was it a house or was there a kind of workhouse there. 

Any information would be greatly appreciated 

Thanks 

Paul 


Irish in English daily use, an old Horse Fair and Journey’s End

Tralee Wetlands



Photo: Bridget O’Connor



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Words we rarely hear anymore


From Dick Carmody


Gabhlóg sticks were cut small to make catapults while larger ones could be used to support hay or straw stacks. A hazel gabhlóg would be used to source water springs. Hay súgán ropes were sometimes used to secure the hay winds and stacks. Clumps of rough grass or heather around cut-away bogs were called dosógs or triopalls. Water from bog holes overflowed into glaises which drained into the nearby River Galey. Bushes would sometimes be referred to as tors or sceachs.

   Nóiníns were gathered by children to make daisy chains. Wicker púicíns were made from sally sticks and placed on a calf’s head to prevent it from drinking from its mother or sucking other calves. Sally was also used as a scolb, split, pointed and bent u-shaped to secure the straw on thatched roofs. If a house fell into disrepair it might soon be described as a bit of a bothán. Dirty or stagnant water was described as súrach on which snas would soon grow.

   One was usually inclined to drain the last dríodar from a bucket of milk or a glass of porter. A taoscán of water or, indeed, whiskey were familiar liquid measurement terms in everyday conversation. However, I can’t ever remember seeing poitín around the house. In our favourite sweet shop we watched in wonder as tomhaisíns were magically created from a piece of brown paper to wrap ‘bulls eyes’, bon-bons or other sweet treats. Praties might have sounded less sophisticated than potatoes but may have tasted better. A feed of crúibíns or a plate of drisín would be a great antidote for a hard day’s work. A plate of peaindí, made from mashed potatoes, milk and butter made the ideal accompaniment. A slog of new milk or buttermilk would complete the hearty meal.

   Our first expedition to the River Galey was to collect ciseáníns in jam jars which might end up in smidiríns before we got back home. Cats delivered regular litters of puisíns while day-old chicks often succumbed to the pioc, a small parasite or worm that lodged in their throats. A bradaí described a heifer or cow tending to wander into a neighbour’s property. The farmer would sometimes have to improvise as a vet when called upon to put back in a bonham’s bundún with a darning needle and woollen thread.

   There would be a great tóir or excitement about when something drastic or unexpected happened while somebody struggling with life might be, at best, ag strácháil. A person could end up in a lúbán through hard work or injury. Marla provided us with our first opportunity to display our creative and artistic skills in school. Around the house, we packed tea leaves into the last of the clay dúidíns with our lúidíns to mimic our elders as they smoked their pipes. 


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People at Listowel Horsefair in January 2013


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In Journey’s End


Mary McElligott sent us this photo from her family album. It shows the family of her grandaunt and friends in their bar, Journey’s End, in Church Street, Listowel, during a race week in the 1950s.

Mary didn’t have names for these people, who were before her time, so I asked Miriam Kiely’s help. Miriam grew up across the road from the O’Grady’s of Journey’s End.

Miriam identifies Rosie O’Grady and Patsy O’Grady or Margaret at either end in front.

 Front 2nd from right  is Peggy Leahy of Leahy’s Corner.

She thinks the older lady may be Minnie who used to be in O’Grady’s.




Clounmacon English, Crubeen, and a Smooth Newt in Dromin

In Ballyeagh on New Year’s Day 2021



Photo: Bridget O’Connor

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Irishisms in Clounmacon


Today I have for you some more of Dick Carmody’s account of Irish words in everyday use in the Clounmacon of his childhood. They will bring back fond memories to many people. Some of these words are still in use here. Maybe we should all make an effort to keep some of these gems in use. If we don’t use them we’ll lose them.



  Often sighs and exclamations such as muise, ochón and fada- fada, rather than conversation, conveyed a person’s true feelings and emotions.  If someone had a great meas for somebody else, it meant they held them in high esteem and deserving of respect.  A generous person would be described as flaithiúlach while somebody’s flattery might be dismissed as mere plámás. A bladairer would describe someone prone to nonsensical talk. Ochón would often be uttered on feeling or hearing of a great tragedy, while h’anam on diabhail was an exclamation used in similar situations or to guard against impending danger or bad news.

   Many superstitions existed in the community and piseógs, such as placing of eggs or glugars in a neighbour’s crop to bring them bad luck, was not unheard of. In our youth we often listened to our elders talk about the curse and cry of the bean sí as a foreboding or sign of impending tragedy.

   On a more positive note, local people gathered together as a meitheal to help each other out with a range of farm chores and this generous practice was known locally as comharing. Farmers in their endeavour to maximise grazing returns would seek to limit the spread of feileastrams or geosadáns and to comply with the legal requirement to eliminate the poisonous yellow buachalán weed from fields and meadows. Fionnán together with heather and bog cotton added to the beauty of the bogland, though sitting around on either for too long could result in a sore and embarrassing infestation by sciortáns. Having laboured with sleán and pike to provide a year-round supply of turf, every effort would be made to prevent any of the valuable fuel from becoming spairt through lack of proper saving or storage in poor weather conditions. Cipíns alone, gathered from hedges and ditches along boithríns, would not suffice to keep a family warm, especially if the cold dry wind of the scairbhín arrived as late as early May.

   A farmer could be seen in the depths of winter carrying bearts of hay tied with ropes over his shoulder to cattle still out in the fields. He might hold a single sop of hay between his teeth as he contemplated the day’s weather prospects or feed a sop, as a small bundle of hay, to cattle in response to their hungry bellowing. Gabháls of hay were fed to housed farm animals while gabháls of turf were carried in to keep open fires and ranges fuelled up.  Small caoráns or claids of turf were ideal to get the fires started.


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In the Window at Craftshop na Méar in 2013



We held a competition to name the pig mascot which used to adorn the window of Craftshop na Méar. The name which won was Crubeen. The name was submitted by the late Dan Green.

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Would you know a Newt?


I wouldn’t know a newt if one came up and bit me. This is a highly unlikely occurrence.

Paddy Fitzgibbon encountered this one in Dromin last week and he got a photo.

I had to content myself with looking him up in Wikipedia.

The Smooth or Common newt is Ireland’s only tailed amphibian. Although a native member of our fauna, it is rarely seen and relatively under-recorded. … Newts spend up to four months of the year in water. The male has large black belly spots, whereas the female has a speckled belly.

Clounmacon Irish, McAulliffe’s and All Creatures

Sunset in Rattoo


Photo: Bridget O’Connor

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Irish in Everyday English


Up to the early part of the twentieth century, the influence of the Irish language on the daily interchanges of Irish people was evident in every aspect of life.

Dick Carmody is his lovely memoir of growing up in Clounmacon devotes a chapter to this phenomenon. He has kindly sent us this chapter, which I’m going to serialise for you this week.


As pupils of Clounmacon School we had our first introduction to the Irish language. While the emphasis was on reading and writing, we gained a very comprehensive knowledge of Irish grammar that would stand to us right through secondary education and, indeed, beyond. An opportunity to have acquired a basic fluency in our beautiful native tongue would have been an added bonus in a school that gave us such a good foundation in other dimensions of the language.

   Outside of school we often came across the influence of the language in everyday life, where Irish words would regularly feature in conversation. These could be used in many different contexts whether for emphasis or dramatic effect, to convey a compliment or an admonishment, an emotion or a frustration or merely to more accurately convey the speaker’s message. Our parents and our neighbours at the time gifted us an important dimension of our native language and culture.

   As children we would often be addressed as leanbh bán, leanb bocht, leanbhín, peata or creatúr, as in giving comfort or showing pity. Boyeen and girleen would sometimes be used in an affectionate way while garsún might be attributed to a boy with notions of manhood. To be described as an amadán or an óinseach was less than complementary as were the terms síofra, gligín, slíbhín or slabarer, while a pleidhce, bastún, clabhstar or a liúdramán left no doubt as to someone’s perceived status as a fool or incompetent being. A bacach could describe a lame or, indeed, an undesirable person. A straoill, used to describe someone, usually a girl , who was untidy or unkempt  might be further admonished as a right straip for persistent misbehaviour, while a fussy or fidgety person would be known as a fústairer. Silly behaviour by a girl would soon give her a reputation as an oinseog while foolish talk by someone would be dismissed as ráiméis or giobairis

   If someone was slow or indistinct in their speech, they might be dismissed as a balbhán. A ciotóg would surely be reprimanded by his teacher for writing with the left hand. Children were breast fed at their mother’s dide. To be seen to be ag cnáimhseáil was frowned upon as being someone with a tendency to complain regularly and unnecessarily. Someone sulking would usually put a pus on them whereas a person very upset by some event might take to ologóning. It might take a crust(a) of a fist to the gob to settle an argument while one could break someone’s meilt by persistant frustration.

(more tomorrow)


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Church Street Memories


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All Creatures Great and Small



Didn’t you just love it when the above were the main characters? It’s remade and its back on our screens on Sunday nights. I cant really judge from one episode but I think I’ll love it almost as much as the old version.


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Listowel Golfer comes Third


Photo Wikipedia


This is Corey Conners and he came third in the Arnold Palmer Invitational Golf Tournament at the weekend.

He is from Listowel. Not our Listowel though but Listowel Ontario. With a name like Conners, I wonder is there some Irish connection.

Remembering Cotters of Cotter’s/O’Connors, Scully’s Corner and West Wicklow Dialect

Misneach, the new céad coileán, joins Bród, the céad madra in Áras an Uachtaráin

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In Gurtinard, March 2021


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Listowel Races 1979

Dick Cotter sent me this photo. Dick can trace his Listowel roots back to 1809.  Jimmy Cotter was his grandfather. He lived in Glounaphuca. Timothy F. (nicknamed Tasty because of his neat appearance) was Dick’s father.

In the picture taken at Listowel Races in 1979  is Dick’s wife, Barbara,  presenting the Kingdom County Butter Churn trophy to the connections of the winning horse. Dick was food sales manager of Kerry Co-Op at the time. Dick is on the extreme right of the photo and Eddie Hayes, chairman, and Denis Brosnan, C.E.O.  are on the left.

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Coolard

Mary Foley,  shared  this old one on Facebook

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SPAKES FROM WEST WICKLOW

                    By Mattie Lennon

           Look what we’ve done to the old mother tongue

           It’s a crime they way we’ve misused it.

           

  So the song says. But did we do it any damage? John Dryden said that a thing well said will be wit in all languages.

In my part of Wicklow the transposition of vowels seemed to be almost as popular a pastime as locking referees in car boots. And did it do any damage? (no..I’m not asking about depriving the GAA arbitrator of his liberty on a winter’s day in Rathnew, I’m referring to a bit of readjustment of the A, E, I, O and U’s )

 In my part of the world the language of Synge survived into the final decades of the twentieth century and beyond.

Only recently a neighbour with a somewhat defective ticker told me that he had been fitted with a “Peace-maker”. I know of a case where a lady with notions asked an apprentice carpenter to make a “Mate-Seaf”. Nowadays incredulous gazes meet the disclosure that it used to take a lot of courage, in Kylebeg, to say tea instead of “tay” and to refer to unpolluted H2O as anything other than “clane wather” meant you were getting above your station

And you’d soon be reminded that it wasn’t long since you didn’t have an arse in your “brutches”.

The “hins” were fed off the “led” of a pot and when it was necessary to communicate with absent relatives the “pin an’ ink” were taken down and that reviled member of the rodent species was called a “rot”.

It would be said of the less-than-honest that he would  “stale the crass ev an ass”.

A welcome visitor would be invited to ” take a sate an’ give yerself a hate” and if you weren’t “plazed” by a frank comment you were said to be “aisy effinded” and you were sure to be “med game of”.

The single arch spanning a “strame” was a “brudge”.

Those who through hard work (or a windfall) would usually progress from thatch to a “toiled” or ” ganvalized” roof on their dwelling and every County Council cottage had an outside “labatery”.

A “dacent little girl” was an unmarried female, of any age, who wouldn’t let a male in a mile of her.

Whatever about the Catechism definition of Grace in our part of the world it was ” the juice o’ fat mate”.

And of course if you were of an argumentative dispossession it would be said that you  “would rise a row about the kay o’ the dure”.(Songwriting , of course, was easier than elsewhere because floor rhymed with sure and bowl rhymed with howl)

 A snob might have ” a collar an’ tie on his nick an’ a watch on his wrust” but no male would go so far as to sport a “gould” ring.

Nobody would admit to having “flays” themselves but would comment that a certain neighbours house was “walkin wud thim”. You could expect a “could day'” whin the win’ was from the aist”. Ewes “yaned”, you ploughed “lay” and you “Bilt” the “kittle” ( unless of course it “laked”.

You “gother” the sheep, “muxed” the pig-feeding and you could “bate” the living daylights out of someone  “whin timpers ed be ruz”. But in such “is-ther-no one to-hould-me-coat” situations there was usually someone to make “pace”.

The piece of binder twine used to restrict the movements of the canine was a “lade”.

Beyond was “beyant” and an old neighbour of mine went so far as to do a bit of consonant-juggling resulting in “belant”.

The clothes were held on the line by “pigs” and a brave man (or maybe one who didn’t have the courage to run away) was described as a “hairo”.

Looking back on it now I reckon that the hillbillies of the old black-and-white “Westerns”, with their “varmint” and “critters” would have fitted in perfectly in the Lacken of my youth. And I’m sure they would have adapted very quickly to describing the economy-conscious as “mane” and making stirabout from “yalla male”.

If you are not from my neck of the woods perhaps like D.H. Lawrence you will marvel: “That such trivial people should muse and thunder in such a lovely language”.  

If, of course on the other hand, you were reared anywhere between Knockatillane and Shillealagh you will recognise “…..that dear language which I spake like thee”.   



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