Listowel Connection

Dawn in Beal, Co Kerry captured by Ita Hannon

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Dancing Days

This is a photo of a photo in The Advertiser. Maybe someone will recognise themselves or someone else.

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Kerry Ladies in Lourdes

 

I think I have consensus that the priest is Fr. Willie O’Brien C.C. Listowel and originally from Ballylongford. He seems to have been well liked and is remembered with fondness.

Beta O’Brien tells us that pilgrimages to Lourdes were organised by Michael Kennelly. He started them first in the Marian Year 1954 when the trip was made overland.  The pilgrimages went on for years after that.

Front Row:  Mrs OSullivan Bridge Road,  *        Sheila OConnell Stokes,  Fr OBrien. Doreen OConnor,         * 
Mid Row : Mrs Morgan Sheehy,  Mairead OConnell ,  *., * 
Back Row: Sheila Keane  Eileen Bunyan  *,*. Peggy Bunyan  *. *. 

* denotes no name yet

I have an unconfirmed sighting of Mrs Joy from Finuge in the black cardigan behind Mrs Stokes.

Thank you Éamon, Ned, Miriam, Liz, Helen, Maureen and Beta.

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Thought for Today from Charlie Mackesy

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The Travelling Shop

I saw this photo on the internet, I was seven again. I grew up in the country,  about a mile and a half from town. My mother was a widow with three small children and no car. She depended on neighbours to bring her to town for shopping and she made a weekly trip in her trusted donkey and cart for heavier stuff like animal feed, flour or a replacement implement.

Once a week a van with goods from a local shop used to call round to our yard and my mother could buy supplies for the week. It was a great service. A service worth reviving, I’d say.

Past and Future Power Generators

Caroline O’Sullivan posted this on the internet with the caption, “Near Listowel”

Bord na Mona has announced that it is ceasing peat extraction. From 2024 we’ll have no more briquettes and peat for horticultural purposes will be sold until stocks run out. End of an Era.

For some great old photos and stories of Bord na Mona, visit the below website.

Bord na Mona Living History

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When There was Singing

Myself, Mary Moylan, Mike Moriarty and Mary Fagan. 

At Writers’ Week 2019 we had a great time singing in The Square. 

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 Home Cooking and Home Ec Cooking

Jenny Carey wrote this last week;

All About Home Economics brought up a lot of memories for me and many expats in one of my Facebook groups called Irish Mammies of New York. There were many pictures shared of pages with recipes such as Spaghetti Bolognese & Lemon Cheesecake. Apparently the best Spaghetti Bolognese is made with rashers. Do you remember this book? According to my cousin, Sinéad Stack, it was a popular Christmas gift at home this year. I ordered my copy after reading the post and look forward to making its recipe for Lemon Cheesecake. 

Lots of you of Jenny’s vintage will remember this. I’ve always felt that that all- in -one cake mix on the cover looks like it would take some hard mixing with a wooden spoon to make it into a cake.

I’ve written before about people’s attachment to their old Home Ec. books.

My granddaughter, Róisín, making meatballs for the family dinner.

Killian is making Shepherd’s Pie from Laura Healy’s @ Home with The Practical

Bobby made the marble cake from @ Home with The Practical.

I did Home Economics, or more correctly Cookery, as a subject in primary school. On the left is our cookery book, simple, practical with no colour , no photographs and no frills. I was in national school  in a time when many girls left school after the Primary Cert. (there was no free education and no school transport) so it made sense to teach us all the rudiments of cooking early.  In 5th and 6th classes we has Cookery once a week and we had an exam at the end, a practical exam that is, where setting a tray, and serving the inspector tea and toast was one girls project. AND there were no toasters in those days either.

This is a well used page with about a dozen variations on one basic recipe. See what I meant when I said, no frills.

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A Good Life Lost

The Irish Times is running a series called Lost Lives in tribute to people who have died with Covid 19. Here is what it has about Listowel man, Joe O’Carroll R.I.P.

Joe O’Carroll

1962-2020

Joe O’Carroll was a happy-go-lucky, gentle soul who was deeply connected to his hometown of Listowel and Kerry roots despite living abroad for nearly four decades.

Born on October 1st, 1962, Joe was one of 10 children who grew up on a farm in the townland of Tullamore. His sister Mairéad, who was one year older, recalls the happy years her brother and siblings spent growing up in rural Kerry.

“Life on the farm was mad but they were the happiest times of our lives. Joe was a very happy-go-lucky chap who loved the outdoors and machinery. But like so many others, he went abroad to look for work in construction.”

Joe moved to London aged 19 where he started working on a cousin’s construction site. He would continue to drive machinery on sites for the rest of his life and returned home to visit family in Listowel twice a year.

Happy

“He loved to go to the Listowel races and always came back at Christmas. It was such a joy for my mother to see him coming through the door, she loved him coming back.”

Joe loved Irish music, particularly traditional Irish songs, and never lost his Kerry accent. “It was kind of like he never left home. He spent all those years in London but his Kerry roots were very important to him.”

Joe worked long hours in construction and never missed a day’s work. “He was happy to get up early in the morning and work hard all day and then meet friends at the weekend,” remembers Mairéad. “He had a huge number of friends and was very sociable. He loved hanging out with all nationalities, he got on with everyone.

“He had total generosity of spirit with his time and money and he’d light up a room. He was always smiling.”

On March 27th, Mairéad called her brother and discovered he was feeling unwell with a suspected tummy bug. She could hear his laboured breathing on the phone and urged her brother to call the emergency services. Joe was brought by ambulance to the Royal Free Hospital and spoke to his sister by phone on the 28th to reassure her that he was feeling okay.

However, early on March 29th he was transferred to ICU. His family was contacted on April 11th and told his condition had deteriorated and the priest had been called. Joe died on Monday, April 13th aged 57.

“It was devastating, right up until the day he died we never gave up hope. He hadn’t been ill before that, he was a very healthy man all his life.”

On May 6th, Joe was cremated at Kensal Green in West London. The hearse carrying his body to the crematorium was followed by a JCB draped with the Kerry colours. “All his friends lined the route and the JCB drove behind all the way through the streets of London. It was such a beautiful tribute. He had so many friends, that’s the measure of the person he was.”

Joe’s ashes were sent back to Ireland and he was buried with his father and sister on June 13th in Listowel. “It was deeply upsetting but it gave us some comfort that he was going to join his father. Joe was a beautiful, gentle soul who was dearly loved by family and friends alike.”

Fota Wildlife Park in Winter 2021

Picture from Fota website

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Changes on Upper William Street

John Kelliher posted this photo on Facebook. In it Tom and John O’Connell are blocking up the 2 phone boxes. The reaction online to this picture was happy sad. Many people had fond memories of using those phoneboxes. Geraldine Dowling even remembered the phone numbers: 21104 and 21098. There used to be a phone box inside the post office as well. 

God be with the days before mobile phones.

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Sweet Eva, The Flower of Listowel

A love-sick lament From The Advocate, N.Y., USA, 25 Sept., 1937. 

(Most likely composed by an exile from Listowel – N. Leonard).

In the Kingdom of Kerry, by the banks of the Feale,

Lived the maiden I loved heart and soul:

That was years, years ago, but I still love her so,

Sweet Eva, the Flower of Listowel

And the moon, on the river was shining

As long by the Feale we did stroll

And Love, my young heart was entwining

Around Eva, the Flower of Listowel

Though now far away from dear Kerry,

And the wide ocean between us does roll,

Yet my love, as of old, has never grown cold

For my sweetheart, the Flower of Listowel.

As the moon, on the Feale, is still shining

Like it shone on that night we did stroll,

So my heart, for my lost love, is pining,

Sweet Eva, the Flower of Listowel.

By S.F. Quinlivan

685 E. 140 St., Bronx

Sept. 10, 1937

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A Letter from a Troubled Kerry

Mark Holan  writes a great Irish- American blog. He recently wrote of happenings in Kerry in 1921

On Jan. 24, 1921, widowed farmer John Ware of Killelton townland, Ballylongford, mailed a hand-written letter from the rural County Kerry community on the south shore where the wide mouth of the River Shannon empties into the sea. It was addressed to his same-name, bachelor son, a streetcar motorman in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a noisy, smokey manufacturing city of more than a half million people, a hub of Irish immigrants, including two of his sisters, with a brother on the way.1

The 87-year-old father2 began the letter by thanking his 35-year-old son for an earlier postal order for £3, equivalent to about $200 today.3 Such remittances from immigrants were vital to the Irish economy and perpetuated still more departures.

Your prosperity in America is a great consolation to me. Your generosity and kindness since you left home.….

Read the rest of the article here;

Mark Holan’s Irish-American Blog

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Home  Thoughts from Abroad

Remember last week when I shared with you Brendan O’Connor’s article about the Cahirciveen journalist, Donie O’Sullivan. One of the people who enjoyed it immensely was Jenny Carey who now lives in the U.S. She enjoyed it so much that she wrote to say thanks. Jenny is a past pupil of mine .

I asked her to tell us a bit about her life now and she did just that.

Hi Mrs. Cogan,

Like so many of your followers Listowel Connection is part of my daily reading and has truly provided an invaluable connection during COVID. I reached out to you last week after laughing out loud as I read the article, “WWDD” by Brendan O’ Connor. Along with so many people across the world I watched in horror at what occurred at the Capitol Building in Washington, DC. Watching and listening to Donie reminded me that not all is mad in the world and it did my heart good to hear his Kerry accent. The kids and I were in DC the week before the insurrection occured. The ‘selfie’ taken by one of my kids captures us with the Washington Monument and the Reflecting Pool  behind us and it’s just a stones throw from there to the Capitol Building.

I emigrated to Virginia, USA in 2004 and I currently live in Falls Church which is just a few miles from Washington. We have been working and virtually learning from home since March thanks to COVID. I teach STEM at a local elementary school and my kids are in Middle and High School. We log on at about 7:30am to our respective classes and log off around 3pm. Just like everybody else we have adapted to this way of life. We get out for walks on a daily basis and have a group of friends we meet up with outdoors at least once a week. Sudoku, baking, reading, & Zoom calls have kept me sane through this and being able to see and chat with family and friends in Listowel has been a lifesaver. There are many challenging pieces to living through a pandemic but I have to say the isolation is the most challenging for me. 

The beautiful sunrise I saw on my walk this morning gave me hope and I am hopeful that 2021 will be alot brighter. I will get my first dose of one of the Corona vaccines next week and an inauguration of a new president takes place on Wednesday. Our flights to Ireland are booked for June and I can’t wait to hug my family and friends in person. 

Until then I will continue to enjoy reading your blog with my morning coffee. 

Go Raibh Mile Maith Agat,

Jenny

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Thought for the Day

“People don’t notice whether it’s winter or summer if they are happy.”  

Anton Chekov

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Just a Thought

My last week’s Thoughts, as broadcast on Radio Kerry are here;

Just a Thought

Ballybunion in December 2020

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REMINISCING

  

Tonight I ‘m reminiscing

I have turned back the years

Removed the locks from both the doors

And forgot about my fears.

Removed the TV from the shelf

And put it out of sight

Replaced it with a radio

Commentating on a fight.

Put the mobile phone on silent

Took the handset off the wall

Tonight-The only interruption

Neighbours foot steps in the hall.

Reached up to the fuse board

Reversed the on off handle

Got an empty bottle from the press

And placed in it a candle.

Replaced the coal and briquettes

With a seasoned wooden log

And a couple of sods of well dried turf

Harvested from the local bog.

The lid from off the oven

I will heat until just right

Wrap in a woollen sweater

Place in the bed tonight.

Stare out through the window

Watch the snowflakes as they fall

Pretend its Christmas Eve again

And Santa’s sure to call.

Will I read a passage from the book

Or pray the rosary instead?

Then go outside – melt a little snow

Before I go to bed.

Seamus Hora

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A Dedicated Irish Musician who passed away in 1996

Danny Mulvihill

taken from the CCE magazine ‘Treoir’ (Winter ’96)

Dan Mulvihill (left) with Frank Thornton

The lamented death and passing of Danny mulvihill of Chicago on February 5, 1996 removes from among us a kind hearted soul, a genial character, who devoted his entire life to promoting all that is good and great in our Irish Tradition 

Daniel Joseph Mulvihill was born on November 15, 1899 in Kilbaha, Moyvane, Co. Kerry. He was the second child and first boy in a family of eleven children.

He attended school in Moyvane until 1915 when his mother passed away leaving his father with the responsibility of eleven children with the oldest 16 years and the youngest just an infant. Danny assumed the daily responsibility for the farm under his father’s guidance. 

Somewhere around 1918 he became an active volunteer in the Kerry Brigade of the Irish Republican Army. Because of his involvement and activities withe the old IRA, he was forced to leave Ireland in 1920. 

His trip from Ireland landed him in Brooklyn, New York where he found a job with New York City Transit where he worked for a year before packing up and moving to Chicago where he would spend the rest of his life. 

In Chicago, he worked as a conductor for the Surface Lines Transit Systems. After 12 years, he joined the Chicago Fire Department and retired as a Lieutenant in 1963. 

Danny was ever proud of the Mulvihill name and in between jobs, he married Mary Agnes Mulvihill from Ballybunion, Co. Kerry. The Mulvihills had two children, Danny and Mary-Jane, the present Mid-West Regional Secretary for Comhaltas North America. 

I will always remember the prominent role that Danny played in the founding of Comhaltas here in North America together with his lifelong friend and colleague – Comhaltas founding member, Frank Thornton, also from Moyvane. Culturlann na hÉireann, a permanent home for Comhaltas, was something that Danny worked for, hoped for, and envisioned, and he was proud to see it become a reality. 

He was also proud of his native Kilbaha near Moyvane, Co. Kerry, an area steeped in Irish tradition. It was then known as newtownsandes, a thriving little village that straddles the North Kerry and West Limerick border. The name Mulvihill is a common name in the area. And a great many members of the Mulvihill clan found fame, if not fortune, in their adopted lands.

Martin Mulvihill, a renouned fiddle player, was born in the townland of Glenalappa in the parish of Moyvane. Before leaving for England and America he got his early lessons on the fiddle from Barney Enright, still happily with us. This early training stood him in good stead, for in later years as a talented teacher of music, he produced many All-ireland champions in New York. Jerry Mulvihill, the well known traditional dancer, als hails from the same area. This sprightly septuagenarin is still king of the concert stage. He has starred on two Comhaltas Tours of North America. 

The famous Ahern family also hail from Moyvane. Father Pat Ahearn is now the artistic Director of Siamsa Tíre Folk Theatre in Tralee. He was also the producer of the first two concerts to North America in 1972 and 1973. 

Knockanure is probably the best known townland in the parish of Moyvane. Its popularity stems from the famous ballad composed by Professor Brian McMahon of Listowel. ‘The Valley of Knockanure’ which commemorates the death of Walsh, Lyons and Dalton, in that townland during the War of Independence. Danny Mulvihill knew them personally before they gave their lives for Ireland. Thanks to Danny Mulvihill who raised the necessary funds in Chicago, a monument to the memory of Walsh, Lyons and Dalton now stands in that lonely valley of Knockaure, paying silent tribute to three hereos that he knew from his youthful years in Moyvane. 

Moyvane famed in song and story also produced two very famous poets. The late Paddy Drury, a farm labourer whose gift of instant compositions is still talked about in the parish. Also our own genial Dan Keane, still happily with us, he seems to have inherited Paddy Drury’s great gift as a poet, writer and collector of verse. Again I am grieved that Danny Mulvihill is no longer with us. To Mary-Jane, Danny and his immediate family, I offer my deepest sympathy on the loss of a kind and gentle soul. 

For all the rest of us to mourn his passing, we should be encouraged by his life of dedication, his love of music and song from his beloved Moyvane, and area rich in lore and in culture, that gave to us and to Comhaltas such stalwarts as Danny Mulvihill and many others as well, who are indeed a credit to their parish and to Ireland.

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Opening Night Listowel Writers Week 2019

Former Minister Mary Banotti with Dr. Olive Pierse

Máire Logue and Eddie Moylan

Nora Sheahan and Betty Stack

Canon  Declan O’Connor and Bishop Ray Browne

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This off licence is now called Carry Out

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I have no name for this Listowel curate who accompanied these ladies to Lourdes. In fact I dont have a date or names for the ladies either.

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Back Home

by Anon

If I had the power to turn back the clock, 

Go back to that house at 4th end of the block-

The house that was HOME when I was a kid,

I know I would love it more now than I did.

If I could be back there at my mother’s knee,

And hear once again all the things she told me,

I’d listen as I never listened before

For she knew so well just what life had in store.

And all the advice my dad used to give

His voice I’ll remember as long as I live;

It didn’t seem really important then.

What I’d give just to live it all over again.

Oh, what I’d give for the chance I once had,

To do so much more for my mum and my dad,

To give them more joy and a little less pain,

A Little more sunshine, a little less rain.

But the years roll on and we cannot go back,

Whether we were born in a mansion our shack

But we can start right no in the hour that is here

To do something more for the ones we hold dear.

Since e Time in its flight is travelling fast,

Lets no spend it regretting that which is past.

Lats make tomorrow a happier day

By doing our “good to others’ TODAY

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Knockanure Boys

Photo found on the internet