Listowel Connection

Cork Street Photography during Covid; Photo by John Tangney

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Lower Church Street 2007

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Home by the Range

This one is fairly shabby but it is still recognisable as a Stanley range.

We had one like this at home. When I was young there was no central heating and the kitchen which was our living room was the warmest room in the house. Most of the time it was the only warm room. Tending the range was hard work. It burned solid fuel, mostly wood and turf. The range doubled as a cooker and room heater. There was always a kettle on the boil and a big pot of water warming for animal feed. Clothes were often aired over the range. We had a shelf over ours and the cat slept there.

The ashes had to be cleared out every day and once a week the whole thing had to be thoroughly cleaned. Chimney fires were a great fear as the place would be burned down before the fire brigade got to us. There were no fire lighters and you had to learn the knack of lighting the fire with spills of newspaper and kippins/kindling.   Getting the fire to light was such a palaver that many people never let it go out. Instead they piled embers on  it overnight to damp it down until morning when they raked it into life. If you look at the range in the picture, that little wheel thing in the ash box is a damper. This was to be fully open to start the fire and could be closed once the fire had caught. There was a little trapdoor in the wall above the range. This gave access to the flue.

Keeping the oven temperature at a constant level was a feat of management only the most skilful mastered. It involved opening the damper, closing the damper, adding fuel and opening doors at critical times.

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Dainty Man

Nuala O’Connor posted this photo and the text below on Glin Historical page on Facebook

My Grandfather Michael Mulvihill trainer of Dainty Man who came in 1st and he and his family sat around the table all 11 of them and decided he would use his winnings to come to America! Many times I thought how lonely for him to leave his family and beautiful Moyvane to arrive to the concrete of New York ! God Bless you always Ikey Thank you always xoxo Rest in Eternal Peace and Love

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John O’Connell’s Country Pursuits

(continued)

We played pranks on innocent road users  by parcelling up a box as neat as possible, dropping it by the side of the road, hiding behind the ditch until a car passed, the  driver suddenly braked, got out, looked around him, picked up the empty box and happily continued on his journey. Another fellow on a High Nelly stopped another day, lit his fag, opened the parcel, cursed all around him and flung it in the ditch. 

Having long jumps was another game we played, when the hay shed was empty we tied a rope between two pillars. I was once tripped by a laddo and crashed right into the pillar. The scar on my forehead is still a reminder of my first stitches.

I must mention hunting, it was very much part of life then. As a young lad I loobed rabbits and sold them in town for 1s 6d if I was lucky to catch one  I loved a boiled rabbit. A lúb (loop) was a round loop of soft wire  and this was attached to an old boot lace and there was a running knot in it, so while the rabbit’s head was caught in it, he could not choke. As I got older I hunted with a group of neighbours every Sunday after Mass. We all had our own dogs, fox terriers, sheepdogs and odd greyhound and we travelled the countryside to try and rise a fox or a hare to get a hunt. Over wild countryside the prey had great cover so seldom there were casualties. We returned starving around 5 o’ clock unless we came on an orchard in our travels. Of course I raided orchards for a pocket-full of juicy Beauty Batts (This was the local name for Beauty of Bath apples). Hunting  was a fore-runner to  my life-long  love , training and success with  greyhounds  

Going Nowhere

Cork bus shelter during Covid 19 pandemic.

Photo: John Tangney 

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Please Know that you have Made a Difference

Recently Darkness into Light Listowel posted this image and the below text on their Facebook page.

Dear Reader, 
We the committee of Darkness into Light Listowel, wish to inform you that our committee has disbanded.
We have worked tirelessly for the past 8 years to raise much needed awareness & funds to help Pieta House in the prevention of suicide. We have done this from a heartfelt place as many of our members and community have lost loved ones to suicide.
We have raised a total of €180,559.00 over the past 8 years. For this we want to thank each and everyone of you for your generosity and support.
We have struggled for some time over making this decision. As we felt the walks and engagement through them opened up conversation in mental health. However our committee are unhappy with the top management of Pieta House. 
Our aim from the beginning was break the stigma and to be instrumental in saving lives as well as supporting those bereaved by suicide We hope that we have helped in some small way to achieve those aims. Again, our sincere gratitude to all of you who have volunteered over the past 8 years and to everyone who contributed in anyway to achieve this. 
It is with regret and great sadness that we are informing you of our decision. 

Here is my reply to that news;

It was never ever just about the money, folks. Your local committee and volunteers did so much more for our community than just raising money.

You galvanised the local community into enjoyable and engaging events. You brought us together with a common purpose. You brought us fun. You made us proud of ourselves and our combined efforts.

More, so much more than that, you raised awareness of the devastation of mental illnesses and particularly of suicide and self harm.  If you have saved even one life or brought consolation to even one family in your 8 years with us, you will have done a great job.

You gave us HOPE

I walked with families who have been left devastated and heartbroken by suicide. They saw a huge community outpouring of support and consolation. You gave us a way of saying “We are there for you.” when we had no idea how to say it.

Darkness into Light Listowel has left us a legacy that will live forever. Be proud of yourselves and what you have done. Listowel is proud of you.

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 Lower Church Street 2017

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Ladies in Lourdes

Sometimes an old photograph brings memories flooding back for many people. That is how it was with this photo of a North Kerry pilgrimage to Lourdes in the 1950s. In addition to all the names we already have, Eileen Herman has written from the U.S. to tell us that she recognises some of the women. These are not Listowel women. They are from Brosna where Eileen grew up.

The Brosna ladies are Mrs Katie Moriarty and her two daughters, Josie and Elsie. Elsie Moriarty is at the end right hand side on the back row. Her sister Josie is fourth from right in the back row and her mother is next to her on the left.

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Oh, to be a Fly on the Wall

This old photo of John B. Keane, Eamon Kelly and Niall Tóibín appeared on Facebook recently.

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Prodigals

 https://roaringwaterjournal.com

Prodigal son detail in the Denny stained glass window in St. John’s Tralee.

When I shared this image recently it prompted Frances Kennedy to send us this poem by Fr. Kevin McNamara of Moyvane

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Innocent Pastimes

John O’Connell’s Memoir, continued

 John O’Connell, our storyteller and his beloved wife, Noreen, our scribe

We played Pitch and Toss on the road at Hickey’s gate. There would be a fine gang there on a Sunday evening.  

Searching for and finding birds nests was another great pastime. We each had our  own secret nests and kept an eye on the growing gearrcachs (nestlings) being fed by their mothers.  We always had a canary  or a finch fed on seeds, groundsel or a hard-boiled egg. Finches were sweet singers. There were plenty of linnets and yellow hammers and gold finches, bull finches  and a little bird with a red bit in the centre of his head that we called “Jackie the Cap” as there was plenty seeds from the hay. The corncrake could be heard running along the meadow. I caught one in a rabbit lúb ( loop) once. 

Kishanes or kissanes, (Noreen tells me the word is “Ciseáin” in Irish   as these little fish were scooped up in a little home-made  wicker  basket, a ciseán) were plentiful in the glaise, I often  had  one in a jam crock of water with a bit of moss in it. 

When the hay was cut you could find up to 5 bee hives in the meadow. They were black bees which died out. I put a hive into a biscuit tin and every day for a full month I enjoyed sucking honey from the golden comb. I told no one about it. One night it poured rain and my hive was flooded and my lovely bees drowned. 

I fished for brown trout in the Gale river with a make-shift rod, made from a long stick with a line attached and a piece of gut on that with the hook attached. The “black widow” was a great fly to lure a trout. Sometimes I used worms too.

( I asked Charlie Nolan, my local ornithologist, what a Jackie the Cap might be. He thinks maybe a redpoll. If the ‘cap” had been black , Charlie says it could be a black cap. a bird with a black top on its head and kind of a two tone dark greyish body normally you would see it in the cold frosty winter days and it comes to bird feeders especially likes apples. )

St Brigid’s Day

Today Feb. 1 is the feast day of our most significant female saint. The St. Brigid’s cross, woven from rushes is traditionally made on this day and displayed until Feb. 1 of next year when a new one is made. It is credited with warding off fire and other hazards (Covid 19, hopefully)

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Ireland’s Beautiful East Coast

Sunrise in Portmarnock and sunset in Malahide on 23rd January 2021. 

Photo: Éamon ÓMurchú

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John and Noreen O’Connell

 John and Noreen O’Connell in The Central Ballroom Ballybunion in 1966

A recent picture of John and Noreen

More of John’s Childhood Shenanigans, in his own words

My life wasn’t all work. I had great fun always. I had a great life.and still I am enjoying every minute of it.

On my way to school I passed the railway gates. Now and again, I dropped a ha’penny unknownst to Mrs Kenny on the track. When the train rolled over it, the ha’penny flattened to the size of a penny, so when the coast was clear again I picked up my new coin. After school I visited Jack Thornton. The shop was darkish and Jack was a bit short-sighted, so he used just feel the coin and thinking it was a penny I got my tomhaisín of black jacks. Miraculous medals were also a great way to get a bit of slab toffee from Jack. You bent off the top. put them on the train track and they were transformed into a tanner ( 6d bit). I remember my brother and myself finding about 5 shillings on the side of the road  one evening. What a stash.  We were made .We were cute enough to say nothing about it at home, so we spent months eating Peggy’s leg. 

Our first football was a sock filled with a balled-up Kerryman.

We waited patiently for my father or a neighbour to kill a pig so we could get the pig’s bladder. This we blew up with a bicycle pump and it was our football as long as it lasted. We had 2 teams of 5 a side, playing back in our field, Botharín Dubh versus The Cross. 

Next we bought a brown ball from Tim Shanahan at Faleys for 25 shillings  but it didn’t last long. We hatched a plan to buy a white O’ Neills, so we canvassed the neighbours for a few bob, sold blackberries and jam crocks until we could buy our real ball at Sean Tack Sullivans for £3. We used to  put our  alarm clock on the ditch to time ourselves and one match lasted for an hour and a half as we were ahead and a smart lad from the Cross put the clock back a half hour to try and beat us, but no good, we beat them well. 

I played for the Gleann and Emmetts later on.

Glossary:

tomhaisín was a little packet for sweets made by folding a little square of newspaper into a cone shape. Tomhas is the Irish for measure.

slab toffee : This was very hard toffee made by Cleeve’s of Limerick. It came to the shop in a big slab divided into 1/2 inch cubes which were sold at around 2 for a penny. They were great value as there was hours of chewing in each square.

Peggy’s Leg; This was like a stick of “rock” only smaller.

Black Jacks; These were liquorice sweets that left your tongue and lips black for hours.

jam crock; a jam jar or jam pot.

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 A Holy Well

Photos and text by Amanda Clarke From the Archives: Tobar na Molt, Well of the Wethers, Ardfert, Kerry

A priest was illegally conducting Mass. As the priest hunters arrived at the well, three wethers (sheep) appeared and distracted the well hunters leading them down to the strand. Another version has the priest being killed and the well springing up where he was slain. It’s a beautiful spot in its own walled enclosure comprising a deep well, an undressing house (pilgrims once fully immersed in the well), an altar, a double shrine, a rag tree and a mound said to be the burial place of St Ita. Bishop Erc baptised St Brendan here in 484AD , and St Ita fostered Brendan until he was 6 or 7 years old. The altar looks like a chest tomb, the figures meant to represent Brendan, Erc and Ita. They are said to sweat at certain times and the pilgrim should rub her fingers in the moisture then apply it to a sore place, The water was resorted to for many cures and holds a silver trout. It was empty when I visited but I think it’s filled up again. Mass is still held here on St Brendan’s Day, 16th May and it is also visited on May Day, St John’s Eve and Michaelmas. A tranquil and much revered spot.

 Break of day in Portmarnock   Photo: Éamon ÓMurchú

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John O’Connell remembers a Childhood Injury

We played rough chase, football and fisticuffs in the yard. Fist fights were a regular and these continued up the back way after school. It was strictly fist fighting and all you ended up with might be a bloodied nose or a shiner. We enjoyed these boxing bouts. 

I always took short cuts wherever I went. This led to thorns in my bare feet, which became infected, and I had  boils, until they burst and out popped a black thorn. Johnny O Connor, the chemist in Market Street was our port of call for cuts when the need arose for a spot of disinfectant. One morning  after the threshing I was piking chaff and stuck a prong through my bare foot. My father told my brother to burn the pike, meaning the prongs, in the fire. It was a superstition that, if this was done, my toe would not fester. My mother tackled the ass and in to the car with poor John and down to Johnny O Connor to clean and bandage my toe. 

When we got home all hell had broken loose as my brother had burned the whole pike in the fire, and it had a new handle that cost 1s 6d. 

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Then and Now

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Stuttering

 

President Biden and poet Amanda Gorman share more than a love of poetry. As children they each had difficulty with certain sounds and stuttered at times.

Stuttering is a speech fluency disorder about which there are many misunderstandings. It is now seen as a neurological disorder and it often has a genetic element.

It used to be believed that people who stuttered were anxious diffident people. Not so. 

Forcing someone who is left handed to use his right hand will cause him to stutter. Not so.

People who stutter are behind their peers in school achievement . No so.

People who stutter are as intelligent, as funny, as confident and as talented as the general population. What sometimes happens is that children who stutter adopt habits to distract themselves from the parts of their bodies involved in speech. They may tap or click their fingers or slap their foreheads or blink in an effort to “get the words out”.

We have come a long way in our understanding of speech difficulties. Biden and Gorman are proof that such childhood difficulties are no bar to rising to the top in your chosen field.

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Faces in the Crowd

Margaret Dillon takes a stab at some of the names in this old ballroom photo:

First row from left; Toddy Enright, in the middle of the first row,  Gerald lynch?

The man kneeling is Michael Kennelly, Michael’s sister Sis,  is behind the man with glasses. Just behind Sis is another Kennelly brother. Next to him is one of PJ Maher’s brothers.To his right is Mrs Harris and husband Jimmy.

2nd row  4th from left Bridie Leahy , 5th Finbarr Mc Auliffe? 6th Peggy Walsh and behind Peggy is Tom O’ Connor, next to Peggy is Phil Quigley Chute?,   3 along from Phil is Toddy Enright’s sister,  her husband, John O’Connor is behind her.

3rd Row 4th from left Stan? Kennelly , 6th Michael Mulcahy, 8th Finbarr McAuliffe 9th Amidee Crowley

Back row on right hand side; Mossie Walsh and wife Kats,  ? O’Connell (small sq) Carmel ?Heneghan , and 6th from right John Cahill.

Kay Caball had a go at remembering names as well . Here is her contribution. There is some overlap with Margaret’s

Front Row:  Well you know Michael Kennelly, 2nd from right. Behind Michael Kennelly is Jimmy Harris. Maybe his wife ? Murphy, Mairead O’Connell, Main St, P.J. Maher.

2nd Row: 2nd in- Vincent Moloney and his wife Angela (Carroll), Bridie Leahy (Leahys Corner House the Square).  Patsy Walsh’s sister who married Sean Sullivan next door,  second lady after that with the black stripey top is Marie O’Hara who later married Finbar McAuliffe, second next to her is ?? but she married Johnny O’Connor, Chemist Market St.

 

Beautiful Malahide photographed by Éamon ÓMurchú

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Canon James Goodman

In the brief period around Christmas when we were allowed to move about within our own county, some of my Cork family went exploring in the wilds of West Cork. In a remote corner they came upon a ruined church and rectory with this plaque. Fascinated, we looked up the man commemorated on it.

James Goodman (1828-1896), a native of Dingle, Co. Kerry, was a canon of the Church of Ireland and Professor of Irish at Trinity College Dublin.  However, he is now chiefly known as the compiler of an outstanding manuscript collection of some 2,300 mainly traditional tunes held in the Library of the college.

In his later years, the music collector James Goodman was a canon of the Church of Ireland and Professor of Irish at Trinity College Dublin.  But his ‘vernacular’ qualities are of greater interest here.  As a native of the Dingle area of West Kerry he spoke Irish from infancy.  Soon he became attached to music as something between a hobby and an obsession.  He sang the local songs, perhaps played the flute, and certainly became an accomplished performer on the Irish, or uilleann, pipes.  By 1866 he had compiled an exceptional manuscript collection of tunes which is remarkable especially for its traditional Irish content.  These tunes, as he said, were partly ‘taken down by myself as I heard them played by Irish pipers &c.’, and partly drawn from other manuscripts and from printed sources.  Since Goodman’s death in 1896 his music has remained unpublished in the Library of Trinity College. (From Irish Traditional Music Archive)

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Listowel Bazaar

These are some of the people who have kept the bazaar going over the years. There was no bazaar in 2020 due to Covid 19.

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Back by Popular Demand

I have some great reaction to John O’Connell’s reminiscences. Many people shared similar experiences in a country childhood. Today he is remising about his early school days in the 1950s. The story is documented by his wife, Noreen.

John O’Connell’s Holy Comm picture, 1947 in front of convent

Patricia Hartnett of Patrick St

Margaret Hartnett of Clieveragh

 Mary Galvin O’ Connell’s  Ave.

Living just a mile from the Convent school, I started there at 4 and a half and remained until after my First Communion. I can still see Sr Francis as large as life and as clear as then with her long black dress. I had a bottle of milk and 2 cuts of soda bread for lunch. In winter we placed our bottle by the big heating pipe. I never got tea till I was about 10 years old.  

I think it was in 2^nd class I started at the Boys school. I was taught by Mrs Crowley, Mrs Griffin, Masters Flaherty, Mac Mahon, Keane and Sheehy. I liked Master Mac Mahon, he was interesting and fair. One day in Master Sheehy’s class, he lit a fag and took a few pulls, then took out a white handkerchief and blew into it and showed us the brown stain the smoke left. He advised us never to smoke as it would do the same to our lungs. I took his advice and afterwards when training for football  I found it a great advantage. Seemingly Master Sheehy himself was an awful smoker .

Naturally I got plenty slaps as I had  to be out helping  after school, pulping turnips and mangolds, setting and digging spuds, saving hay and turf, thinning turnips, milking cows, playing football and getting up to plenty of  devilment and sure even work was better than being inside doing sums. I became very smart at copying these before I went into school, with the promise of a sweet to my benefactor whenever I got one .

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This is a pulper. Pulping root vegetables for animals was often the children’s job. I remember swinging  off that handle if the mangolds were particularly tough.

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Some People are So Witty