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

2018 Here we come

Brent Geese in a Wintry Beale


Photo; Ita Hannon



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Snow in December 2017

We saw very little snow in Listowel. The snow pictures were taken at the home of my brother in Kanturk.

There was a lot of snow in the Kerry mountains and Kerry Mountain Rescue were very busy over the holiday season. The below picture is taken from their website. They were out nearly every day over Christmas and thanks to their dedication, all the stranded and lost climbers made it home.


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The traditional Crib is alive and Well in Kerry



During the holidays I made an effort to visit a few cribs in local towns and churches. I was heartened to see that while the holly and the ivy is gone, the candle in the window almost gone and Christmas food changed out of all recognition, one tradition is still very much alive; the Christmas Crib which tells the story of the first Christmas.

Here are a few local ones

This lovely nativity is in Ballybunion

The crib in the cathedral in Killarney is on a grander scale as befits its location.

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The Dandy Lodge is 20 years in the park.




During my recent break I had a very welcome email from Barry O’Halloran. He sent us this photograph with the following story;



“You have often blogged about/taken photographs of The Dandy Lodge. I came
across a photo of The Dandy Lodge which was taken just before the project to
move it, commenced in 1997. The people behind it (which included my late
father Tom O’ Halloran), showed great vision and tenacity in getting the
funding and labour to complete such a difficult project. Each stone was
individually marked prior to knocking the Dandy Lodge and before carefully
re-constructing it, in The Cows Lawn.

The people in the foreground are Vincent & Julianne Moloney, with Mick
Barrett and Joe Dillon, nearest the old phone box.

One of the first events held in the re-located Dandy Lodge was a double
christening party in June 1999, for my daughter Maeve O’Halloran and her
first cousin, Liam O’ Connor (Sydney) – son of my sister Marie O’Halloran
who lives in Sydney.”


THEN


In the way these things happen, just a day later, Denis Carroll who has resumed posting photographs and memories of Listowel on Facebook posted a photo and a Youtube video

Denis’ photo shows the newly widened gateway to the park with the Dandy Lodge on the left.

Here is what he has to say about the relocation of this, the first house in Listowel;

“The gates into the Community Centre have been widened, fantastic job by the council. The “Dandy Lodge” in the photo was dismantled block by block and numbered then brought into the town park from across the road where it originally was on the main road into town. This can be seen on Youtube on my “fealegood007” youtube channel, the clip is called “Dandy Lodge”. I was there with a video camera for that. Here is the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzXPh2-Tnks&t=106s

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A poem from an Ambassador



Some embassies serve up Feraro Rocher. The Irish embassy in the U.S shares out much more exotic fare. The ambassador, Dan Mulhall, loves poetry and history and he regularly shares (on social media) little nuggets of both. Here is an extract he chose from a poem called The Dreamer and it was written by a poet who escaped from Australia, to where he had been deported. He settled in Boston where he edited The Boston Pilot which published the early work of W.B. Yeats.

I would fly to the woods’ low rustle
And the meadows’ kindly page.
Let me dream as of old by the river,
And be loved for the dream alway;
For a dreamer lives forever,
And a toiler dies in a day.

John Boyle O’Reilly (1844-1890)

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What a Picture!




January 3 2018; Valerie O’Sullivan took this photo of Storm Eleanor at Valentia Lighthouse.

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The Feast of the Epiphany…a French tradition

The Journey of the Magi


by T.S. Elliot

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.’
And the camels galled, sorefooted, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
and running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arriving at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

January 6th celebrates the coming of the three kings to visit Jesus in Bethlehem. In France they have a tradition I had not heard of ’til January 6th 2018 when I celebrated this feast with the French branch of my family.

According to tradition, the woman of the house bakes a cake called Galette des Rois

This is a delicious confection in which almonds are the main ingredient. Into this cake the cook places a figurine. This figure is usually a man or woman dressed in traditional local attire. It can be a king but doesn’t have to be. Ours was a peasant..

The figurine in the upper picture is the one we had. The lower one is a porcelain “king” that has been in my daughter in law’s family for years.

When the cake is cooked it is brought to the table where the family are gathered. The youngest child hides underneath the table. The lady of the house cuts the cake into slices and the youngest announces from under the table who is to get each piece. Then the family eat carefully as the danger of breaking a tooth or swallowing the miniature charm is great. The person who gets the trinket is the king for the day and gets to wear the crown.



All hail, King Killian!

A Robin, a smile, new windows at Listowel Garda Station and the Christmas parcel from America remembered

A Kerry robin in a Christmassy setting photographed by Chris Grayson

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This Spike Milligan poem is doing the rounds on Twitter.

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A Card and a Caption from the National Library’s Collection




Nat Library Ireland @NLIreland  59m59 minutes ago

An example of a 1918 Christmas card An example of a 1918 Christmas card for you today, issued by the Royal Army Medical Corps, [Great] Northern Central Hospital, for a Christmas social evening. The front of the card reads “Keep Smiling in Ardus Fidelus”- some sound advice!”. you today, issued by the Royal Army Medical Corps, [Great] Northern Central Hospital, for a Christmas so

<<<<<<cial evening. The front of the card reads “Keep Smiling in Ardus Fidelus”- some sound advice!”.

Listowel Garda Station, Christmas 2017

Notice the lovely new windows in the same style as the old ones to fit in with Listowel Garda Station’s status as a heritage building.

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Christmas in Rural
Ireland in the 1950s…….The parcel from America

from Jim Costelloe’s  Asdee  A Rural Miscellany

I remember when
the first sign of the festive season was when the letter from my Aunt Nell in
New York arrived with the news that she was posting a “package” to us. The
parcel was being sent by “ordinary mail” and would take about 6 weeks to
arrive. It was being posted on the same day as the letter which was sent by
airmail. When the package arrived there was great excitement as we waited
patiently to see what each one had got. The label read “old clothes” and the
ritual of opening the parcel kept us in suspense as himself very carefully
opened the knots in the twine, so that none of it would be wasted.

He had a habit of
keeping everything that might come in useful so the twine was carefully made
into a ball and put in his waistcoat pocket. The brown paper which wrapped the
parcel was folded and put away before we might see what was in the package. We
all got some items of clothing. These were duly allocated by my mother. Some
articles were rejected because they were not suitable for wear here and people
would know they were American. The anticipation of what would be in that parcel
was the start of the excitement of Christmas in my youth.

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Meanwhile in Germany 



Philomena Moriarty Kuhn now lives far from her native Listowel. One of the differences this loyal follower of Listowel Connection will experience this year is a white Christmas.

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Slán Tamall



I’m signing off for 2017. I’ll take a short break to recharge the batteries. 

See you back here in 2018, le cúnamh Dé

A Poem, Athea, old Cork and generosity personified at Christmas 2017

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

Forget Elf on the shelf. Chris Grayson’s robins are up to morning adventures as well.

Ballylongford in Winter 2017     Photo by Ita Hannon

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The Wind         by James Stephens

The wind stood up
and gave a shout

He whistled on his
fingers and

Kicked the
withered leaves about,

And thumped the
branches with his hand.

And said that he’d
kill, and kill, and kill

And so he will!
And so he will!

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Athea’s Local Chronicler



Domhnall de Barra does his local district a great service by bringing them a regular update soon local happenings in his 

Athea and District News

Here is some of what he has to say in Christmas 2017

The Festive Season 

Domhnall de Barra


Christmas time is upon
us again and the buying frenzy has already started. In trying to understand
why, I googled Christmas and found a lot of information about the origins of
the feast and how it developed over the years. You can do this yourselves so I
won’t go into it except  for the following passage:

The celebratory customs associated in various
countries with Christmas have a mix of 
pre-Christian,
Christian, and 
secular themes
and origins. Popular modern customs of the holiday include 
gift giving,
completing an 
Advent calendar or Advent wreathChristmas music and caroling,
lighting a 
Christingle,
viewing a 
Nativity play,
an exchange of 
Christmas cardschurch services,
special meal,
and the display of various 
Christmas
decorations
, including Christmas treesChristmas lightsnativity scenesgarlandswreathsmistletoe,
and 
holly.
In addition, several closely related and often interchangeable figures, known
as 
Santa ClausFather ChristmasSaint Nicholas,
and 
Christkind,
are associated with bringing gifts to children during the Christmas season and
have their own body of 
traditions and
lore. Because gift-giving and many other aspects of the Christmas festival
involve heightened economic activity, the holiday has become a significant
event and a key sales period for retailers and businesses. The economic impact
of Christmas has grown steadily over the past few centuries in many regions of
the world.


That passage sums
up  in a few sentences what Christmas is about but it does not tell the
whole story. With all the ballyhoo, the real meaning of Christmas can easily
get lost. It was created to  celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, an event
that is central to Christian beliefs. December 25th may not be the real date of
the Lord’s birth but it was chosen because it was the shortest day of the
year in the Roman calendar and marked the beginning of the longer days  to
come and more light. When people celebrate they often do so by eating together
so the Christmas dinner began. It was, and still is, a great family occasion
and a time for loving and sharing…..

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Cork in 1920




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A Heartwarming Story

This is Eunice Perrin of Duagh. Eunice loves to knit and every evening she knits little hats for premature babies as she watches her favourite TV programmes.

I met her in Scribes on Saturday where she was meeting up with another very generous soul. Namir Karim is closing down his craft shop in Church Street and he gifted Eunice twenty balls of knitting yarn for her charity knitting. Maureen Connelly agreed to be the liaison person to deliver the yarn and collect the caps.

Three kind people

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Getting Ready for Christmas in Asdee in the 1950s

by Jim Costelloe in his book…Asdee a Rural Miscellany

Whitewashing the
dry walls around the house was one of the jobs that had to be done for
Christmas. The outer walls of dwelling houses had to be lime washed also. The
lime had to be prepared a few days beforehand and I have a memory of rocks of
lime in the bottom of a bucket being covered with boiling water as the mixture
stewed a combination of steam and lime into the air,  Some blue dye which was also used for
bleaching white clothes on washday was also added to make the lime wash brilliant
white. The yard and the bohreen near the house were also brushed and a general
clean up was done.

There were no
commercial;l Christmas decorations for sale in the shops, or, if they were,
they were not bought by most rural householders. Holly and ivy were the only
decorations I remember with the odd simple crib. We were aware before Christmas
of the holly with the “knobs” was as we would have been hunting and searching
the fences for plums and sloes during the autumn.

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Well deserved Cultural Archive Award for Listowel’s Lartigue




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The sea gives up its secrets




As Noelle Hegarty was taking her morning walk on Beale strand yesterday, she noticed that the tide  had washed clean the sand that usually covers the old slipway.



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A Poem for Christmas 2017



sent to us by Mary McElligott



Christmas long ago, a Christmas poem and Knitwits Christmas get together

Photo: Chris Grayson

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This year I’d love if people in the Listowel connection community would send me a picture of Christmas where they are and I could share them after Christmas.

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Government Buildings at Christmas 2017

Political correspondent, Martina Fitzgerald, took this photo and shared it on Twitter. She was killing time while waiting for a Brexit briefing last week.

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Christmas in the 1920s as remembered by Eamon Kelly


… (After the rosary) Our knees would be
aching as we got up off the floor and it would take my father a few hours to
get the prayer arch out of his back. Well, we wouldn’t be sitting down at the
supper and my mother would bless herself again, a preliminary to grace before
meals and you could hardly blame my father for losing his patience.”

“Is it in a
monastery we are,” he’d say. “Haven’t we done enough praying for one night?”

After the supper
there was Christmas cake for anyone with a sweet tooth. My father’d never look
at that. His eye would be on the earthenware jar beneath the dresser, and it
would be a great relief to him when my mother would say to us, “Go out there
one of ye and tell the neighbouring men to come in for a while.”

It was a custom
that night, Nollaig Mhór, big Christmas, for the men to visit one another’s
houses. The women were too busy to be bothered. They had their own night,
Nollaig na mBan, small Christmas for making tapes. In a while the men would
come in and at the first lag in the conversation my father’d take the cork off
the jar and fill out a few cups of porter. The men, by the way nit noticing
what was going on and then when they’d get the cups, all surprised they’d say,
”What’s this? What’s this for?”

“Go on take it,”
my father’d say; “It’s Christmas night, neighbours and good luck to us!”

Then the men’s
faces would light up and, lifting their cups, they’d say; “Happy Christmas.
Ned. Happy Christmas Ma’am! Happy Christmas everyone.”

“And the same to
ye, men,” my father would answer.

“May we all be
alive again this time twelve months.”

And my mother, who
was never too happy in the presence of strong drink, would direct her gaze in
the direction of the Christmas candle and say;

“The grace of God
to us all!”

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A Christmas Poem


(one to set you thinking)

I Saw a
Stable     by Mary Coleridge

I saw a stable,
low and very bare,

A little child in
the manger.

The oxen knew Him,
had Him in their care,

To men he was a
stranger,

The safety of the
world was lying there ,

And the world’s
danger.

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Knitwits Christmas Party



An occasion tinged with sadness on Saturday December 16 2017, as Namir cooked his last Christmas meal for the knitting group who have become his friends.

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Irish Wit



Snapped last week on a van in Tralee

 Seán Mac an tSíthigh  spotted this one and posted it on Twitter.


@Aperture posted this photo of Cork in the fog on Twitter.

Eamon Kelly’s 1920s Christmas Customs, a poem and a photo for Christmas ’17

Love consists not in looking at one another but in looking together in the same direction.

Khalil Gibran

Photo taken in The Gap of Dunloe by Chris Grayson

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Eamon Kelly Remembers Christmas Long Ago


…..Then we’d be
praying for night to fall. for you couldn’t see the right effect until the
candles were lit. The honour would fall to the youngest in the house. The
father would lift the child up saying “In the name of The Father, The Son….”
And when the child had blessed himself, he would put the lighting spill to the
candle, and from that candle the other candles would be lit, and he’s be half
daft with excitement, enjoying the blaze of light, and running fro the rooms
into the kitchen and out into the yard to see what the effect was like from the
outside. When we’d get tired of looking at the candles in our own windows, we’d
turn and try to name the neighbours’ houses as the bunches of lights came on,
two windows here and three windows there, across the dark countryside and away
up to the foot of the hills. And sure as anything, someone would be late and
we’d rush in to my mother saying, ”Faith then there’s no light on yet in
Rossacrew!”

“Go n ye’re
knees,” my mother would say. The time she’d pick for the rosary, just when the
salt ling was ready and the white onion sauce and the potatoes steaming over
the fire. But I suppose there’d be no religion in the world only for the women.
The rosary in our house did not end at five decades. Not at all, after the Hail
Holy Queen our mother would start into the trimmings

“Come Holy Ghost,
send down those beams,

Which sweetly flow
in silver streams.”

She’d pray for
everyone in sickness and in need and the poor souls and the sinful souls who at
that very moment was trembling before the judgment seat above. She’d pray for
the sailor on the seas. “Protect him from the tempest, O Lord, and bring him
safely home.” And the lone traveller on the highway, and, of course, our
emigrants, and, last of all, the members of our own family

God bless and save
us all

St. Patrick,
Bridget and Colmcille

Guard each wall.

May the queen of
Heaven

And the angels
bright

Keep us and our
home

From harm this
night.

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A Christmas Poem




Twinkle Twinkle    by Jane Taylor

Twinkle twinkle
little star.

How I wonder what
you are.

Up above the world
so high,

Like a diamond in
the sky.

When the blazing
sun is gone,

And he nothing
shines upon,

Then you show your
little light.

Twinkle, twinklw
through the night.

Then the traveller
in the dark

Thanks you for
your tiny spark.

He would not see
which way to go,

If you did not
twinkle so.

In the dark blue
sky you keep,

And often through
my curtains peep,

Forr you never
shut your eye

Til the sun is in
the sky.

As your bright and
tiny spark,

Lights the
traveller in the dark.

Though I know not
what you are

Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

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A Welcome Return



Jackie McGillicuddy made a welcome return to his old spot behind the counter at Corbett and Fitzgibbon’s. The shop now names McGillicuddy’s Toys is run by his son Seán who is with him in the photo which they posted on Twitter.

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Thought for the Season    from Dr. Suess





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