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

April horse fair 2014 and Listowel Anglers 1960s

April Horse Fair

Yesterday, April 4 2014 was the day of the April horse fair. There were a few horses on offer but there were also donkeys, goats, dogs and lots of fowl. Today I’ll bring you a few of the horses and next week I’ll bring you a few other animals and a few humans too.

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Denis Carroll found this photo of an anglers protest at Listowel Bridge in the 1960s. I wonder if there is any better copy of this important photo in existence. 

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This is Fr. Michael Morrison, S.J. and his story is HERE

I wrote about him a while back.

I have been contacted by Con McGrath from Tipperary who wonders if this brave priest has any relatives still living in Listowel of if anyone knows anything about him other than what is in the story told on this link.

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 In advance of Michael D. Higgins’ visit to London The British Monarchy tweets as
Gaeilge

BritishMonarchy        

✔

 @BritishMonarchy

Follow

Sonraí na Cuairte Stáit deimhnithe
ag Pálás Buckingham, chéad chuairt ar an Ríocht Aontaithe ag Uachtarán ar
Éirinn:

http://

bit.ly/1p6cmCk

5:36 PM – 27 Mar 2014


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Drama at Inish and my visit to a working farm

Listowel Drama Group:  The cast of Drama at Inish, 1955

Back Row: Ned Flaherty’s (son of John at the far right), Mick Relihan, John Kirby, Kathleen Stack, Brendan Carroll, Arthur Paige, Kevin O’Donovan, J. Casey, Helen Kennelly (O’Flaherty at the time), John OFlaherty.

Front: Thomas O’Connor, Nora Relihan, Hilary Nielson,. Kathleen Heneghan, Margaret Moloney, Bill Kearney and  Cecile Cotter.

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Back to the land


Last week, for the first time in an age, I paid a visit to a working farm. If you have no interest in the country, cheerio for now and I’ll see you tomorrow.

It is still calving season and there were calves everywhere.

This little lad was only a few hours old.

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I was introduced to two daddies. The young buck was not so friendly. Henry, the older lad, I was assured, wouldn’t hurt a fly.  I’d prefer not to put that statement to the test.

 I gave both bulls a wide berth.

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The ladies of the herd were outdoors enjoying the March sunshine. The old bath was enjoying a new life as a water trough.

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That scourge of the countryside,  the mink,  has wiped out the farmyard fowl on this farm but the birds of the air are welcomed and fed all year round….pure spoiled.

Listowel Drama Group and a poem about football



Listowel Drama Group




I went to St. John’s on Friday night last. Arsenic and Old Lace was a triumph on so many fronts. I cannot single out any one performance because they were all excellent. The set is the talk of the town and all the productions values were so high that it will be a hard act to follow. Well done everyone and a huge congratulations to Imelda Dowling Garvey who directed it all like a professional.

This is an old photo from Vincent Carmody’s North Kerry Camera of the Drama Group’s cast of The Playboy of the Western World in 1950.

The following is a potted history of the group from the latest programme notes.

On the 12th January 1944 the group presented its first full length play in The Plaza, The Troubled Bachelors by A.J. Stanley. The play was produced by Bryan MacMahon, one of the founders of the group. Niall Stack is the sole surviving member of that  cast.

Eamon “The Seanchaí’ Kelly joined the group in 1945. He produced Bryan MacMahon’s The Bugle in the Blood which went on to The Abbey in 1949. Eamon met his wife, Maura O’Sullivan when they were both members of Listowel Drama Group.

In 1954 the group won The All Ireland One Act Drama Festival with George Fitzmaurice’s The Magic Glasses. Among the cast was Michael O’Connor, father of our present Canon Declan O’Connor.

In 1959 Brendan Carroll produced John B. Keane’s Sive. Listowel Drama Group’s finest hour had come. They won the All Ireland Drama festival’s top prize in Athlone and Listowel Drama Group achieved the status of legend locally and nationally.

In 1993 The Master performed to packed houses for sixteen nights.

The group has certainly lived up to its motto;

“The Stage shall never Die”.

……………………………

Jimmy Moloney, Senior, whose family have very close connections with The Listowel Drama Group has given me two photos to share with you.

Back Row: Bill Kearney,    Andy O’Mahoney?   , John Kirby, Brendan Carroll, Thomas O’Connor, Arthur Paige and Hilary Nielson

Front: Joan Paige?, Michael O’Connor, Margaret Moloney, John O’Flaherty and Nora Relihan

(I’ll post the other photo tomorrow)

Andy O’Mahony who went on to fame as a newsreader and broadcaster on RTE radio and television worked in one of the Listowel banks. While in town, he lodged with the Ashe family  of Lawlors Cake shop and subsequently with Máirín MacMahon, sister of the playwright, Bryan MacMahon.

Owen MacMahon is compiling an archive of old programmes and memorabilia relating to Listowel Drama Group. If you have any of this stuff in your attic, Own would love to see it. If you don’t want to part with it , he would be happy just to photocopy it.

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A poem for the year that’s in it;  World Cup Year

 (just to put things in perspective)


The Man who invented
football 

by Kit Wright

The man who invented football

He must have been dead
clever,

He hadn’t even a football
shirt

Or any clothes whatever.

The man who invented soccer,

He hadn’t even a ball

Or boots, but only his horny
feet,

And a bison’s skull, that’s
all.

The man who invented
football,

To whom our hats we doff,

Had only the sun for a yellow
card

And death to send him off.

The cave-mouth was the
goal-mouth,

The wind was the referee,

When the man who did it did
it

In 30,000 B.C.!

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Sew ‘n’ Pressed have moved shop.


This is where it is now, next to Paddypower in William St. If you lose your shirt, you will not have far to go for a new one.

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The shop which was trading in Moriarty’s is moving here, next to Woulfe’s Bookshop, I’m told.

April Fool’s Day and Knockanure

Fool’s Day



Today is April first, traditionally the day when people played pranks and made fools of their elders and betters.

There’s some uncertainty about when and where this­ bizarre tradition began, but the most accepted explanation traces April Fools’ Day back to 16th century France. Up until 1564, the accepted calendar was the Julian calendar, which observed the beginning of the New Year around April. According to “The Oxford Companion to the Year,”King Charles IX then declared that France would begin using theGregorian calendar, which shifted New Year’s Day to January 1.

Not everyone accepted this shifting of dates at the same time. Some believed that the dates should not be shifted, and it was these people who became the butt of some April jokes and were mocked as fools. People sent gifts and invited them to bogus parties. Citizens in the rural parts of France were also victims of these jokes. In those days, news traveled slowly and they might not have known about the shifting of dates for months or years. These people also endured being made fun of for celebrating the new year on the wrong day.

Today in France, people who are fooled on April 1 are called Poisson d’Avril, which literally means the “April Fish.” One common joke is to hook a cardboard fish to the back of a person. What a fish has to do with April Fools’ Day is not clear. Some believe that the fish is tied to Jesus Christ, who was often represented as a fish in early Christian times. Others say the fish is related to the zodiac sign of Pisces, which is represented by a fish, and falls near April. It’s interesting to point out that Napoleon earned the Poisson d’Avril monicker when he married Marie-Louise of Austria on April 1, 1810.

This explanation of the origin of All Fool’s Day comes from a great website called

 How Stuff Works

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Drury headstone, Kniockanure

While I was at Knockanure graveyard last week I was struck by the juxtaposition of the ancient and the modern.

As I stood outside the churchyard, on  one side of me was an ancient ring fort, thought by many of our ancestors to be the seat of supernatural powers.

Turning, with the ring fort at my back here is what I beheld.

Wind turbines, sources of modern power dominate the North Kerry landscape.

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The Cashen

Mike Enright of Ballybunion Sea angling captured these two lovely studies of sunrise and sunset over The Cashen.

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August 3 1922: Republicans burned Listowel Barracks as the Free State troops advanced towards town.  (photo; Vincent Carmody)

Paddy Drury remembered and St. Patrick’s day in South Carolina; The Listowel Connection

The Times they are a changin'”



The clocks went forward one hour at the weekend. We have always used this phrase but it struck me on Sunday that it is now true. I woke up on Sunday morning to find that all the clocks in my house had adjusted themselves to the changed time. They had “gone” forward literally. The twice yearly ritual of going round the house and manually resetting the clocks will be another story to tell the grandchildren. Woe betide you if you forgot to reset the time on the video recorder!

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Paddy Drury

A poet and wit who is remembered in many of the best Listowel stories and anecdotes is the late Paddy Drury. One Sunday recently, my good friends, Anne and Liam Dillon invited me to lunch, and, to complete a very pleasant afternoon, they took me to see Paddy Drury’s resting place in Knockanure graveyard.

His grave lies within the walls of the old Knockanure church.

The graveyard is an old but very well maintained one in an absolutely beautiful rural location.

The late Dan Keane  wrote a poem to Drury and here it is for you:

Drury’s Ghost       Dan Keane

Down Farran by the old
churchyard

One night I took a stroll

As bright aurora’s crimson
beams

Flashed upward from the pole.

From the red wine of
remembrance

To the dead I drank a toast,

Then what appeared beside me

But Paddy Drury’s ghost.

……

At length I uttered, “Drury

What brings your spirit back?

Is there anything you’re
needing? “

He answered, “Not a whack!”

………

“But the friends I loved are
parted

And the scene is not the
same.

There’s a dozen homesteads
missing

Down along my own Bog Lane.

How I loved each thatched
white cottage

When their silent signals
spoke

Like a fleet of ships in
harbour

Belching out their morning
smoke.”

“I’ve met all the friends in
Heaven;

Drurys, Dores, the Nolans,
Nashes

Fiddler Creed and Dancing
Billy

With his legs as loose a
ashes,

Tade and Jim and Dick ,the
Villain

Dan the Bucko from the Lane,

I’d a pint in Peter’s parlour

With my old friend, Daniel
Kane.”

…….

“I have toiled with many
farmers

When the grub was really bad.

I’d never live for ninety
years

But for the teeth I had.

But the frame was getting
older

And the teeth were getting
few

So I found my stimulation

In the stuff I couldn’t chew.

…….

So I said, “You are in Heaven

And what more can mortals
crave?

Do you know you’ll soon be
honoured

With a headstone o’er your
grave?

He betrayed no foolish
flatter

Gave a jovial exclamation

In the quaint old Drury
fashion

“Hope ‘twont raise my
valuation?”

“ Let the human fad be
honoured,

It will do no harm there

And some pilgrim might, in
passing

For the Drurys say a prayer.

Otherwise, above my ashes

I’ve no asset to my soul

And if Drury still was living

They’d begrudge him draw the
dole.”

The poem is a very long one so I have edited it a bit but I kept the references to Drury’s neighbours in Bog Lane, the reference to his legendary grumbling about bad grub, his capacity for drink and the fact that his headstone was paid for my monies raised by his friends, among them  John B. Keane.

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St. Patrick’s Day in South Carolina

This is Maeve Moloney Koch taking part in her local St. Patrick’s parade in Columbia, South Carolina, USA. Maeve is carrying a Kerry flag.

Maeve with her local congressman, Joe Wilson

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If you live or have ever lived with an Irish Mammy this will give you a good laugh:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-kvto8XYNU&feature=youtu.be

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