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
I recently purchased and read Teampall Bán by John Pierse and found it most interesting. I would be pleased if you are able to convey my thanks to his family for his writing of the book.
My interest in Listowel is somewhat distant. Some forebears of mine – Bartholomew (Bhatt) Barry and Ellen Connell – on my late mother’s side married in Duagh in 1846.
I have absolutely no idea what they did in Duagh. Both were born there in the early 1820s and they had a child in 1849.
By 1851 Bhatt, and by 1853 all three, were living in Hampshire, where their second and only other child, my great grandfather Daniel, was born that same year. By 1871 the family was in Islington.
It’s almost 20 years since we visited Ireland properly, and Duagh briefly. How time flies.
Best Regards
Clive Hardy
<<<<<<<<
A Find
I told you that I love to find a treasure in the swap box in the library.
I found this there recently.
This page of ads was inside the front cover.
This article gives us an insight into a bygone era in Ireland.
<<<<<<<<
The Big Busk
This fundraiser in aid of Focus Ireland was help on Friday, April 12 2024. The Fealegood Band entertained the crowd in Garvey’s Super Valu.
Photos shared by Garvey’s on social media.
<<<<<<<<<<
A Poem
<<<<<<<<
A Fact
Funds left in the will of Swedish chemist, Alfred Nobel, established the Nobel Prize.
Friday, April 12 2024 was a special day for our own Frances Kennedy. She and I were back on our home turf of North Cork in The Glen Theatre, Banteer. Frances was performing and I was in the audience.
The show was a Frances Kennedy and Sonny Egan special. Frances looked ever so glamorous and Sonny was his usual understated self.
Didn’t I capture him well on a borrowed phone from my seat in the second row?
It was a big night for Frances. She was celebrating a roundy birthday. And it was forty years to the day since she met Patsy. Frances and Patsy met on her first day in Listowel, which was also her twentieth birthday. Meeting Patsy put paid to her plans to emigrate to the U.S., she told us. Thank you, Patsy.
Sonny and Frances sang, danced, played and told stories to the delight of the appreciative audience. The highlight of the night was a rare duet from Patsy and Frances.
It was a great night’s entertainment from two very versatile, talented performers.
<<<<<<<<<
Maureen Sweeney
I told you last week that An Post was commemorating Maureen Flavin Sweeney with a postmark.
Eleanor Belcher sent us this obituary from The London Times.
<<<<<<<<<
From Pres Yearbook 04/05
<<<<<<<<<
Horses!
Luckily horses love mud, almost as much as pigs do. Fields are saturated these times but these two boyos were delighted to be allowed to play outdoors for the first time without their coats.
As he frolicked around the field, kicking up mud in all directions, it was hard to believe that Henry is 24 years old.
These best buds love a bit of mutual grooming.
<<<<<<<
A Fact
In 1914 in Brussels the first non direct blood transfusion was performed by Dr. Albert Hustin.
Radio Kerry’s lovely new wagon was the first indication that today was a big day at Listowel Garden Centre.
Forty years in business for the MacAuliffe Roberts family
There were raffles every hour on the hour in aid of Listowel Hospice.
A great day of celebration and fun.
<<<<<<<<<
Remembering Michelle
It is always unbelievably sad when a yearbook contains an obituary. Michelle had only just left Pres. and her memory was still very much alive in the school when she died. She made a mark. May she rest in peace
<<<<<<<<
Just a Thought
Here is the link to my reflections in the Just a Thought slot on Radio Kerry last week.
This is Rook Street in London in 1912. There was a large Irish community in the Poplar area in the East end of London in the early 1900s. This photograph shows local residents preparing for their Corpus Christi procession.
The photograph is part of a collection in the National Archives in Britain. The postcard was sent to me by Ethel Corduff (formerly Walsh of Tralee). Ethel has a great interest in immigration and immigrant communities. It was she who studied and documented the story of Irish girls training as nurses in British hospitals. Her important book, Ireland’s Loss, England’s Gain tells their story.
<<<<<<<<<
A Poem
John McAuliffe doesn’t find an empty house creepy at all.
<<<<<<<<
Today’s Fact
During the 1950s atomic bomb tests were a popular tourist attraction in Las Vegas.
James Kenny found this copy of Michael Hartnett’s Last Aisling in the poet’s handwriting, dated and signed. I’m presuming the original is in the Hartnett archive.
David O’Sullivan located the poem in an old Sunday Independent.
An Aisling is a genre of Irish poetry. In it Ireland appears to the poet in the form of a beautiful woman. She tells him her troubles but encourages him and gives him hope for help is on the way.
<<<<<<<<<
The Stunning
<<<<<<<
Pres. Yearbook 2004-2005
Cover design by Joan Stack
A great year for basketball
<<<<<<<
Jer’s find in the Newspaper Archives
Irish Examiner Saturday, 27 January, 1894;
A KERRY Missionary. Among those selected by the Holy Father to go forth during the present year to preach the Gospel in foreign parts, is the Rev Thomas Griffin, a young Kerryman, who comes of a family which have given many faithful and zealous servants to the Church. Father Griffin, who is a son of Mr Jeremiah Griffin, formerly of Listowel, and late of Queenstown, was educated at the College of the Pious Society of Missions (to which Order he belongs) at Rome, where be was ordained last autumn, and had a most successful collegiate career, acquiring in addition to the indispensable classical and theological curriculum, a thorough knowledge of French, Italian, Spanish and German, which he speaks with fluency and ease.
<<<<<<<<<
A Fact
In 1937 laminated glass in vehicle windscreens became mandatory in Britain. My calendar didn’t tell me if Ireland followed suit but there was little or no vehicle manufacturing going on here anyway. Factories like Ford assembled cars from parts imported into their Cork plant.
Ava Holly from Listowel and her boyfriend, D.J.Fealey from Cordal are taking on a ‘daretobebrave’ challenge by abseiling off Croke Park’s Hogan Stand on Saturday, April 20th in aid of Children’s Health Ireland.
Cordal man D.J.Fealey and his Listowel girlfriend, Ava Holly are taking on a ‘daretobebrave’ challenge by abseiling off Croke Park’s Hogan Stand on Saturday, April 20th in aid of Children’s Health Ireland.
“I suppose I brought D.J. into this world of Children’s Health Ireland after being an ongoing patient of Crumlin Children’s Hospital for over 20 years,” said Ava.
“It’s a foundation that is extremely close to my heart and we are both so excited to be taking on this challenge,” she said.
Daring to be Brave Every Day
“Children and parents alike dare to be brave every single day within the hospitals that Children’s Health Ireland makes up: Crumlin; Temple Street and Connolly,” Ava continued.
“Whether it be through daily/weekly/monthly checkups or staying positive whilst having lengthily admittance into any of these chosen hospitals away from family and friends and away from a normal childhood experience.
Facing our Fears
“The bravery of each and every person and child in these hospitals deserves to be admired, appreciated and praised beyond what words can possibly describe.
“This is why we are facing our fears and daring to be brave and we hope you can help us get to our final goal of €1000.00 between the two of us. Any donation big or small goes such a long way for such a worthy cause.
Remember this from April 19 1930 New York Irish American Advocate that Jer Kennelly researched and I included here on Wednesday
James Duggan, N. T., Glin, member of Glin football team, was the lucky winner of first prize at Adare whist drive a valuable motor car.
I was very sceptical about this story as a car as a prize from something a trivial as a whist drive seemed incredible.
But…
In a case of truth stranger than fiction, our other diligent researcher, David O’Sullivan found these.
Denis Hogan who came second must have been gutted. He only got £3.
David and I suspect the car may not have been brand new. A car in perfect mechanical condition in 1930 was still a substantial prize.
<<<<<<<<
Riabhóg Days; April 1 to 12
The rough early days of April 2024 are explained in a post from Folklore.ie
April borrows weather from March
There is a common story found around Ireland and also in the Irish communities in Newfoundland, that April borrows some days from March. Some people say 3 days, more 4 days, more 7 days, more 9 days and more 12 days.
Regardless of how many days, the general theory is the first few days April come with a warning and that they’d skin your cow (ie she’d get hammered by the wind, cold and bad weather if she was left out on the first days of April.)
I’ve recorded these stories all over Wexford, Mayo, Clare, Donegal and also Newfoundland.
Around the country they are known as the Borrowing Days, the Borrowed Days as well the Riabhóg Days and other variants of that.
In Ulster there are often referred to the days that would ‘Skin Branny’. Branny is a word used for a cow in Scotland and the north of Ireland. In parts of Ireland and Newfoundland they are referred to them as The Old Cows Days and in Clare I heard it said these cold days killed ‘Mrs Brown’s Cow’.
As I said, normally they say that the borrowed cold days would skin your poor cow but going by the consistent rain I’d say there’s a chance they’d drown her this year!
<<<<<<<<<
Lartigue Theatre Group
John Kelliher took some photos of the Lartigue Theatre Group’s recent production of The Patrick Pearse Motel. The play finished its run on Sunday.
<<<<<<<<
A Trip Down Memory Lane Tonight
<<<<<<<<<
A Fact
In 2019 the capital of Finland, Helsinki went an entire year without a single pedestrian of cyclist fatality.
