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
Listowel Credit Union at the junction of Courthouse Road and Church Street
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From Pres. Yearbook 1986
Was Macbeth a Kerryman?
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An Spideog
First part of another great essay by David Kissane
A morning session in Ardfert Recreation Centre in September 2023
Now read the story of how this came about…
From The Wisla to the Spideog
The concluding part of a first World Masters experience
By David Kissane
I lift my head. I realise it’s the first day of 2024. There is only 1K to go. I see the name of the river I am crossing. An Spideog. The end of the Beaufort 5K, expertly organised by Star of the Laune AC, brings me over the Spideog River. A nice wet Kerry event on the first day of the new year. Most of the other runners haven’t had time to notice the bridge, the name or the river. They are possibly having their shower now. An indoor shower. I am still experiencing the outdoor shower.
The advantage of doing a personal seasonal worst (!) is that you get to notice things like that. It’s the philosophical way to run. I don’t care, man. I’m here for the stories and the folklore. Hoover up the hinterland. My St Brendan’s AC committee colleague Sheena comes from here in Beaufort and bade me farewell halfway through the race. She is catching up by now over tea with her Beaufortian relations. Club colleagues Artur and Tom are out in the Charles O’Shea 10K but will probably finish ahead of me.
The river curiously named An Spideog (the robin) has a great story behind it. Once upon a time, a local chieftain owed some money and he got a loan from the devil to get him out of trouble. The loan had to be paid back before a certain date or the soul of the chieftain would belong to the devil. Of course the chieftain slipped up again and the devil came for his soul. But the chieftain had the gift of the geab (not unknown to Kerry people in this region!) and the devil gave him a glimmer of hope. He gave the chieftain a sieve and said that if he could fill the sieve with water from the nearby river, he would write off the debt.
The chieftain jumped for joy and set to work, scooping water from the river with the sieve, only to discover that many holes make for poor water-gathering. Many scoops, empty sieve.
Time running out until a robin appears. The robin, with his traditional spiritual and cognitive insights, suggested that the holes of the sieve could be filled with sticky mud. Ergo, the chieftain obeyed and was able to fill the sieve and escape his debt. So the chieftain named the river after the robin. An Spideog.
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A Fact
Today’s fact comes to you from Vincent Doyle, formerly of this parish.
Old church tower on Church Street in February 2024
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Countdown… A Listowel Connection?
I love Countdown. It’s a very very old fashioned game show on Channel 4 on weekday afternoons. In a digital age it’s a quaint throwback to old times. Contestants write with pens on paper, Rachel picks actual letter and number tiles from physical boxes. The analogue clock ticks down the 30 seconds. The goody bag includes a hard copy of a dictionary and a teapot!
It’s all very low tech.
Now the Listowel connection? Well, I’m stretching it a bit. I know somebody who knows somebody who is currently doing very well on Countdown.
This is Jack Harvey from Grimsby. By the way, waterings is not a word. Jack tried and was shot down by Susie Dent. I think it definitely is a word but if it’s not in her dictionary it’s not allowed. ( Didn’t you often give the plants a good watering, and, if you were going away, two good waterings?)
Jack is a friend of Liz and Jim Dunn’s. They are looking forward to a big day out at Jack and Xenia’s wedding this summer.
Jack is a super countdowner, equally brilliant at unscrambling letters and doing Maths puzzles and he is the best conundrum solver ever.
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Education in Listowel Workhouse in Famine Times
The last of Kay Caball’s heartbreaking snippets…
9 October 1851 The Bedford Schoolmaster requests an Assistant: ‘Let the Assistant Schoolmaster Stack proceed to Bedford. Let the Schoolmaster divide the boys into three classes, each of which should get two hours instruction daily – Stack to be in charge of the boys when out of school’.
Dr. Enright – ‘Suggesting that the Schoolboys should be compelled to wash themselves daily – and that soap and towels should be provided for that purpose’. On washing being questioned by the Board the Bedford Master states that the boys wash themselves perfectly clean every morning, but they have no towels. A large canvas roller was therefore ordered to be supplied.
16 October 1851 Miss Nolan the Schoolmistress resigned … The Clerk was directed to advertise for a Trained Teacher in her stead.
10 July 1852 There were 617 boys/677 girls in the workhouse between 9 & 18 yrs of age. 24 boys and 22 girls were discharged that week, 1 boy had died.
15 July 1852 The Officers Reports were read as follows:
9 October 1851 The Bedford Schoolmaster requests an Assistant: ‘Let the Assistant Schoolmaster Stack proceed to Bedford. Let the Schoolmaster divide the boys into three classes, each of which should get two hours instruction daily – Stack to be in charge of the boys when out of school’.
Dr. Enright – ‘Suggesting that the Schoolboys should be compelled to wash themselves daily – and that soap and towels should be provided for that purpose’. On washing being questioned by the Board the Bedford Master states that the boys wash themselves perfectly clean every morning, but they have no towels. A large canvas roller was therefore ordered to be supplied.
16 October 1851 Miss Nolan the Schoolmistress resigned … The Clerk was directed to advertise for a Trained Teacher in her stead.
10 July 1852 There were 617 boys/677 girls in the workhouse between 9 & 18 yrs of age. 24 boys and 22 girls were discharged that week, 1 boy had died.
4 November 1852 An Inspector of National Schools reported that the Mill was far too small for the number [of girls] in it. The Visiting Committee stated in a letter ‘on visiting the house this day, we found in the girls’ schoolroom 525 persons including nurses and other women who should not be in the part of the house which overcrowding appears objectionable.
‘Education in the Workhouse’ is in my view a misnomer. The conditions at any time from 1847 to 1852, did not allow for normal schooling to take place. This is not a surprise considering that all workhouses from 1847 were overwhelmed with death, disease, and destitution. The Listowel Board of Guardians appear to have worked hard to cope with the many problems that arose each week. But responding to the daily urgent issues; collecting rates, providing bed and board, staffing and keeping the rampant diseases at bay did not allow for much consideration to be given to the education of the children in their care.
4 November 1852 An Inspector of National Schools reported that the Mill was far too small for the number [of girls] in it. The Visiting Committee stated in a letter ‘on visiting the house this day, we found in the girls’ schoolroom 525 persons including nurses and other women who should not be in the part of the house which overcrowding appears objectionable.
‘Education in the Workhouse’ is in my view a misnomer. The conditions at any time from 1847 to 1852, did not allow for normal schooling to take place. This is not a surprise considering that all workhouses from 1847 were overwhelmed with death, disease, and destitution. The Listowel Board of Guardians appear to have worked hard to cope with the many problems that arose each week. But responding to the daily urgent issues; collecting rates, providing bed and board, staffing and keeping the rampant diseases at bay did not allow for much consideration to be given to the education of the children in their care.
(Good to be reminded of such awful times. Thank you, Kay)
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Important Exhibition
An exhibition of artwork by Mike O’Donnell is currently on display in St. John’s Theatre and Arts Centre, Listowel.
Mike’s mural work is familiar to us all, but, before he was a muralist he was a court artist, sketching well known criminals and covering some high profile trials.
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First Year Groups from 1986
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A Fact
Dalmatians are born without spots. They are born with plain white coats with their first spots appearing after they are one week old.
After Covid, one of the initiatives to get our young people back out and about, mingling and learning was the creation of Schools Creative Cluster.
My latest involvement with the hub happened on Thursday February 1 2024.
These lovely 6th class girls and their teacher, Miss Galvin greeted me at the front door, treated me to a snack as we waited for my interviewers.
These two lovely young men interviewed me.
All the information they gleaned from me and all the other participants will be distilled, collated and curated and it will form part of their arts presentation in April.
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Education in the workhouse
Research by Kay Caball
December 1847 – Captain Sparks, temporary Inspector to the Listowel Union stated ‘it is proposed to place therein [Leonard’s Mill] about 400 children under the schoolmaster and mistress and thus make room in the poor-house to that extent, for the able-bodied’.
January 1848, Denis Phelan, M.D., Medical Inspector made a brief report to the Commissioners regarding Listowel Workhouse school. ‘The discipline of the house is very imperfect; the Master is very young and has not been long in office’.
11 September 1848 It was noted, regarding the Earl Grey girls who were sent from Listowel workhouse to the Australian colonies, ‘The master begs to report that the education of the female children appears to be very much neglected at the workhouse school … when the Emigration Officer examined the girls , many of whom had been two years at the school, very few could even read very imperfectly, and only one or two make any attempt at writing. The school mistress resigned as a consequence’.
19 May 1849, ‘the Medical Officer ordered that Mr. McCann, the schoolmaster, whose head was a perfect living mass of vermin, and which evidently showed a want of attention on McCann’s part, should in future pay the strictest attention to the cleanliness of the children’. John McCann is listed as schoolmaster with a salary of £30. Mary Nolan, the schoolmistress has a salary of £15 and Ellen Kelly a schoolmistress in Stokes’s auxiliary house, also £15.
15 Sept 1849 a total of 429 boys & 526 girls were registered in the workhouse that week. This number included the boys and girls in the auxiliary workhouses – O’Connor’s, Stokes’s, Bedford.
26 Sept 1849Following letters from the Poor Law Commissioners, the Schoolmistress should be called on to resign.
14 March 1850Visiting Committee found that men unconnected with the Workhouse were found in the Schoolmistress’s Room, the Board having duly considered all the circumstances, reprimanded the Schoolmistress and Porter and cautioned them under pain of dismissal from their offices to avoid such irregularities in future.
22 March 1851 (Week ending) 66 people died, including 5 boys and 12 girls under 15 yrs.
4 Sept 1851 Patrick Stack was appointed Assistant Schoolmaster at a salary of £15 per annum and rations. Later that month, Dr. Enright the Medical Officer, was reporting an outbreak of ‘Opthalmia’ in Bedford [auxiliary workhouse] and it was ordered that the Schoolmaster ‘do not keep the boys more than two hours at a time at school in consequence of the tendency to Opthalmia’. ‘The acute cases – 83 in number are still at Bedford Infirmary because the sheds could not accommodate the number’.
Reading these truly awful accounts from the Famine years in Listowel, it is clear that education was low down in the list of priorities in the workhouses.
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From Pres. Yearbook 1986
The teaching staff
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Sive in The Gaiety
The latest iteration of John B. Keane’s classic, Sive, is currently running in The Gaiety. By all accounts it is a powerful show. If you can at all do go to see it. Sive is one of my favourite plays.
“Hurt people hurt” sums up this tragedy. Every character in Sive is hurt and hurting. The most innocent person in the drama is the one who suffers most.
What a proud night for the playwright’s family, pictured at the premier.
Photos; Listowel.ie
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A Fact
The blue ringed octopus is one of the world’s most venomous marine animals. It can kill with one bite.
As we look forward to another extension to Presentation Secondary School, let’s look back at the last big extension in 1985.
The late Bishop Diarmaid OSuilleabháin said the official opening mass and he blessed the new building.
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Memories of a Holiday in a Horse Drawn Caravan
Horsedrawn caravan holiday were all the rage in the 1960s. The slow pace, the novelty of caring for an animal and the uniqueness of the experience attracted many overseas visitors.
One such visitor sent us this picture.
Richard Freedberg wrote
Our horse was named GERRY. and he was very rambunctious. He stopped at every pub on the way. I had to go into one pub to learn the Irish word for STOP. I kept yelling WHOA. Finally a man said to say the word “BACK” and it worked perfectly. We had campfires, went to village festvals, my wife was serenaded in a pub with Rose of Tralee, both sons loved giving Gerry peanut butter when he stuck his head in the caravan. I sort of remember Ballybunion. Is that possible? Almost 50 years ago. Thanks and thanks again. It was a charming vacation. Richard (from Miami)
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Keep On Keeping on
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Honouring St. Brigid in Kildare
On February 1, St. Brigid’s Day 2024, close on 4,000 pupils from Kildare schools formed a human St. Bridget’s Cross on the plains in The Curragh. Mark McGuire took the photo using a drone.
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A Fact
In 1626 the U.S purchased the Island of Manhattan from the American Native people.
This is another variation on the traditional cross made by Nellie Fortune
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Education in the Workhouse
Kay Caball shared some research she did on education, or lack of it, in Listowel workhouse.
EDUCATION IN LISTOWEL WORKHOUSE DURING
THE GREAT FAMINE 1847-1852
‘It is impossible for one person to pay proper attention to 466 children (all boys) in one class’
On the evidence available from the Listowel Board of Guardian Minute books 1848 – 1852, very little schooling took place; education was not a priority in the workhouse structure. While the Guardians endeavoured to provide education, the chaotic conditions of admissions, discharges, and daily deaths took precedence.
Primary education came to Ireland in 1831. In the case of north Kerry most of the new national schools were not built or did not open until 1843. Listowel Workhouse got its first admissions in 1845. The Commissioners of National Education in Ireland [CNEI] took over responsibility for running the workhouse schools in the town in 1846-1847. The CNEI’s main contribution to the workhouse schools was to supply books and other school requisites. The schoolmaster and the schoolmistress were among the designated staff to be appointed by and paid by the Board of Guardians. There were to be separate male and female schools. On their inspection visits the Inspectors were to note the progress the children were making in reading, writing and arithmetic. The Inspectors were also to check whether the girls were taught knitting or sewing and whether ‘cleanliness seems to be required and order observed’. The Inspectors were not concerned with reporting on the effects of the Great Famine. In Listowel workhouse alone, 1869 children under the age of 15 had died between November 1848 and June 1852.
While the Irish language was in decline by 1845, Irish as the everyday language of the poor and rural, was still spoken in north Kerry. Most of the children in the workhouse would have been illiterate; a few may have previously attended hedge schools. The books supplied to the National Schools by the Commissioners were in English only. James Kavanagh, the Inspector assigned to National Schools in Munster, in his Report in 1850 stated ‘in most of the rural schools in the South and West of Ireland, the teachers are obliged to translate the English names into Irish, in order to convey any instruction to the children. They think in Irish and pray in Irish’. While Kavanagh was referring to the local National schools, this language situation would have been even more problematic in the workhouses.
The weekly Minute Book returns on the State of the Workhouse, lists precisely what was regarded as ‘schoolchildren’. Initially this meant ‘Boys and Girls above 9 and under 15 years of age’. By 1852 it was Boys and Girls between 9 and 18 years of age. There were new children admitted each week also children discharged or died.
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Chris Nolan R.I.P.
Remember our friend, Tony Cairns from New Zealand who was looking for a collector of Bob Boland’s verses? Mystery solved. The lady in question was the late Chris Nolan of Lisselton.
Here is a sample of Bob’s poetry. In this poem he is pleading with the Dept. to give him a voucher for fuel so that he could carry out his work as an agricultural contractor and work for the local farmers in the vital task f saving the harvest. fuel was rationed during World War 2.
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A St. Brigid Fact
I know this one is true because I heard it on Radio Kerry from Tom Dillon, historian and folklorist.
On January 31st. St. Brigid and her cow travel the length and breadth of Ireland blessing man and beast, field and town as she goes.
