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

Another Anniversary

Hard to believe it’s ten years.

Jim never got to meet this little lady, Aoife McKenna, his youngest grandchild.

She will join us today for his anniversary.

“Never a new year dawns,

Never an old year ends,

But somebody thinks of someone,

Old days, old times, old friends.”

Jim is remembered by all of us today and everyday, with great love and admiration.

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Early Summer 2023

1916 centenary remembrance garden, June 2023

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Listowel Writers Week 2023

The Kildare branch of the family made it.

Home from Colorado, Alan Groarke joined his mother Madge and his sister, Rachel, for the festival.

My friend, Bridget, grabbed a chance to be photographed with a film star. We all loved Seamus O’Hara in the Oscar winning short film, The Irish Goodbye. He was really down to earth in real life and he made a huge contribution to the year’s festival.

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A Sorry Sight

The River Feale on June 17 2023. Fishermen tell me they have never seen the river so dry.

Not for long! the drought is over for now. We have had monsoon like weather this week with the heaviest rainfall in living memory.

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Collecting for Nano Eagle School

I met these lovely people out fundraising for their great school on Saturday last.

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Bonfire Night

Tomorrow, June 23, is St. John’s Eve. Traditionally fires were lit to celebrate midsummer. I don’t know is it will happen this year, but in the past this tradition was carried on in places around Listowel.

The feast of St. John, Midsummer is a Quarter Day.

Before we had the Gregorian calendar in 1752 we had the Regency calendar. Ordinary people didn’t have calendars so all they worried about were the seasons. The seasons were marked by quarter days. The year began on the first of these quarter days, Lady Day, on March 25. The other quarters were based on religious feast days making it easy for the peasants to remember. These were, Midsummer Day, Michaelmas Day and Christmas Day. All rents and other debts fell due on these quarter days.

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Sunshine in Listowel, June 2023

In Listowel Town Square in June 2023

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A Few more from Writers’ Week 2023

Saturday June 3 2023

Keepers of the flame, Jimmy Hickey and Jonathan Kelliher are continuing work that was very close to Bryan MacMahon’s heart. MacMahon realised the importance of collecting, recording and documenting our traditional arts. Jonathan and Jimmy are engaged in a Siamsa Tire legacy project, videoing and recording all the old dance steps, preserving them for future generations.

I read online a criticism of this year’s Writers’ Week, saying that it was more like a fleadh than a literary festival. If any of that was my doing, I make no apologies.

Lisa Egan from Kanturk Arts Festival with friends Lil MacSweeney and Breeda Ahern.

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A Return to Ballykinlar

This is Fr. Brendan O’Connor. On a recent trip to Downpatrick to present a copy of his father’s Breastplate of St. Patrick to the St. Patrick Centre there, Fr. Brendan took the opportunity to visit the visitor centre at the internment camp where his father and many Kerry republican activists spent some time during The War of Independence.

Dr. Michael O’Connor of Listowel, grandfather of Fr. Brendan, was the camp medical officer.

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Where there’s a will, there’s a way

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Frank Greaney R.I.P.

Cool shaded walk in Childers Park, Listowel, June 2023

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Photographing a Photographer

John Stack with two of his talented and very photogenic grandchildren pictured in The Square, Listowel, in June 2023.

It’s always a bit risky snapping a very experienced snapper but a photo of this doting grandad was too good to miss.

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One of the Best Gone too Soon

I love this picture of Frank and Jim in Frank’s garage back in the good old days. Few knew as much about cars as Frank Greaney. He loved cars and he loved dealing in them and repairing and refurbishing them. He was the Citreon king and he loved nothing better then to talk cars with is cronies.

Frank’s garage was a kind of mini parliament chamber. A few of his friends used to come and sit and set the world to rights with Frank while he worked.

Away from the garage, Frank was a super volunteer. Nothing was too much bother to him. He expended hours fundraising for St. Mary Of the Angels, Beaufort, where his beloved daughters were looked after. He helped every cancer charity. Poignantly, on the day of his funeral, Hospice fundraisers left their posts in the Small Square to join in the guard of honour that accompanied Frank’s huge funeral cortege through the town.

He was a familiar presence in St. Mary’s, taking up the collection, counting the money and helping wherever he was needed.

It was sad to see Frank suffering and in pain for the last few months of his life, but, like the trooper he was, he soldiered on.

Eileen and Frank Greaney were inseparable, a living example of enduring love. My deepest sympathy to Eileen and Mike. Frank was one of the good ones, one of my favourite Listowel people.

In this photo Frank is holding his copy of Brendan of Ireland, a long out of print special book in which his family played a part. It was a measure of the man that he lent it to me to photograph and to share with followers of Listowel Connection. Others would not have let it out of their sight.

Tonight we’ll have the graveyard mass in John Paul cemetery. It won’t feel right not to have Frank there directing traffic and helping out generally. He contributed a lot to making that graveyard the lovely place it is today.

May the sod rest lightly on the gentle soul of this lovely gentleman.

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Marketing Listowel in the 1960s

My recent German visitors, Wolfgang and Anita gave me this booklet that they had kept from their first visit to Listowel in 1973.

Another era surely! Who remembers travellers’ cheques?

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Just a Thought

My reflections which were broadcast last weak on Radio Kerry in its Just a Thought slots are here;

Just a Thought

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Ponder this

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Summer Entertainment

My little granddaughter, Aoife McKenna in Ballybunion in June 2023

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Writers’ Week 2023

I’m back in the saddle after a little blip. In this picture, Saturday, June 4 2023, my younger daughter Clíona is addressing the audience at my Writers’ Week walk. In the forefront right hand side is my older daughter, Anne. My son, Bobby, is beside her in the picture.

The event this year became a family and friends affair as I was temporarily indisposed. They did fine without me.

I was sorry to miss this highlight. The legendary Jimmy Hickey, with his past pupils and fellow dancers, Jonathan Kelliher and Patrick Brosnan delighted the crowd with dancing, before the castle and beside the memorial to a man who would have appreciated this event more than most, the late Michael Dowling.

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Michael O’Connor, Illuminator

Stephen Rynne shared these two pictures. They are both pictures of &.

The top one is the work of an unnamed monk. It is in The Book of Kells and the bottom one is from Michael O’Connor of Listowel.

O’Connor took what he saw in the Book of Kells and elevated it to a new level.

Plans are afoot; On July 6th Stephen Rynne, our Michael O’Connor expert will give a talk in Kerry Writers’ Museum to an invited audience. The talk will be on Michael O’Connor and all the other Listowel artists working in different branches of art but all with a Celtic ambiance. I’ll be telling you more about this in the coming days. It is hoped that the talk will be live streamed and we’ll all be able to hear it.

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Remembering Luke Kelly in Ballybunion

I got a lovely email from the U.K.

…I grew up in the Square in Listowel and my father Dr Johnnie Walsh was a GP. He was called to Ballybunion one night where the Dubliners were playing. Luke Kelly had dislocated his shoulder. My father put his shoulder back in but demanded payment first. He had not been paid often as a young doctor and had learnt that you got the money when ‘the tear was in the eye’! 

Thank you for all the pleasure I am getting from the blogs. 

Best regards, 
Eleanor

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A Great Night in The Tinteán

I hadn’t been in the Tintean in years until last week when I went there with my visitors.

One of the main attractions (for me anyway) was Elle Marie O’Dwyer. On the left of my picture is Elle Marie’s mother, Catherine, who comes from Kanturk, with Breeda Ahern, my sister in law, Sheila Cronin, my cousin, and in the front Lil MacSweeney.

Elle Marie with Frances Kennedy, also from our parts and another friend.

Elle Marie on stage. You could hear a pin drop as she sang, unaccompanied, Garry MacMahon’s beautiful Land of the Gael.

A slightly bigger name on the bill was Sean Keane, always a joy to listen to.

Crystal Swing came out of retirement for the night and Derek threw his legs east and west in his inimitable style. We loved it. If an act wasn’t to your liking, you knew that there would be another one on in just a few minutes. My visitors loved their night’s entertainment.

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Strange but True ( and a bit harsh)

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