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

Remembering

Door of Listowel Arms Hotel in June 2025

Memorabilia at Behans

Do you remember the butter box? These marvellous wooden boxes used for storing butter from creamery to warehouse were put to many many reuses. They made stools, storage boxes, nesting boxes and containers for tools and stuff.

Jimmy Hickey told me that the men in his father’s shoemaking workshop used to go to he creamery in the afternoons and turn their hands to making butter boxes.

This is a modern vessel, more ornamental than useful.

These other old earthenware vessels held whiskey and spirits. It is lovely to see these old containers displayed, to remind us of how it used to be.

Lidl Update

The site is a hive of activity these days.

A Daily Challenge

Every day you can visit the library to read the daily newspapers or to do the crossword. It is now part of my daily routine to collect the crossword and bring it home to do with my elevenses.

Without a doubt the library is the best free resource in our town.

Jack Sheehan Remembered

On May 28th last Ciarán Sheehan posted on Facebook;

104 yrs ago my Granduncle Lieutenant Jack Sheehan gave his life for Ireland’s freedom just outside of Listowel, Co Kerry.

Ciarán and his sister on a visit to his ancestral home in North Kerry visited the memorial to Jack Sheahan.

John Curtin, Ciarán’s cousin and also a proud descendant of Jack Sheehan’s accompanied the U.S. based cousins to the memorial.

Martin Moore’s post fills in the story.

Dark foreboding clouds hover Coilbee today, and on this day one hundred and four years ago, neighbours gathered to console the widowed mother of Volunteer Jack Sheahan who was fatally wounded, near his home on 26 May 1921 

Jack was our local hero, an independent minded man, of an independent minded family. They had known all about evictions and legal decrees. The family was moved from Inchimoor, by the local landlord in 1861. 

He noted how he evicted ‘old Shehan’ for dividing his farm with his sons. 

A generation later, in 1889, the New Zealand tablet recorded how ‘Mr Sheahan of Colbie (was) ruthlessly evicted’. 6 years later, his son was proecuted for taking a bullock from the notorious George Sandes.

The ruthless suppression of the Gael in his own lands inspired Jack’s generation to finish the fight and wrest independence from the Empire’s grasp.

Following a number of fatalities in 1921, new volunteers stepped forward, including Donal Bill Sullivan who replaced Jack, and the legendary ‘Aero’ Lyons of Garrynagore.

Schools Folklore

Long long ago there was a man by the name of Mr. Stack. He made candles out of rush and fat. He got the white out of the rush and caught the two ends and he would roll it around and around in the fat till he had a candle made.

Kevin Sheehy from Dan Broderick

A Fact

The city of New Amsterdam was given to the Duke of York in 1864 as a birthday present. He renamed the city New York.

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The Return of Local Cinema

1 Comment

  1. Jim Keenoy

    New Amsterdam was renamed in 1664, not 1864 as noted.

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