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St. Patrick’s Hall
St. Patrick’s Hall is located in Upper William Street, aka locally as Patrick Street.
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Lizzy is on the Move
Listowel’s own celebrity chef is back on our screens on Sunday mornings. This extremely busy lady is also planning to move premises in Listowel. While she is not dropping the word from the brand name, her new café will not be so little at all.
Lizzy is moving from Lower William Street to Church Street into the premises until recently trading as The Nook.
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Michael O’Leary’s Kanturk Connection
This old newspaper cutting from 1958 was posted by Trish O’Neill in a Facebook Group called Kanturk Memories. It is a photo of the wedding of Michael O’Leary of Ryanair’s parents. His mother was an O’Callaghan from Banagh outside Kanturk, down the road from my childhood home.
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A “Pied Piper” in Lixnaw
Ballincloher pupils contributed many legends of the “Lords of Lixnaw” to the school’s folklore collection. This one seems to owe more to fancy than to fact. Reading the stories, it would appear that they need to be taken with a large pinch of salt as truth got well diluted by fantasy.
….The mansion and out buildings, which were many (some of the remains still exist and the place is called the Old Court) were at one time greatly infected with rats and were found very difficult to exterminate.
A strange man came along one day and offered to rid them of the rats. He ordered that a large building should be provided and fitted up so that no rat could escape out of it. This was done and the rat charmer, if such he may be called, went out in the courtyard, whistled a tune which had the effect of bringing all the rats from the surrounding houses and fields into the courtyard where the man stood. He continued the tune until all the rats were assembled around him, when he marched them off to the house which had been provided for them.
They all followed him into the house and then he shut and locked the iron door so that no rat could escape. He received the reward he had claimed and went his way.
On the following day a strange man riding a black horse drove into the courtyard and demanded the release of the prisoners which he said were locked in the building. The steward said he knew of no prisoners and the man in black pointed to the house where the rats were imprisoned and said he would rid him of them at once demanding to have the door unlocked. This was done and the man rode away with all the rats at his heels.
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New Business in Church Street
Across the road from the former home of the man who gave us The Gift Of Ink another kind of ink business is opening shortly. We’ll soon have all the body art we can buy.
A Tattoo Parlour, I’m reliably informed.
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