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

Tag: Aoife McKenna Page 2 of 4

Visitors

By

On June 10, 2024

In Listowel, Poem

Roses at the Courthouse in June 2024

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Aoife loves Watering

Little Aoife came for a Kerry visit on the June weekend.

When you are watering Nana’s flowers it is essential to test the temperature of the water with your hand.

Doesn’t seem to be much growing here but a spot of watering might bring it on.

Can’t open the tap but easy to refill a watering can from Nana’s one.

Now the best part, making a puddle for stomping in. Peppa made me do it.

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Joy Unconfined

First European athletics gold since 1998.

The Irish 4×400 metres relay quartet of Chris O’Donnell, Rhasidat Adeleke, Thomas Barr and Sharlene Mawdsley finished 0.77 seconds ahead of Italy with the fancied Netherlands team led by Femke Bol having to settle for bronze.

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The Pain of Emigration

by Martin Coffey

‘My mother’s heart was broken

My father’s heart was too

The day I walked out through this door

And bade a fond adieu

I was only sixteen years of age

And thought I knew it all

The world it was my oyster

And I had heard the call

To take the boat to England

And sail the Irish Sea

To seek out fame and fortune

And notoriety

The streets were paved with gold I’d heard

And work was everywhere

I’d fill my pockets to the brim

With coins of every fare

So off I set that very day

The weather warm and mild

My parents standing at the door

As they watched their only child

My mother’s tears ran down her face

Like raindrops in the night

My dear beloved father

He held her close and tight

And soon enough I landed

On England’s rugged shore

I was looking for a place to stay

I knocked on every door

All the rooms were taken

I stood and wondered why

Then I saw a sign that read

No Irish need apply

As time went by I found it hard

To try and make ends meet

Without a bed to lay my head

I slept out on the street

I sent a letter once or twice

To my dearest darling mother

I told a lie that things were good

And then I told another

For many years things just got worse

And then I took to drink

I lost all sense of place and time

My life went down the sink

And then one day it happened

I decided to go home

I’d step onboard the boat once more

And sail across the foam

I couldn’t wait to see the smile

Upon my mother’s face

To see my father’s cheery grin

And to feel his loving grace

The journey back it took no time

I soon stepped off the boat

The air was chilled with Irish mist

I then put on my coat

I walked along the country road

Where I had walked before

I couldn’t wait to hear the knock

Upon my mother’s door

It was then I met a neighbour

Who lived way up the lane

His frame had aged his hair was grey

His face was filled with pain

He looked so sad and so forlorn

As he gently came my way

He said he was so sorry

For those who’d passed away

He said my darling mother

Died from a broken heart

My dearest father also went

With her he couldn’t part

He said he sent a letter

To a priest in Cricklewood

To tell me what had happened

To find me if he could

It was then I saw this little house

All broken and forlorn

The window in the room was broke

The room where I was born

I walked up very slowly

And knocked upon the door

Imagining that I could hear

My mother’s voice once more

I then walked to their graveside

That was placed upon a hill

Teardrops rolling down my cheeks

The air was quiet and still

And there they lay so peacefully

My parents meek and mild

As here I stood with a broken heart

Their one and only child…’

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The Boy who Kicked the Nun

Mick O’Callaghan made me a gift of his recently launched memoir. Mick grew up in Tralee and now lives in retirement in Gorey.

In a very full life, growing up in Tralee, playing in John B. Keane plays, boxing, involvement with local organisations, walking and writing, Mick ‘s tale is an engaging one.

I had a lovely chat with Mick and his lovely wife, Margaret.

The book is available in Woulfe’s. I’d highly recommend it

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A Fact

King Charles 111 banknotes went into circulation on June 5 2024. His image is on the £5, the £10, the £20 and the £50.

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Catching up with Aoife

By

On March 26, 2024

In Listowel, Personal, Poem

St. Patrick’s Day 2024

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Champions

Not only does he write evocatively, David Kissane can run and race walk with the best. Here is his caption for this picture last week…

Still only sinking in now that we won the European Masters 5K race walking team gold medal here in Poland this morning! With just 29 seconds separating us from the highly-rated German team, and a talented French team in 3rd, the two Kerry athletes, Michael O’Connor (FFMV AC) and myself from St Brendan’s AC along with Sean McMullin ((Mullingar AC) are honoured to have taken the gold for Ireland in the M70+ category. Great moment on the podium with Amhrán na bhFiann playing. Never to be forgotten and we learned a lot to pass on to the juveniles and adult race walkers in our clubs.

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Star of the Silent Screen with Kerry Roots

Story from “Anyone from Ballyduff…” on Facebook

Each summer, Ballyduff welcomes celebrities, some more well-known than others. In the summer of 1955, one such celebrity was Mary Pickford, the revered “America’s sweetheart” of the silent screen and one of the first film stars. She and her husband, Buddy Rodgers, visited Boyles old house at Knopogue, which had been the ancestral home of her Grand-parents, Charles, and Mary Pickford. On their visit to Rattoo cemetery, they found a Pickford headstone, a testament to Mary’s origins. Born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on April 9, 1892, Mary Pickford became a picture actress, and at the peak of her career she was one of the wealthiest and most famous women in the United States. 

Died: May 29, 1979, Santa Monica, California, U.S. (aged 87)

Founder: United Artists Corporation

Awards And Honors: Academy Award (1976) Academy Award (1930) 

Academy Award (1930): Actress in a Leading Role.  Honorary Award of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (1976)

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A Love Poem

translated from Irish by Gabriel Fitzmaurice

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Catching up with Aoife

Aoife is my youngest grandchild. Spending time in her company is always a treat.

Feeding her Peppa family

Checking in with Daddy

A bedtime story with Mammy

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A Fact

In a group of just 23 people, there is a 50% chance that at least two people will have the same birthday.

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Shopping with a Two Year Old

By

On December 14, 2023

In Listowel

Christmas altar in St. Brigid’s Parish Church, Kildare Town

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Photoshoot with child in Kildare Village

It’s December 7 2023 and I am in Kildare Village because everyone assures me that it’s ‘magical’ at Christmas and the perfect place to take a few photos.

Aoife McKenna is my model. My model is aged 2, hates wearing a coat, won’t sit in a buggy, loves shops and is very independent.

Everyone knows you are meant to face Christmas installations in order to see them. What’s this turn around to Nana business.

Ah, there we are, Aoife, Nana and a reindeer in Kildare Village in December 2023.

More reindeer, which Aoife insisted were horses. Who ever saw a blue reindeer or a blue horse either for that matter. The coat is still on and we are shopping so two out of three ain’t bad.

There is a rule in the Kilkenny shop that you have to buy 2 items so clever Mammy bought 2 sachets of Christmas room scent to keep little hands occupied and to prevent breakages.

Aha, Sculpted by Aimee put the make up palette at child level.

Mmm, is this how I apply it?

Evicted by Mammy, unceremoniously from the shop. Now I’m here in the rain with Nana.

This is what we came for. Christmassy things to pose in.

Another shop, another eviction.

Photoshoot going downhill fast.

I’m tired of this. Take me home please.

Back in my happy place. Homeward bound.

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Listowel Writers Week at the An Post Irish Book Awards

Simone Langemann and Eamonn Dillon of Listowel Writers’ Week with Mary ODonnell whose poem won the LWW sponsored award.

Brid Mason, Fr. Anthony Gaughan and Eamonn Dillon at the award ceremony.

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Memories of Christmas in Ireland in the 40s and early 50s 

By Marie (Canty) Sham

Maria grew up in O’Connell’s Avenue Listowel. Here she looks back on a very happy Christmas time.

I remember

Going to the wood to cut the holly which grew wild, and the moss to put on the crib. 

Christmas Eve cleaning the house, the excitement of setting up the crib filling jam jars with sand and putting the candles in them, decorating them with crepe paper, putting up paper chains, my mother would have made a large Christmas pudding in a gallon and put it aside. 

The turkey or goose was bought at the local market and plucked by our neighbour Bill Boyle. He must have done it for everyone because the road would be covered in feathers. The innards were still warm when it was cleaned out, that was all on Christmas Eve so it was fresh.

We were not well off but we were lucky as my father was always working, we were not short of anything. At that time in Kerry there was a lot of unemployment.

The shops mam shopped in during the year gave a Christmas box. One shop would give tea, sugar and maybe a pot of jam. That shop was called Jet Stacks and it is not there now. The butcher Murphy’s would send Danny to deliver us maybe a large piece of lamb, of course it would be delivered by him on his bicycle with a basket in front.

I can also remember a donkey and cart outside the shops with a tea chest and all the shopping would be put into it. These people would be from the country and would not come to town again until after Christmas.

There was a shop called Fitzgibbons and we would pay in whatever we could afford for toys or anything else. I paid in sixpence a week for a sewing box and I still had it when I got married. Mam paid every week for the Nativity figures for the crib I have never seen anything so beautiful since.

The ham would be on the boil and with the crib set up. The candles would be lit by the youngest member of the house, I think at 7 o clock 

Our clean clothes would be kept warm over the range ready for midnight mass.

Going out on the frosty night and seeing all the windows with lighted candles was wonderful.

Home after mass a warm fire in the range a slice of the ham or maybe a fry! Our stockings would be hanging at the end of the bed. We did not get much; my dad was very good with his hands and would make things for us. He made a scooter once and a rocking horse.

My brother Neil wanted a mouth organ and it was like in the song Scarlet Ribbons, dad went to so many shops until he got one for him. I was too young to remember that but mam told that story.

Christmas morning I will never forget waking up to the smell of the turkey roasting.

Up quickly and look if Santa had come, our stockings might have an orange, we always got something. I remember getting roller skates; I also remember getting a fairisle jumper from Santa. The problem was I had seen my aunt knitting it. All the children would be out in the Avenue with their new toys to show off.

Before dinner our neighbour Paddy Galvin would come in to wish a Happy Christmas and mam would give him a bottle of stout. I think that was the only time he ever called in. We would have lemonade and stout in for Christmas.

Dinner was wonderful, our Mam was a great cook. There was Mam Dad, Nelie, Paddy, Doreen and myself. My brother Junie came along later, and after we would wrap up warm and visit the cribs; one in each church, hospital, convent and St Marys and bring home a bit of straw for our crib which I think was blessed.

More food when we got home 

Bed and looking forward to St Stephens day and the Wren Boys, no cooking on that day we finished up the leftovers.

What wonderful times!

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A Fact

A sheep, a duck and a rooster were the first passengers in a hot air balloon.

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In Kildare Village

By

On December 13, 2023

In Listowel

Dandy Lodge in Winter 2023

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Pres. Day in Pres. Listowel

November 21 was always a big deal when I worked in a Presentation school. It was lovely to see Srs. Consolata, Theresa and Eilish back in the school for Pres. Day 2023.

I took the photos from the school’s facebook page.

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Kildare Village is No Place for a Two Year Old

The two year old hates wearing coats so the first struggle started before we left the house. When your Nana loves taking photos you just have to wear your beautiful red Christmassy coat.

Second hiccup; We were too early. Gates closed.

Nothing for it but to repair to the nearby coffee shop. Soother had to be unearthed to persuade her to leave the coat on.

To persuade her to relinquish the soother a smoothie is promised.

A piece of tea cake!

Some kind of unhealthy snack is next. The coat is still on but by now the hair bobble has been pulled out and lost.

Next bribe ( inducement) is a story.

Finally, it’s time to return to the shopping village. Coat is still on but by now it’s raining. Photoshoot back on track…kinda!

I’ll leave the story of how it all went pear shaped ’til tomorrow.

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In Portlaoise Train Station

Victorian, I think

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+ R.I.P. Sr. Helen Hartnett+

Every now and again I have felt that I was in the presence of a saint. If Sr. Helen is not a saint in heaven at the right hand of God, there is no hope for the rest of us.

Sr. Helen’s Listowel connection is strong even though she never lived here for long. Helen’s family moved to Listowel after she had already entered the convent.

Sr. Helen who passed away on December 2 2023 was a Salesian sister who spent her working life in South Africa, living and ministering among the poorest of the poor.

Sr. Helen “never missed an opportunity to do good.” She believed that every child deserved at least two good meals a day and she believed that education was the way to improve the lives of the children she worked with in the squatter camps.

Sr. Helen was frail in stature but she had the heart of a lion. She lived in a very politically turbulent environment in Johannesburg. She lived surrounded by staff and pupils who were constantly being indoctrinated by political activists to believe that she had no place in the school her order had built, and to which she had given her life.

The most frightening day of her life was the day she arrived to school to be met with open revolt. Teachers, parents and pupils met her chanting, “You are stealing our school and our money.” Terrified, she had to barricade herself in her office until eventually the police, through the intervention of a local supporter, allowed her to go free.

Badly shaken and, of course, hugely disappointed by her experience she, nevertheless went on to move to Capetown to revive a school building project post Covid. She was working on this in conjunction with Irish workers when she fell ill with cancer.

Helen’s family and her religious community looked after her well until God called her home.

So, if you were reading the death notices in R.I.P. ie and you saw someone you never heard of before, here is who this humble holy walking saint was.

Sr. Helen’s Listowel family, her brother Dan, sister Carmel, cousin Eddie Moylan and their families are very proud of her and the work she did. They will miss her gentle presence but are happy in the knowledge that she lived a good life of service to the most disadvantaged of God’s children. She was well prepared for death and accepted whatever God had planned for her.

R.I.P. Sr. Helen. “The day thou gavest Lord has ended.”

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Another old card

I don’t think this one is an O’Connor one. Symbols are Ballyduff landmarks and the tone is very republican, The Irish greeting reads Nollaig maith suairc duit, roughly I pray/ wish a good merry Christmas to you.

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Christmas Long ago in Ballyferriter

Christmas in Boulteens Ballyferriter by Maurice Brick (Facebook 2015)

MEMORIES OF CHRISTMAS IN GORTA DUBHA.  

                            There was a touch of frost, enough to stiffen the grass but it limbered with the noonday sun. The grown ups were in good humor and we were very sensitive to that. The farm work was done and only the cows needed tending. There was an easiness. 

A great day was when Mam and Dad went to Dingle to bring home the Christmas. Dad had rails on the cart. We were bursting with excitement upon hearing the cart coming with its iron band wheels which could be heard for miles. They had a sack of flour, a sack of yellow meal, various foods, wellingtons, some clothes, decorations and most important, sweets and biscuits and icing clad Christmas Cakes. They also had several bottles of Sandiman Port which were presents from Dingle merchants in appreciation of their custom through the year. 

Searching for discarded jam jars which we would wash and fill with sand to hold the candle we put in each window of the house. Holding the ladder for Dad as he retrieved some ivy from the gable end of the house. Going to the Reen, a field on our land that was reputedly a Fairy Fortress and had some scattered Holly Bushes. The house would be spotless and there was a silent buzz as we went about our chores. The turf fire was blazing and added to the glow. 

On Christmas Eve for dinner we had Langa (Ling), a long stringy fish that had hung for weeks from the ceiling. It was salty and boney but Mam’s white sauce with onions, pandy (potatoes mashed with generous helping of butter) and spices made it palatable. After, there was lashings of Christmas Cake with inch thick icing and we made short work of that. 

Going to Midnight Mass to St. Vincent’s in Boulteen was a treat. We went up the Tóchar a Bohereen and pathway through the fields. Dad had a lantern and led the way. At one point we climbed a few steps to climb over a claí (an earthen stone fence that separated fields) and on top you could see all the houses in the Parish with candles in the windows and it was like a glimpse of Tír Na nÓg (Land Of Youth) if such a place ever existed. 

The Church was small and comfortable. It was full and the smell of molten wax permeated the air. And there was a quietness. My Dad sang in the Choir and his cousin Paddy Brick, Riasc played the violin. It was magical listening to them, performing for us a hauntingly soft rendition of Oíche Chiuin (Silent Night) in honor of the Birth of the Baby Jesus. I remember now, I will never forget, Dad singing his heart out & Paddy Brick his cousin on the violin, watching one another with sideway glances making sure each of them was putting out the best. 

After Mass all the people greeted one another and offered Christmas Blessings. All was done in hushed and calming voices and that has stayed with me down through the years. My friend Pad accompanied us once going home by the Tóchar and he was given to speeching all the way. When we passed by the Cemetery he proceeded to name everyone who died in Gorta Dubha for the past fifty years. I shifted closer to Mam and Dad for the rest of the journey. 

At home, we put up our stockings for Santí and reluctantly went to bed. Dad went to the haggard and pulled a gabháll (bunch) of hay which he spread at the front door to feed the Donkey that was bringing the Holy Family for a visit to our house on Christmas Night. 

After a fitful night’s sleep we arose with excitement and checked our Santí stockings. We compared what we got and though at times it wasn’t much we were happy. Off we went running to every house in the the village. We’d get a piece of sweet cake or a bun and sometimes, even a sip of lemonade. We joined the other children and traipsed about joyfully in and out of the houses. It was Gorta Dubha and all the houses were ours. NOLLAIG SHONA……..HAPPY CHRISTMAS.

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A Fact

Cheetahs can change direction in mid air while chasing prey.

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Art and Books

By

On July 19, 2023

In Listowel, Listowel Writers Week, Personal, Poem

Back Lane behind Church Street in Summer 2023

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Dancing Down the Years

Photo and text from Fleadh Cheoil na Mumhan

Footsteps

The dance tradition of North Kerry has extended its influence far beyond its borders, to different places around Ireland, across Europe, and over the Atlantic to America.

Dance has been part of the culture in this region for centuries, passed down through the generations by the Dance Masters, like O’Ceirín in the 1700’s to Mooreen, Ned Batt Walsh, and to the great Geramiah Molyneaux, affectionally known as Munnix, who passed on the dance, to the young girls and boys, of the area.

The Dance masters travelled, often on foot, from town to town, village to village, 

such was their love of, and desire to pass on their art to the younger generation.

Munnix pupils like Jack Lyons, Jerry Nolan, Sheila Bowler, Liam Dineen, Liam Tarrant, Paddy White, Phil Cahill and many more would perform the old steps with great pride.

Long live the dancers! Long live the dance! 

Featuring Dance Master Jimmy Hickey, Musician Greta Curtin.

Devised and choreographed by Jonathan Kelliher, Artistic Director, Siamsa Tíre, The National Folk Theatre of Ireland.

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Celtic Artist, Tony O’Callaghan

When your grandad is an artist, you are lucky enough to have some marvellous bespoke piece of his work made especially for you and celebrating your name.

Few nameplates are as beautiful as these pieces that Miriam brought to share with the audience on July 6 2023.

Tony O’Callaghan, among many of the prestigious commissions he did, designed the logo for Listowel Writers’ Week.

This information comes to us from Wolfgang Mertens’ 1974 LWW memorabilia.

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Visitor

My latest summer visitor, Aoife McKenna, from Kildare loves, loves, loves Listowel library.

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A Smile from the Internet

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