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: Ballybunion Page 15 of 33

Debs 1991, Ballybunion and Newmarket

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On May 15, 2017

In Uncategorized

Jim MacSweeney’s photo of a sparrow hawk won him a prize at the Rebel Cup photography competition.

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St. Michael’s Debs 1991



This photo was given to me by James Scanlon and he did the best he could do with the names.  James, whose family owned The Spinning Wheel  had left Listowel as his family went to live in Limerick before the Debs but he came back for the night out.

Included in the photo are Liam Kelly, Gerard McGuinness, Don Keane, Evan MacAulliffe, Shane Comerford, Mike Carmody, Seán Pierse, Eddie Bolger, John O’Riordan, Berkie Browne, Frank Quilter, Aidan O’Connor, Shane Hartnett, Michael Mann,Victor Sheehan, Donny O’Connell

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Ballybunion by the Sea


I’m going back to Kerry, From the Land of Liberty, 
To my little Irish home town, Ballybunion by the sea,
To walk along the old Slip Road, Where the breezes softly blow, 
And to get out to the ocean, Where the tides of memory flow.


To walk along the beach, Down below the Castle Green. 

Up to the lovely Cliffs of Doon, The likes you’ve never seen. 

From Listowel to Ballylongford and back into Tralee.
There’s no place else in Ireland like Ballybunion by the sea.


I’ll take a walk down Main Street, And see my friends from home, 
Go tell my own true sweetheart, I never more will roam,
Go tell the lads I’m coming back, That’s where I want to be,

 In my little Irish home town, Ballybunion by the sea.

In my little Irish home town, Ballybunion by the sea.


This song was written by Pecker Dunne and recorded by Larry Cunningham  Here

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Newmarket, Co. Cork


Newmarket is one of the small towns you pass through if you take the Rockchapel road to Cork. Let me tell you an interesting fact about Newmarket. It has three public statues and they are all women.

Alice Taylor is a very successful writer of novels, short stories and memoir. Her first runaway success was a memoir of growing up in Newmarket called To School Through The Fields. Her gift for nostalgia and vivid descriptions of a way of life that was dying caught the mood of the time and following their first success she has gone on the write numerous books describing village and parish life in her adopted Inishannon. She is a frequent visitor to Listowel Writers’ Week.

 Sarah Curran is a less down to earth heroine. She defied her family to allow Robert Emmett to court her and is seen by history as a tragic romantic figure.

 This doorway beside the statue of Curran struck me as a little odd. Did you ever see a padlocked door leading to a Main Street?

The third lady commemorated with a statue is Our Lady of Lourdes whose grotto stands at the east end of the town.

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“The French are on the sea and old Ireland will be free”




Ita Hannon photographed this French Navy training ship in the Shannon estuary last week.

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Circle of Friends




Lyreacrompane Development Association posted this photo to Facebook. It shows friends of  the late Fr. Pat Moore  circled around Mario Perez sand art tribute in Ballybunion on May 11 2017.

New business, Ballybunion on the Wild Atlantic Way, and Listowel Military Festival 2017

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On May 4, 2017

In Uncategorized

Theresa Collins of Mallow Camera Club is the photographer.

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New Pharmacy at The Gold Corner


Work is underway on Doran’s Pharmacy due to open soon at this location.

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Ballybunion on the Wild Atlantic Way

These details from the WAW sign point out some of the reasons for  the universal appeal of Ballybunion. I count myself blessed to have it on my doorstep.


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Setting the Spuds


(from Jim Costelloe’s Asdee…..)

Potatoes were grown in drills but the
belief existed that, because the ridges were made in virgin soil (bawn) they
produced better crops. To prepare the soil for drills, which were always made
in broken ground or stubbles, the garden was ploughed as normal. It was later
harrowed with a spring harrow, rolled, harrowed again and again rolled. The
area was then ploughed again, and rolled and again harrowed to make sure there
were no lumps in the soil and that the earth was fine and loose. The process
helped the germination and crop growth of the seed potatoes. When the ground
was ready, the drills were opened using a double boarded plough.

Farmyard dung was then drawn from the dung
heap beside the cowshed with the horse and butt car. It was later spread on all
the furrows with four prong pikes. The drills were now ready for the sciolláns
so all members of the family were called on to spread the seed. The seeds were
laid on the dung in the furrows and the drills were split so that the furrows
with the potatoes on the dung became drills and the drills were the new
furrows. There was less manual work with drills although the spreading of the
sciolláns was severe on the back. The varities of potatoes sown then included
Aran Banners for fowl and farm animals, Kerr’s Pink, Aran Victors (blue ones)
and Records. The early variety, Epicure was set in the kitchen garden near the
house.

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The Siege of Jadotville

Sheila and Leo Quinlan (son of Pat Quinlan) with Ann and Jim Halpin



Jim Halpin is a man who does more then anyone in Listowel to make sure that  the men who served their country are remembered. He has put his money where his mouth is and invested heavily in his excellent military history museum on Church St. and every year he organises a reunion and celebration for his friends and old comrades in The Irish Army Reserve.

Jim invited me to an event he had set up for Friday April 28 2017 in The Seanchaí. I felt privileged to attend.

Kathy Walsh, Dr. Declan Downey and John Pierse at The Seanchaí

After a cheese and wine reception, the dignitaries and honoured guests were piped into the auditorium.




Aoife Thornton, our current mayor, made a presentation to Leo and Sheila Quinlan.


Dr. Declan Downey filled us in on the background to Jadotville and the travesty that followed.


This was the early days of Ireland’s peacekeeping involvement with the United Nations. The African country of Congo had freed itself from its Belgian and French colonisers and was now a republic. The oil and mineral rich Katangan province was backed by rich oil and mining companies in its bid to form an independent state within Congo. The United Nations was called on to help maintain peace between the state forces and the rebels.

Conor Cruise O’Brien was the UN man on the ground when the UN peacekeepers were sent in. O’Brien had no experience as a diplomat and, according to Downey, made a very bad job of it.

Commandant Pat Quinlan, a Kerryman, was the man in charge of the UN compound in Jadotville in Katanga. He and his small band were charged with keeping the peace between the Congolese and Katangan troops whose ranks were swelled with mercenaries brought in by the vested interest in mining and oil.

The siege lasted 6 days with Quinlan’s A Company outnumbered 20 to 1. Orders from O’Brien were to keep fighting even though the Irishmen were inflicting heavy casualties on the Katangans. The peacekeepers had become peace enforcers.

Eventually when they had run out of ammunition and food supplies, every bullet having been fired twice, and Quinlan was left completely on his own, he made the only decision he could to protect the lives of the men in his charge; he surrendered.

………….

We were shown the film starring Jamie Dornan which brought all of this story to life for us. After the surrender the men served a month as prisoners of war while the UN and the Congo debated what to do with them. Eventually they were released and came home to an ignominious lack of welcome. Despite continuous campaigning their heroism was ignored until nine years after Quinlan’s death. In 2016 Quinlan’s reputation was restored and his men honoured by the Irish state which they served so loyally and so well.

At Listowel Military Festival 2017 the surviving members of A company were honoured guests and after the wreath laying ceremony on Saturday April 29 2017, they were invited to stand as their fellow veterans marched past in a gesture of respect for them.


Stack’s Mountains by John B. Keane, businesses coming and going and the end of Ballybunion’s black balls

By

On April 27, 2017

In Uncategorized

Man at Work

Photo: Christopher Bourke for Mallow Camera Club’s People at Work project

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Stack’s Mountains

Recently my good friend, Mary Sobieralski gave me some of her old John B. Keane books. I’m enjoying reading them and I’ll share some of John B.’s wit and wisdom with you all.

This one is long out of print. It has some lovely essays on life in North Kerry in simpler times. Here is John B.s account of summers spent in the country with relatives. I too remember when the highlight of the summer holidays was the time spent with relatives who lived just a few miles away.  I’ll give you the essay piecemeal so that you can savour the elements in bite sized pieces……

Last week I visited the
Stacks Mountains where I was reared and countrified. I arrived in a new car but
I had hardly set foot in the townland I knew as a boy when I was reminded of my
first visit and my departure. I came in a creamery lorry and I departed aboard
Jumpin’ Hanlon’s pony drawn fishcart.  Jumpin,
who had a fish shop a few doors down the street from my father’s house in
Listowel would come in September with a load of mackerel. His full name was
James Jumpin’ Alive O’Hanlon. He acquired his nickname from the way he
responded when asked if his fish were fresh.

“Man dear,” he would say, ”they’re
jumpin alive.”

Then he would choose an outstanding
specimen and hold it in his hands in such a way that it seemed to jump from his
grasp of its own accord.

“Catch that fish,” he would
call out, “Catch that fish. In God’s name don’t let it go home to Cahirciveen.”

That would be the tatara as
he went on all fours to seize the mackerel which, as soon as he recovered it,
would jump out of his hand again until finally he was obliged to tap it on the
head with his knuckles to make sure it didn’t return to that wild part of the
Atlantic from whence it first came.

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Walsh’s Ballroom and The Cinema



This sign on the old ballroom is causing me some confusion. I don’t remember this premises ever being known as The Plaza but I’ve been known to be wrong before.

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Closing Down




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Women in Media 2017




On Sunday April 23 2017 Jerry Kennelly came to Ballybunion for WiM 2017 to talk about his extraordinary mother, Joan. His parents were very much a team, so talking about Joan meant also  talking about Padraig. In fact the whole family from the moment they could walk and talk were drafted into the team and they all played a role in the success of Kerry’s Eye and the family’s photography business.

Joan came from fairly humble beginnings and she suffered the loss of both her parents early in life. She was a hard working resourceful lady and when she set her mind to a task, it got done.

After a spell in London and Spain she returned to her native Tralee and married Padraig Kennelly. Tragedy still dogged her with the loss of several babies through miscarriage but she soldiered on helping her husband build an empire.

In the days before internet and mobile phones, the Kennellys had an international business supplying photographs and stories to the world’s media.

My favourite of Jerry’s stories was the one about deGaulle’s visit to Kerry.

Charles de Gaulle, the French president was a frequent visitor to Sneem, Co. Kerry a fact that is commemorated in a statue in the village.

When he resigned as president in 1969, de Gaulle decided to take a quiet holiday in Kerry. Security was tight and when he went to mass on Sunday journalists were forbidden to bring cameras into the church. Joan Kennelly always carried a little camera in her bag and  when Charles deGaulle rose to pray in the European fashion at a point in the ceremony when the Irish congregation remained kneeling, she grabbed her chance and photographed him head and shoulders over all the other worshippers. The fuzzy image  was like gold dust. It made its way into all the major European publications.

There were many more stories like this told on Sunday morning. The story of the Kennelly’s of Ash Street deserves a documentary or even a full length film.

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There they are…Gone!




The white patches on the pavements are all that’s left of Ballybunion’s controversial black balls.

Cherrytree Blossoms, Mass in the fifties and the first Park run

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On April 25, 2017

In Uncategorized

Photo: Joy Buckley of Mallow Camera Club for their People at Work project

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Cherry Blossom Time





Cahirdown

 In the Pitch and putt course

 In Cahirdown

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Sunday mass in Ireland in the 1950s



Jim Costello remembers mass in rural Ireland in the 1950s;

At Sunday mass the men wore
their Sunday suits, while the women wore 
coats, costumes or dresses.The older men wore hats while the young
people rubbed oil, Brillantine or pomade to their hair. The ladies, as was the
custom then always covered their heads with hats, scarves or mantillas. The
priest had his back to the congregation while he said the mass in Latin and the
altar boys responded also in Latin. The laity took no audible part in the mass
but said their prayers by using their rosary beads. People then conducted
themselves devoutly at mass. The men said their prayers on their rosary beads
and the women read their missals.

Glossary for younger readers

French pommade is a greasy, waxy, or a water-based substance that is used to style hair. Pomade gives the user’s hair a shiny, slick appearance, and does not dry it out. It lasts longer than most hair care products, often requiring multiple washes  to completely remove. 


 A Mantilla is a lace or silk scarf worn by women over the head and shoulders.




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Oops!

This souvenir shop in Ballybunion had an alternative Irish flag flying.

AND

A few days later Jacinta Breen spotted that they had found the right one.

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First Listowel Park run


Photo; Dominck Walsh

Park run sponsored by VHi came to Listowel on Saturday April 22 2017

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Brent Geese over the Shannon



Its Hannon’s photo of Brent geese over the Shannon estuary was broadcast on national TV last evening

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Fr. John Lucid R.I.P.



Moyvane paid tribute to Fr. John Lucid who passed away suddenly at his Kilcummin home last week.

(Text and photo from Moyvane Village of Facebook)

If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.
By Gabriel Fitzmaurice

Fr John Lucid came to serve as Parish Priest of Moyvane-Knockanure in the summer of 2003. His shock of grey hair hid the youthful temperament of a 54 year-old-man full of vim and vigor, a man whose personal motto could well have been “laborare est orare”, “to work is to pray”, such was the delight he took in getting his hands dirty doing what his beloved Church used to describe in the old catechism as “servile work”, work that other priests would leave to tradesmen, labourers and gardeners. He was a popular priest; shy yet comfortable with his parishioners both young and old. He believed when he was appointed to the Parish of Moyvane-Knockanure that he would be the last Parish Priest we would have. He performed his priestly duties ar luas lasrach – at lightning speed. Indeed, he seemed to have two speeds only, fast and faster! And yet he was devout, and his devotion was apparent in his respect for God and God’s creation. 

His homilies were invariably short and to the point. One of his most touching sermons, which he repeated from time to time, was about the little girl who wondered who the people depicted in the stained glass windows in her local church were; on being informed that they were saints she was perplexed as the word “saint” was new to her. She was puzzled for a while and then, in a moment of revelation, she exclaimed, “Mammy, I know who the saints are – they are the ones who let the light through”. Beautiful! 

Fr John led his parish through joyful times and sorrowful times. He presided over the celebrations of the golden jubilees of the Church of the Assumption in Moyvane in 2006 and Corpus Christi Church in Knockanure in 2014. It fell to him to officiate at the funerals of Michael Hanrahan and his son Denis, double murder victims, in 2008. He was interested in his parishioners, their sports and pastimes, he was a fair and effective chairperson of the parish school boards, he set up the first parish liturgy group to mention just a few of his many achievements during his tenure as Parish Priest here. When he was transferred to be Parish Priest of Kilcummin in 2015 he left with the goodwill and affection of the people of Moyvane and Knockanure. 

He died on the day of Christ’s Resurrection having officiated at the Holy Week and Easter ceremonies in Kilcummin. One of his favourite phrases, one he repeated frequently from the altar, was “if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything”. Fr John stood for the good, the true, the beautiful. He let the light through. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam uasal.

Mario Perez celebrates the Choctaw Nation

By

On April 19, 2017

In Uncategorized

Photo: Ita Hannon

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A washboard


This was once the latest in laundry technology. Who needs a gym when one has one of these to work out on.

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 Beautiful Ballybunion


On April 1 2017 I took a walk in the sunshine along Ballybunion beach and along the cliff walk. Very often when material for the blog is drying up and I feel that its all getting a bit repetitive, something happens to restore my faith and give me the impetus to carry on. Such an encounter happened to me as I left my car. A lady I didn’t know approached me and introduced herself as a blog follower. She told me that her uncle had written a memoir of his childhood and growing up in Asdee in the 1940s. She promised me a copy of the book. 

She was as good as her word.

 I grew up in the 1950s so many aspects of our upbringing were the same. I look forward to bringing you more reminiscences from Asdee…A Rural Miscellany. 

Thank you, Anne Marie Collins

As I made my way to the beach I saw that Mario Perez, Ballybunion’s beach artist, was at work.

Mario cut a solitary figure as he painstakingly created yet another work of art.

I approached him and Mario kindly took time out to let me photograph him and to explain what his latest artistic creation was celebrating.

The event he was commemorating was the generous act of the Choctaw Nation to help alleviate the suffering of the Irish people during the Famine.

Here is an account from Irish Central;

On March 23, 1847, the Indians of
the Choctaw nation took up an amazing collection. They raised $170 for Irish
Famine relief, an incredible sum at the time worth in the tens of thousands of
dollars today.

They had an incredible history of
deprivation themselves, forced off their lands in 1831 and made embark on a 500
mile trek to Oklahoma called “The Trail of Tears.” Ironically the man who
forced them off their lands was Andrew Jackson, the son of Irish immigrants.

On September 27, 1830, the Treaty of
Dancing Rabbit Creek was signed. It represented one of the largest transfers of
land that was signed between the U.S. Government and Native Americans without
being instigated by warfare. By the treaty, the Choctaws signed away their
remaining traditional homelands, opening them up for European-American
settlement. The tribes were then sent on a forced march

As historian Edward O’Donnell wrote
“Of the 21,000 Choctaws who started the journey, more than half perished from
exposure, malnutrition, and disease. This despite the fact that during the War
of 1812 the Choctaws had been allies of then-General Jackson in his campaign
against the British in New Orleans.’

Now sixteen years later they met in
their new tribal land and sent the money to a U.S. famine relief organization
for Ireland. It was the most extraordinary gift of all to famine relief in
Ireland. The Choctaws sent the money at the height of the Famine, “Black 47,”
when close to a million Irish were starving to death.

Thanks to the work of Irish
activists such as Don Mullan and Choctaw leader Gary White Deer the Choctaw
gift has been recognized in Ireland.

In 1990, a number of Choctaw leaders
took part in the first annual Famine walk at Doolough in Mayo recreating a
desperate walk by locals to a local landlord in 1848.

In 1992 Irish commemoration leaders
took part in the 500 mile trek from Oklahoma to Mississippi. The Choctaw made
Ireland’s president Mary Robinson an honorary chief. They did the same for Don
Mullan.

Even better, both groups became
determined to help famine sufferers, mostly in Africa and the Third World, and
have done so ever since.

The gift is remembered in Ireland. The plaque on Dublin’s
Mansion House that honors the Choctaw contribution reads: “Their humanity
calls us to remember the millions of human beings throughout our world today
who die of hunger and hunger-related illness in a world of plenty.”

When I came home I checked in with Mario’s Facebook page and here is his finished sand picture. It represents the seal of the Choctaw Nation. It took Mario six hours to craft this perfect piece.

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When the Pope Came



Photo from a Facebook page devoted to photos of old Dublin

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John B. Keane Memorial in the Garden of Europe



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Easter 2017 at Scoil Realta na Maidine

They had a big weekend of fundraising at the boys school. I took a good few photos of the marathon and half marathon runners and walkers. I’ll post them next week.

Meanwhile Ned O’Sullivan spotted his young self in some photos on display in the school.

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