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: Ballylongford Active Retired

Memories and Loss of Memories

By

On October 10, 2023

In Asdee, Ballylongford, Listowel

Greenlawn in October 2023

<<<<<<<<<<

Hospice Coffee Morning ; October 5 2023

Some photos from a very successful fundraiser. Some local people who were there to support a great cause.

<<<<<<<<<

Ballylongford Ladies Named

Claire Healy, Bridie O’Sullivan, Deirdre Finucane, Ann Boxall, Mavis Hall, Breda Enright, Nuala Melbourne, Catherine Ahern, Joan Barrett and Mairead Lawlee

<<<<<<<<

Listowel Connections in the U.S.

Lovely memories from Eleanor Belcher.

I have been enjoying the blogs and have been meaning to email you several times with stories to add to articles. However I have been busy. 

The O’Sullivan reunion brought back a memory. My husband and I spent a year in Milwaukee and a friend of mine was visiting her uncle Dan Connolly ( from Co Limerick) who was a physician at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. We were invited to spend a weekend at the Connolly holiday home which was on a lake called Spider Lake  in Western Wisconsin. When we arrived Dan discovered that I was from Listowel so that evening he invited Michael O’Sullivan who also was a doctor ( pathologist I think) at the Mayo  clinic to meet me. Michael came with one of his daughters . She had a beautiful voice and later she sang a Mozart aria much to the delight of us all especially my husband who is a keen opera lover. The evening was memorable also because Ruth Connolly a formidable German lady and Dan’s wife insisted we all went to Mass at a convent across the lake. We went by boat. My husband a non Catholic was left behind with instructions to carve a smoked salmon which another guest had brought from Dublin. Ruth was most impressed by my husband’s skills ( he was a surgeon) as he extracted every last bit of salmon from the skin. 

. You might also not know that Denis O’Sullivan was a urologist in Cork and was known as Denis ‘Piss’ to distinguish him from another Dr Denis O’Sullivan a physician. Mary Lawlor from the Square went to work for the O’Sullivan family in Cork after she had done her Leaving Certificate. They (and my father) encouraged her to do nursing which she did at St John’s and Elizabeth’s Hospital in London. She and I still keep in touch, she lives outside Edinburgh. 

My Dad was the dispensary doctor in Ballylongford and Asdee so it was lovely to see the pictures of the church. He used to drop us down to Littor strand while he did his calls. We had tin whistles which we tried to play and we had a swim with Dad when he arrived. 

Eleanor Belcher

<<<<<<<<<

A Caffler

Not everything is on line. Sometimes the old sources are the best.

<<<<<<<<<

Dementia

<<<<<<<<<

A Fact

Mockingbirds can imitate any sound from a squeaking door to a cat meowing

<<<<<<<<

Ballylongford and Ballybunion

By

On October 5, 2023

In Ballybunion, Ballylongford, Listowel

Listowel Town Square early morning in September 2023

<<<<<<<<<

Mary Young, the biggest donor towards the building of St. John’s church in Ballybunion sits (frozen) outside the church she helped to build.

St. John’s is almost a cathedral in terms of size and splendour.

The magnificent chancel window

Beautiful windows donated by local families.

<<<<<<<<<

Ballylongford Active Retired Group

Ballylongford ladies at their weekly meeting on September 29 2023.

I interrupted their Bingo session.

<<<<<<<

When Harvest was a Critical Time

Traditionally harvest was the time, stores of food were laid down for the winter. In the days before all year round vegetables and fruit, people worried about bringing home a good harvest to see everyone over the winter.

Jer Kennelly found this great account of the panic to secure winter food supplies in the troubled post war years.

I wonder does anyone remember this time or remember hearing older people tell of it.

Rush to save Irish Harvest before October 1st 1946

(from New York NY Irish American Advocate, September 28 1946)

Most critical week in the nation’s battle to win the harvest opened .Sunday, Sept. 15. With the nation’s food supply still in danger it is imperative in the next few days that the energy and effort of the country be stretched to the limit.

Listowel farmers, taking full advantage of the dry spell, saved most of the wheat and oat crops. At the Masses in Listowel church appeals were made for more volunteers. 

The party of 25 French Scouts camping near Listowel are taking part in the local harvesting operations.

The 4,100 volunteers who left Dublin yesterday for the county areas and South Meath were not sufficient to deal with the work available.

All Sports Postponed for critical weeks of harvest.
Over 200 harvest volunteers were despatched yesterday from the offices of the Cork Co. Committee of Agriculture—76 from the Army, 41 members of the F.C.A., and about 90 others of Military. City firms and a number of motorists provided transport.

<<<<<<<<<

For the Diary

<<<<<<<<<

A Fact

The first mention of tennis in an English sporting magazine was in 1793

<<<<<<<

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén