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

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Listowel Square is changing

Jim MacSweeney

This rural image is part of the collaboration between Mallow Camera Club and Kanturk Community Hospital

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A Mighty Leap

This gem is from Beale School in the Schools’ Folklore Collection.

A Local Hero
The best hurler the oldest people ever remember was James Moriarty.He lived somewhere around Kilconly. One Saturday he and his wife removed to the border of the County of Cork. After going to bed that night his wife said it was better for him to be there than to be going to the “Moneens.” The moneens are in Flahives farm, Bromore. “What is in the Moneens” asked the man. The woman told him that she had received a letter that he should go and attend the hurling match which was to be held there. He made up his mind to go and jumping out of bed he went off to Bromore. When the ball was thrown up he was the first man that struck it and after striking the ball he leaped thirty three feet. There is a mark to this day on the place where he jumped. The place is pointed out above at Dan Flahive’s field of Bog.

Nora Griffin vi
Beale, Ballybunion
June 24th 1938
Information from people at home.

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Outdoor Dining and Performance Area

While I turned my back very briefly, work continued apace in The Square.

We got a lovely new standard light with two lamps.

Of course there is a bicycle rest. The people we imagine using this are tourists on The Greenway.

The tables and seating will be put back and then it will all be covered with three tent type structures.

Imagine yourself sitting in the sun, eating your ice cream from the new ice cream kiosk and listening to whatever performance is on offer.

If such pleasure becomes all too much for you, the defibrillator is at hand to jolt you back to life.

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Danny would be Proud

In 1972 Danny Hannon fulfilled a dream . He set up The Lartigue Theatre Company. In April 2022 the company celebrated it’s half century with a production of John B. Keane’s Sive.

I was in St. John’s on Sunday evening and I couldn’t have picked a better evening’s entertainment for my return to the theatre. After two years I had almost forgotten how enjoyable an evening of local theatre can be.

(All the photos are from St. John’s Facebook page)

The old hands were excellent, as always. If I were to single out one actor it would have to be Laura Shine Gumbo. Laura played an excellent Mena, with a mixture of good and evil. She brought out the painful conflict within this character, whose awful betrayal of Sive is motivated as much by her misunderstanding of the vulnerability of the romantic teenager as by her desire to improve her own lot in life.

There were new faces among the cast as well. A revelation to us all was Jimmy Moloney who played a blinder ss Mike Glavin. Mike is at heart a good man . He is tormented by the three women in his care. What we in the audience can see and poor Mike can’t is that he has married his mother. Nanna is the mistress of the hard word. She is as devious and manipulative as Mena, full of resentment and bitterness, bullying and taunting where she should lend support. It is a deeply unhappy household.

The final moving tragic scene is played with great pathos and empathy. Sive is let down by all the adults in her life. Such innocence could not survive in a hard mercenary world where love is lost in the hard realities and the poverty of 1950s Ireland. Everyone who should have protected her has a hand in her death.

Sive is a tragedy. Playing it out again in our times shines a light on an unhappy era, thankfully now behind us.

Thank you, Lartique Theatre Company for a great night.

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Schull and Dunamase

Photo; Breda OMullane

This image is one of a selection of photographs by members off Mallow Camera Club which are framed and hanging in Kanturk Community Hospital.

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From Pres Yearbook 2003

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Schull, Co Cork

Éamon ÓMurchú took this picture on a lovely weekend in Schull.

I was further east. I visited The Rock of Dunamase. I had so often wondered about it as I passed the signs on the motorway. This fortress once belonged to Isabel, daughter of Strongbow and his wife Aoife MacMorrough. Aoife, wife of Strongbow got Dunamase as part of her dowry from her father, Diarmuid MacMorrough.

It is now in ruins and more famous for the spectacular views it provides over the surrounding countryside.

Rock of Dunamase from the churchyard of the nearby Protestant church which is still in use

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Weather Signs from Beale School in the Schools Folklore collection

Michael Griffin, the schoolboy who recorded this, got the information “from people at home”.

Weather Signs
When bad weather is near at hand you will notice in this locality the foam rise and dash against the Cliffs off the coast of Clare. The Rooks and Seagulls fly to the land when severe weather is approaching searching for food. The cat sits on the hearth, the soot falls down the Chimney when we are near bad weather. You would also notice a circle round the sun and moon and the clouds are very dark. the wind is generally from the west or south west when we have bad weather.
When we have good weather in this locality you will hear the waves at the north or north east. When we have good weather the birds fly high into the air in search of food. This is generally the case with the swallow. The sun and moon shine bright and clear and the sea is quite calm.

Michael Griffin v.
Bromore,
Ballybunion
June 23rd -1938
Information from people at home

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A Poem for our Time

By Trista Mateer

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Look where I was Last Night

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Life’s a Beach, Love at Midnight, Indian Elections and Molly in Kerry

Evening on Portmarnock Beach in October 2021 Photo; Éamon ÓMurchú
Beautiful image of dawn on Béal Bán strand in October 2021..Photo; Éamon ÓMurchú

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Poignant Memory

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Elections in India….Two facts

The indian Electoral Commission ruled that, in the period after the vote when exit polls are banned, it was also against the law to predict election results using tarot cards or astrologers.

In 2019 Prime minister Narendra Modi’s party won the election. In an effort to appeal to more ascetic followers, Modi was photographed meditating in a cave.. It later turned out that the ‘cave’ was man made, supplied full breakfast, lunch and dinner to its occupants and came with its own phone line, electricity and a bell for summoning a servant.

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She’s Back

It’s two years since Molly has been to Listowel for a holiday. I had to introduce her to all the changes in town. She pretended interest.

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The Man with the Cap

From Shannonside Annual 1956

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Brent Geese, Craftshop na Méar, Hosiery Explained and a Magpie Drops in for a Take away

Brent Geese at Sunset in Beale

Ita Hannon

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John Kelliher’s Drone Photos


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Craftshop na Méar


Tom Fitzgerald took this photo of the Listowel Writers Week gang at  a craftshop Christmas event;

Mary Cogan,  Una Hayes, Eilish Wren, Bernie Carmody, Seán Lyons, Maureen Connolly and Masiréad Sharry

The late Eileen Hannon with Danny and Noreen O’Connell at the same event.

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Deja Vu


Noel Roche

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Hose and Half Hose


The question of hosiery came up last week when we were discussing Duhallow Knitwear and how it was always referred to in my home town as The Hosiery.

Our friend, Nicholas, did a bit of research on the internet and this is what he found.

I  believe it all started with mens’ wear – (late 13c., “covering of woven cloth or leather for the lower part of the leg, with or without feet,” from late Old English ‘hosa’ “covering for the leg”) and developed into basically everything that covered the leg from the knee to the ankle. 

At first, the hoses on the two legs were separate pieces of material- a solution was necessary to preserve modesty, so a cloth codpiece was invented to cover the gap in material.  this was amended to metal to cope with  a certain vulnerability to injury. In the 400s,  following a widespread outbreak of what we would now call (to spare blushes) a ‘social disease,’ the codpiece was essential to cover the effects and visible signs  of the disease and the manifold ‘medicines’ applied to combat it. I believe Gucci revived the codpiece in modern times as a fashion statement rather, I suppose, than as a ‘nod’ to the more indelicate associations.  And it was an unexpected motif in the Spring 2020 menswear collection by American designer Thom Browne, shown in Paris in 2019. Like everything else connected with male vanity, it is believed that codpieces were much aggrandized and exaggerated in size by some…. Henry the V111 was one who did this, as depicted in Holbien Junior’s portrait. I presume Kings, depending on male heirs to keep the line going, would at least, have to appear capable of doing so (or be prepared to behead his Queens and kick out the Pope).  

There is a contemporary male-worn item commonly used contact sports, and in ballet: the ‘jockstrap.’  


It is time to call a halt on this somewhat  distasteful topic. It may not all be suitable for your Blog. In any case, you have the final editorial call and you may disregard any or all of the above as you wish.


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Piazza Express


During lockdown we are all taking time to observe Nature all around us. Part of that observation for a photographer is also capturing the moment in a snap.


Tom Fitzgerald was fascinated by this magpie who swopped down to take away the remains of his piazza.




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The Confirmation Class of 2020




When the story of the Coronavirus pandemic of 2020 is told these boys will be saying, “I remember it well. It was the year I was to make my Confirmation but….”



Photo: Scoil Realta na Maidine


Cahirciveen with Family, Boston Listowel Talk, Writers in Town and Diarmuuid and Gráinne

Cahirciveen




I recently spend a lovely weekend in Cahirciveen with my whole family. Here we are in Kells Bay Gardens on a wet and windy Saturday.




We all did the rope bridge crossing.



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Listowel Comes to Boston



If you live anywhere near Boston this will interest you.

If you need to know a bit more about Vincent, here is a recent video from Listowel.ie

Vincent Carmody



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Writers at Writers’ Week




Movers and shakers of the Irish book world at Listowel Writers’ Week 2019;  Rick O’Shea, Colm Tóibín, John Boyne and Joseph O’Connor.

This year the festival runs from May 27 to May 31.

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Obituary to a Priest from a Family of Priests in Australia


Catholic Freeman’s Journal (Sydney, NSW)- Thu 29 Jun 1939

One of the oldest and best known Priests in the Archdiocese of Melbourne Rev. John Joseph Gallivan, died at Northcote early on Friday week in the eighty-third year of his age. On the previous Tuesday morning he attended the Jubilee Mass of Thanksgiving at St. Joseph’s Home, Northcote, and was one of the assistant deacons to his Grace the Archbishop of Melbourne. 

The announcement of his death caused deep regret throughout the Archdiocese, and especially at Northcote and Sunbury, where he had laboured untiringly for many years in the priesthood.

 Born in Listowel. County Kerry, Ireland, on February 8 1856. Father Gallivan entered All Hallows College, Dublin, and was ordained on June 24, 1880.   Had he lived another fortnight he would have celebrated his 59th year as a priest. He arrived In Melbourne on November 1 of the same year, and his first appointment was that of curate at Old Kilmore to Rev. M Farrelly. In May. 1886, he was appointed parish priest at Gisborne. twenty-five years later, Sunbury, with Bula attached, was made a separate parish, with Father Gallivan in charge and he remained there until 1923 completing forty-three years’ service in the Kilmore, Gisborne and Sunbury districts —six years as curate and thirty-seven years as Parish Priest There was great regret in Sunbury when Father Gallivan left there to take charge of St Joseph a Parish, Northcote. This was in April, 1923. 

In 1906 he revisited his native land after an absence of twenty six years. In June, 1930, he celebrated his sacerdotal golden jubilee, and his fellow-priests tendered him a dinner and

presented him with an address. A jubilee concert was held in the Northcote, Town Hall, and  celebrations were also in Sunbury and  Gisborne, where the jubilarian was most enthusiastically

welcomed. 

The obsequies of the deceased priest took place at St. Joseph’s Church, Northcote, his Grace Archbishop Mannix presiding and preaching the panegvric.

Among the priests who attended were Rev. P. Galvin. P.P of Katoomba, N.S.W.  Rev D. Galvin, P.P. of Springwood, N.S.W. and Rev M Calvin, P.P.. of Footscray, nephews.

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The Fianna in Beale


Local Historical Landmark

In a place near the cliffs three fields from our school there is a mound of earth which is locally called “Darby’s Bed” Leaba Diarmada. It is said that Fionn expected Grania’s hand in marriage but instead of she marrying Fionn she married Dermot. Dermot and Grania had to fly from the wrath of Fionn. They travelled round the cliffs from Ballybunion and they crossed a chasm on a pig’s back. This place is called Léim na Muice. On their travels they rested on a place only three fields from this school and ever since this lump of earth is locally called “Darby’s Bed”. We find on the Sopers’ and Miners’ maps that the right name for this place is “Diarmuid and Grania’s bed”. This place is in the townland of Kilconly.

Michael Lynch, VII, Doon, Ballybunion

June 27 1938

Information from people at home.

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