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: Bobby Cogan Page 1 of 3

Listowel Men from Far and Near

By

On October 10, 2024

In Listowel, Personal, Poem

Courthouse Road, Listowel in October 2024

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At the October Horse Fair

There is so much more besides horses at the fair these times.

You could buy a spade or a fork, a pickaxe or even a mallet.

Poultry

I only saw one goat.

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A Successful Emigrant and Philanthropist

Dec 16 1926  •  Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

Death of Mr. D. Kennelly Mr. Daniel Kennelly, for many years a well – known resident of Port Pirie, died at his home at South_terrace, Adelaide, after a long illness. The late Mr. Kennelly was born at Listowel, County Kerry, Ireland, 60 years ago, and came to South Australia by the Robert Lee, sailing ship, in 1877. After a period of farming at Crystal Brook he removed to Port Pirie, where started a carrying business. He secured from the Broken Hall an important. Proprietary Company contract for the carting of coal, coke, and lead, which proved eminently satisfactory, and which he retained for several years. The late Mr. Kennelly was the owner of a number of farms in the Port Pirie district, and showed remarkable foresight in investments. He left Port sight Pirie in 1906, and settled in Adelaide, but he had always evinced the greatest interest in the northern town, which he visited on numerous occasions, and had such a regard for it that he left instructions that his remains should be interred there. An excellent organiser and a man of the strictest integrity, he was held in the highest esteem by all with whom he had business transactions, and when he left Port Pirie he was given a public send – off by the citizens. He was a much travelled man, and during his lifetime visited Japan and China several times, the South Seas, Honolulu, and the Mother Country, while it was a regular thing for him to make a trip to North Queensland during the winter season. Possessing a remarkable memory he was a most interesting raconteur. and he will be much missed by a large circle of friends to whom he had endeared himself by reason of his kindly, and generous nature. He has left a widow and one son. Mr. Eric Daniel Kennelly.

Oct 19 1927  •  Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

DISTRIBUTED Legacy of Late Mr. D. Kennelly INSTITUTIONS BENEFIT Elder’s Trustee and Executor Company, Limited, as executor of the will of the late Mr. Daniel Kennelly, of Listowel, South terrace, Adelaide, has made a first payment of one – half of the amount of the legacy bequeathed in terms of the will to each of the following institutions: £ 500, St. Joseph’s Orphanage,, Largs Bay. 2500, Late Father Healy’s Reformatory and Old Men’s Home, Brooklyn Park. £ 500, St. Vincent de Paul’s Orphanage, Goodwood. £ 500, Catholic Refuge, Fullarton. £ 500, Little Sisters of the Poor, South Australia, Incorporated, at Glen Osmond. £ 500, St. Francis Xavier’s Cathedral Building Fund. £ 500, Good Samaritan Sisters, Port Pirie. £ 500, Solomontown Catholic School. £ 250, St. Joseph’s Providence, West terrace. £ 250, St. Vincent de Paul’s Society, Adelaide, to be divided equally between St. Francis Xavier’s and St. Patrick’s Conferences. £ 250, Little Company of Mary, South Australia Incorporated, for proposed Public Hospital, North Adelaide. £ 250, Sisters of Saint Joseph, Port Adelaide. £ 250, St. Patrick’s Church, West terrace. £ 250, St. Mark’s Church, Port Pirie. £ 50, Late Father O’Mahoney Memorial Fund, Port Pirie.

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Listowel Men in Cork

Richie, in grey in left front, is the only man in this picture who is not from Listowel.

L to R: Seán O’Sullivan, Gavan Buckley, Fergus O’Connor and Bobby Cogan

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Dancers in 1975

John Stack shared this photo on Facebook and some others named the dancers as Diane Barry, David Moriarty, Ann Hickey, John Scanlon, Ann Dowling, Murt McAuliffe, Mary Cantillon and John Stack. Jimmy Hickey is the dancing teacher and we don’t know what the cup was for.

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An Admirable Aspiration

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A Fact

The last person to be executed by a government via guillotine was Hamida Djandoubi on 10 September 1977 in France.

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Travels and Animals

By

On August 9, 2024

In Listowel

Doggie visitors returned to base

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An Irish Summer Holiday

My Cork family had a bit of a staycation in Killarney. Rain, mist and wind was the order of the day.

One of the highlights was having deer grazing on their lawn.

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My Staycation

I had a lovely break with my Kildare family. Be forewarned. I’ll be posting Kildare photos for a while.

I travelled by train from Cork. Cork railway station, when the stations were renamed to commemorate the signatories of the 1916 proclamation of independance, got Thomas Kent.

I like to arrive early. I had plenty of time for a wander around the station. This is what I saw.

There are opportunities for entertainment in the foyer as well.

the “take a book; leave a book” library is a good idea but….. the selection was poor and displayed on open shelves in a very busy area. The books were old and grubby. To be successful, the books need to be protected from dirt and dust. They need to be replaced regularly and displayed in a tidy and inviting manner. It wouldn’t take much to make this a very useful service for travellers.

Next stop Portlaoise…

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A Horsey Photo

Photo; Fred Ward

My brother, Pat, admiring Felicity’s horse at a recent show

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The Joys of Gardening

by Mick O’Callaghan

Cabbages and Catterpillars

Whenever I hear the word butterfly, I recall my late father and his horror when he saw the cabbage butterfly, or large white, appear in the garden in summer. He grew a lot of cabbage, and the white butterflies loved to lay their eggs on the cabbage leaves and the ensuing caterpillars could devour lots of cabbage overnight.

I was appointed the exterminator person to dispose of these eggs before they emerged into caterpillars. I rather enjoyed my role as inspector of cabbage leaves. You had a choice of squashing them or throwing them into a bucket of water.  I was successful in protecting the cabbage crop most years. There was also an added incentive in that I was allowed sell some fresh cabbage every day and enjoyed the pecuniary reward for my labours and industry.

I, like many more people admired the butterfly who got all the publicity and admiration, because of their elegant colours and flight patterns, while their offshoot commandos, the caterpillars, did all the destruction of the cabbage crop and later devoured our nasturtium leaves as well.

Apart from my father’s hatred of the large white we loved to see the Red Admiral butterfly appear and we ran around after them with our jars and lids to catch them and have a close-up view of them. We never damaged any and they were released quickly.

I also loved the ‘Comma” butterflies which appears around gardens and woods and are particularly fond of areas where nettles flourish . I have seen quite a few in our garden this year despite our lack of nettles. They are very like the ‘Tortoise Shell’ butterfly and are very attractive with their light brown colouring.

 Pride of place must go to the “Peacock Butterfly’ for all its beautiful colours. We have noted quite a few of them in the woods this summer season. They frequent an area near the river where nettles abound. They are truly aesthetically beautiful and add so much colour to the environment they inhabit.

All butterflies start as tiny eggs and then out comes wriggly caterpillars ready to gorge on juicy cabbage and other leaves. Later the caterpillar makes a chrysalis and starts to change. In the season after the chrysalis the caterpillar has turned into a lovely butterfly after the cocooning and is ready to fly and start the whole metamorphism all over again.

Mohammed Ali was one of the greatest boxers of all time. I remember him being asked about his style of boxing and his movement in the ring. He said, “I float like a butterfly and sting like a bee” What a lovely description of his boxing performance. You can mentally paint a picture of a butterfly floating around the sky on a nice sunny day and then picture Mohammed’s ducking and diving and floating around the ring.

People use butterflies to describe nervousness. Before any tense situation a person might say, “I’ve got butterflies in my tummy, ‘or” I’ve got butterflies flying around in my tummy”.

I leave the final bit of this to that lovely Danish writer of children’s’ literature, Hans Christian Anderson in his book ‘The Butterfly “when the butterfly says “Just living is not enough, one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower “.

Go on, be a daredevil, get out and taste the freedom of the great outdoors today and come home with lungs full of the fresh outdoor air and your nostrils full of the aromas and smells of the great outdoors. You might even see a butterfly and evoke some childhood summertime memories.

Mick O Callaghan

05/08/2024

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A Fact

The five Olympic rings are symbolic of the five continents, and the colours were chosen because they all appear on the flags of all the competing nations around the world.

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An Old Library and a New Shop

By

On July 15, 2024

In Listowel

Reggie and Bobby at the John B. Keane statue

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St. Swithin’s Day

Today, July 15th 2024 is a day weighted with anxiety for superstitious believers in the old wives tale of St. Swithin’s power over the weather, particularly over rainfall.

I read one version of the origin of this belief in Kevin Danaher’s marvellous A Year in Ireland.

St Swithin was an abbot and really really holy man, hugely respected and loved by his fellow monks. When he died they decided that an ordinary grave was not a fitting resting place for the remains of this venerable man so they sent about building a big mausoleum to house his coffin.

The saint was having none of it. On the day that he was to be reinterred, the heavens opened and flooded the whole countryside to the consternation of the monks and indeed everyone else. The rain continued relentlessly for 40 days.

St. Swithin appeared in a vision to a monk and revealed that he was the cause of the deluge. He believed that it was wrong to spend time and money on an ostentatious mausoleum instead of concentrating on prayer and good works for the relief of suffering in the world.

Now, if it rains today and if you believe St. Swithin is displeased, expect more of the same for the next 40 days.

Nice story but bunkum, I’m afraid.

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A Poem about a Souvenir

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New Shoe Shop in Main Street

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Old Carnegie Library

Jer Kennelly’s dive into the newspaper archives found this from the N Y Irish American Advocate of 1930

The old Carnegie Library on the Bridge Road, Listowel. one of the few remaining traces of the stormy period of 1920-1921, has been purchased by R. Moloney, who intends converting it into a concert and picture hall.

I knew that Kay Caball’s Moloney family had an association with this library so I asked her about it.

Here is Kay’s reply;

Hello Mary, No that wasn’t my father.  I think that might have been Robert Moloney. They had a shop at the Gurtinard gate and it was called ‘Bobeen Moloneys’. No relation – I think they originally came to Listowel from Derrindaffe. There is a beauty shop there now.

Bobeen’s  son was Vincent who had the pub at the corner of the Square and Robert who had the sweet shop & Newsagents in the Square also until Covid time.  It must have been that he sold it to my father … but I think that a bit strange myself. ‘Bobeen’ was very wealthy and not a man for selling stuff.

Whatever way, my father would have bought it in the 1950s I imagine and he signed it over to me in the early 1960s.  There was nothing left when I first saw it as a child coming up the Bridge Rd- just completely burnt but the concrete pillars etc standing.  I wouldn’t think any books survived.  It was a forbidden looking ruin with trees and bushes growing inside it.  I’d say Bobeen got a bargain there!

Kay

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It’s That Time of Year

From the neighbour’s garden

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A Fact

The opening line of Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat is;

There were four of us in it.

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What’s in a Name?

By

On June 28, 2024

In Greenway, History, Personal

Listowel Pitch and Putt Course

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An Oldie and a Goodie

Carol Broderick shared this newspaper photo of some Listowel greats.

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Names

I remember when I encountered names in book which I had never met in reality, I just made up my own pronunciation of them. We dont have to do that now as there are so many aids to help us pronounce unfamiliar names correctly.

You don’t want to hear how I used to mangle Yvonne and Penelope.

Here is the first half of Sean Carlson’s essay on the subject of Irish names in The Boston Globe

“What word has the biggest disconnect between spelling and pronunciation?”

The Merriam-Webster account on X, known for snappier and snarkier posts than are usually associated with dictionary publishers, recently managed to provoke some ire from the Irish by answering its own question with “Asking for our friend, Siobhan.”

Ah, Siobhán, a feminine equivalent of my own name, Seán. In the case of Siobhán (pronounced shiv-AWN), the obvious failure with the attempted zinger is that the name is conspicuously absent from Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, since it is a proper name in the Irish language, not English.

Evan O’Connell, communications director for the French nonprofit Paris Peace Forum, countered Merriam-Webster with a volley of English surnames: “You had Featherstonehaugh, Cholmondeley and Gloucestershire right there.”

Caoilfhionn Gallagher, a lawyer with the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, posted, “Once more for the people at the back: Irish names *are* pronounced the way that they are spelled. In *Irish.*”

Siobhán O’Grady, the chief Ukraine correspondent for The Washington Post, agreed, pointing out that the accent mark known as a “fada” is used to elongate the “a,” in Siobhán (and in Seán, for that matter).

To be fair, most Americans are unfamiliar with the nuances of the Irish language. “Cillian Murphy pronunciation” is a top search request, and “Cillian Murphy speaking Irish” isn’t too far behind. In 2016, Stephen Colbert welcomed Saorise Ronan to the “Late Show” and held up flash cards of Irish first names — Tadhg, Niamh, Oisin, and Caoimhe — for her to read aloud. When they came to Siobhán, Colbert laughinglycalled it “ridiculous.”….

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Greenway Milestones

These signs have appeared to help those going or coming on The Greenway.

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Proof Reading

Reggie helping Bobby to check if I got his good side.

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A Definition

from The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce

Appeal; In law, to put the dice back into the box for another throw.

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A Fact

The world’s oldest creature, a mollusc, was 507 years old when scientists killed it by accident.

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Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer

By

On May 28, 2024

In Listowel, Personal, Poem, Schools

Horse chestnut tree at the entrance to Gaelscoil Lios Tuathail

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I Love Brendan O’Connor’s Writing

From last Sunday’s Independent

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Maytime

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Crazy Hair Parade

Presentation Primary School marched through town last Thursday with their hair in every kind of crazy style. It was a great laugh and raised a few euros for the school.

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Graduation Day

Sometimes I feel very old….. My boyeens who featured here so often on their many trips to the Kingdom are all grown up. Here they are with their emotional parents as they finish secondary school and prepare to head out on a new adventure.

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McCrohan’s of 15 Main Street

This is the Kennedy home today. It was here that the last of the Listowel McCrohan’s spent his last days in the care of Dr. Johnny Walsh.

This is how it looked in 1983 when Tim and Karen visited Listowel.

No. 15 Main Street is where the McCrohan family lived.

This is how No 15 looks today.

It was Larkin’s in 1983

Look at how much more beautiful it is now, embellished by the superb paintwork of Martin Chute.

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Changes afoot

This premises, the former ESB office, has had this enormous window installed. I don’t know what is going in there but I’ll tell you as soon as I know.

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A Fact

All pet hamsters are descended from a single female wild golden hamster found in a litter of 12 in Syria in 1930.

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