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: Bunny Dalton

Cyril Kelly on Jimmy Hickey, Old Dance Poster and a Craft and food fair in the Listowel Arms

Shadows on The Feale 


(photo: Deirdre Lyons)

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An Childhood friend pays tribute to Jimmy Hickey


Jimmy Hickey and Cyril Kelly are friends from way back. they are still friends today. Cyril was prompted to write to me when he saw his old friend feature so deservedly in Listowel Connection. 

Cyril wrote;


“In your frequent perambulations around the town, if you come across the man with the twinkling eyes and twinkling feet, extend the good wishes of a former fellow cornerboy of yore. Many a time and oft in the Sunday mornings of the hungry fifties, we played handball against the gable end of what was then Kanes at the corner of Forge Lane (later  the ESB and later again other metamorphoses). Then, with endless time on our hands we loitered with content in the vicinity of that corner, commenting on the rivettingly  entertaining vista of The Bon-Tons, Quille’s, Birdy Browne bound for 10 o’clock, various officers of the Garda Siochána setting off on their leisurely beat or on their bikes, pedaling the countryside in search of a variety of obnoxious weeds, et cetera, et cetera. 


During those halcyon mornings, Jimmy with his restlessness and quick wit, was the best of company.”


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Violet Dalton shared this old Dance Poster on Facebook






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Listowel Food Fair in The Listowel Arms, Sunday November 13 2016

Here are some of the people I met.

Derval O’Rourke posed with the Walsh family at their John R.’s stall.

Maurice Hannon was having a chat with the winning  cheesemaker at his table.

I met this lovely young Duagh man at the Eabha Joans stand. He had on display a range of garnishes which they had made from locally sourced wild food foraged earlier in the year.

Derval O’Rourke’s book and food label is The Fit Foodie. I bought the energy treats. They were delicious.

These people were selling cds and books and raising awareness of the charity. Hope Guatemala.

Near 2 nature had some delicious energy bars. They were lovely too.


Maura Gleasure had her aprons and tea cosies on display.

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Sheila in the Grounds of The Seanchaí


Local lady, Sheila Horan with the statue of Bryan MacMahon





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One of the Final Events of our 1916 Commemoration



Owen O’Shea sent us an account of this event which will be a must for all historians.

TALK ON THE 5TH KERRYMAN KILLED DURING THE RISING 

FEATURING READINGS BY POET BRENDAN KENNELLY

Duagh native and UCD historian Dr Mary McAuliffe will give a talk at 8pm on Thursday, November 24th in Duagh national school hall on Robert Dillon, from Lyreacrompane, who has now become known as the ‘Fifth Kerryman’ killed during the Easter Rising. 

Dr McAuliffe – one of the co-editors of ‘Kerry 1916: Histories and Legacies of the Easter Rising – has researched the story of the north Kerry native who was a successful businessman in Dublin’s Moore Street. He died tragically while trying to get his family to safety during the worst fighting of the Rising. Witnessing Dillon’s death on Moore Street, Pádraig Pearse is said to have finally decided to surrender to prevent further civilian casualties. Robert Dillon’s name is now on the list of the Rising dead in Glasnevin Cemetery. His descendants are the Dillon family in the parish. 

Dr McAuliffe and fellow author Owen O’Shea will also talk on the other north Kerry men and women who took part in the Rising and who were active during the Revolutionary Years. Poet and Ballylongford native Brendan Kennelly will give a poetry reading and there will also be a musical interlude with a 1916 theme. 

This event is a fundraiser for the local Transition Year students who are travelling with the Hope Foundation to Kolkata and entry is €5 per family. The book on the period, Kerry 1916: Histories and Legacies of the Easter Rising – A Centenary Record will be for sale at a special price on the night. All are welcome.

Sunday morning walk, Dancehall Days and a few more Race photos

John B. among the flowers

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Walk through the park and by the River


This little picnic spot by the ball alley looks very inviting.

With heavy rainfall this summer, growth everywhere is luxuriant. The ivy on the ball alley wall was never so thick and heavy looking.

By contrast, the level of water in The Feale seems low.

When I photographed here previously, there was a lovely cherry tree in the shot. I don’t know when or why that went.

 What a lovely shady walk.

This is like a road with a roof.

 Local people love to walk here. I met Seán and Peggy Treacy out walking a dog who was recuperating after surgery.


“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood…”

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Super Ballroom


All the way from Germany via Canada and the U.S., through cyberspace came this treasured memory of a dance in Listowel long ago.

I posted this photo a few weeks ago and it opened memory’s floodgates for many. This ballroom had various names including the Las Vegas but I don’t think it was ever the Super Ballroom. I think that was in the premises below which once housed two dance floors and where Listowel dancers danced the night away until, Cinderella like, they headed for home at the stroke of midnight.

The line up of the Bunny Dalton Showband changed a little over the years.

   Left to Right;  Bunny Dalton,Teddy Moloney,

   then Bunny’s two sons, Tommy,  and Buddy [ R.I.P.]  Thanks to Noel Roche for the photo.

The below photo features the same lineup

Bunny Dalton, Dr. Johnny and Vincent Walsh, Tim O’Sullivan and Joe Keogh in front

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Wednesday Sept 17 2015 on The Island




Katie Walshe chatting in the ring before The Kerry National.

Niamh O’Rourke with Liam, the youngest racegoer? No doubt it will be the first of many trips to The Island.

Emigration, Bunny Dalton and the final chapter of the handball history

These figures tell a sad story.

Many of their descendants now are out there looking for their roots and they are learning these 5 golden rules of genealogy:

#1 Leave no stone unturned, unless
it is a headstone.

#2 Handwriting legibility is
inversely proportionate to a document’s importance.

#3 The further away a cemetery or
library is, the more awkward the opening hours will be.

#4 The relative you most need to
talk with is the one whose funeral you are currently attending.

#5 Wherever you find two or more
siblings, there also will you find two or more surname spellings.

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http://homealoneinireland.wordpress.com/2012/07/16/lets-talk-about-emigration/

Good blog about emigration “by the last guy left”.

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 It was not unusual for newspapers in far flung places to report a bit of Irish news. The above comes from New Zealand Tablet, June 5 1855.

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The book that everyone is talking about!

This is how the 2 sequels were displayed in Dubray Books in Dublin.

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An old picture from Ballybunion of the Bunny Dalton Band.

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Handball…the final installment

Membership dropped over the following years but there
was one notable development

 that took
place roughly around 1969/1970.

The committee were approached by Mr. Bill Kearney who
asked would the club allow

a few pitch and putt holes to be placed in the Alley
ground. He wanted a base in

which to commence a pitch and putt club for the town.

Mr. Kearney himself acted as secretary, Mr. John Joe
Kenny as Chairman and Mr. Jnr

Griffin as treasurer.  

It proved to be dangerous area for pitch and putt as
many golf balls were struck

over the wall on to the main road.  If the traffic then was as heavy as it is
now, serious

damage could have been done.

However, Mr. Kearney used this to his advantage when
he approached the Town

Council to include a pitch and putt course in the
Town Park (Cows Lawn). A nine hole course was granted to  Mr. Kearney 
and thus, the Listowel Pitch and Putt Club was formed. Indeed, two men,
John Joe Kenny and Kevin Sheehy who were stalwarts of the handball club for
years gave wonderful service to the Pitch and Putt Club for

many years to follow.

A new generation off handball lovers came on the
scene including the likes of Denny

O’Connor, Eddie and Mike Broderick, Charlie Nolan,
Tony Stack, Jerh Loughnane,

Con Gorman, Tony O’Neill, Jimmy Canty and others  but the building of the new

community centre in the town park in the mid eighties
“drew” away from the old

Alley and handball ceased to be played there.

The new centre which had an enclosed 40ft by 20 ft
handball alley did cater for

handball enthusiasts 
but as there was no structure of a club it never really took

off so both the handball and squash courts were
utilised for other purposes.

In the years of 2008-2009, John Griffin (Junior),
being the only surviving trustee,

 and with no
handball committee formed for many years, and following the  advice

from former members, decided to sign over the alley
ground, which was purchased

by the handball committee in 1962, to the safe
keeping of the Listowel Town

Council.  This
was done through the good offices of Pierse-Fitzgibbon, Market

Street, Listowel with the one request that if at any
time in future years the

handball club will be reformed that the Council will
facilitate the committee in

every way possible if they are looking for a site to
build a new handball alley. 

Strangely, though the Alley ground was legally signed
over to the Town Council three

or four years ago, this transaction has still to be
acknowledged by the Council or the

Council office

John
(Junior) Griffin)

The above is a brief history of the Listowel Handball Club. As I was
engaged in

compiling the history of another sporting organisation over the past
two years I

had not the time to research as much as I would have liked to of the
Listowel

Handball Club.

My sincere apologies if I have omitted names of people who would
have given

their time to the club, before or after my years.

As mentioned there was but the one minute book available which
happened to be in

my own possession.

Just to advise that I have all the above saved and if
anyone can add more to the club’s

history please feel free to contact me.

Hopefully, the wonderful game of handball will return
again in all it’s glory to the

town of Listowel.

Junior

 Our very sincere thanks is due to Junior for compiling this history and for sharing it with us. I know that many people enjoyed it  and would love to hear more. If any reader has any stories about handball or indeed about anything else of interest to people with a Listowel connection I would only be too delighted to post it here. 

Thank Crunchy it’s Friday!

It’s been a week that was dominated by memories of Nunday. My blog has never been so popular as it was this week. So many people wanted to see either themselves or their friends in nuns’ gear.

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Now to some other news this week. Jimmy Deenihan announced the setting up of a task force to bring employment to Listowel. Denis Brosnan is to head up this group whose job will be to boost employment and tourism in our area.

On Wednesday people from the Kerry area met to plan The Gathering for 2013. We will be hearing more about this.

Damien Stack has made a start on organizing The Stack Clan Gathering. He is inviting Stacks from all over the world to gather in Listowel in 2013. Keep up to date with developments here:

https://www.facebook.com/stack.clangathering

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=LKAI7DN79zE

Happy old times with Bunny Dalton and John B. Keane.

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With the threat of abolition looming over our town council and the consolidation of the 2 Kerry constituencies into one, it is timely that I fill you in on a bit of Kerry political history. This information comes from a great online magazine called Ballybunion News. The latest edition is here:

http://www.ballybunionnews.com/June%2029th.pdf

Kerry was last represented as a single constituency
in the General Election of January 1933 where the county had seven T.D.s who
served until the next election in July of 1937.
Those seven were : Fianna
Fáil’s Eamonn Kissane, Tom McEllistrim, John Flynn, Denis Daly & Frederick
Crowley along with Fionán Lynch and John O’Sullivan from the Cumann na
nGaedheal party who then became Fine Gael in September of 1933.

The County was then divided into North and South
Kerry constituencies for the next General Election in July of 1937 and
following the election, North Kerry were represented by Fianna Fail’s Eamonn
Kissane, Tom McEllistrim and Stephen Fuller along with John O’Sullivan from
Fine Gael while Fianna Fáil’s Frederick Crowley and John Flynn along with Fine
Gael’s Fionán Lynch were elected in South Kerry which was a
three-seater.
Outgoing T.D. Denis Daly of Fianna Fáil who was from Caherciveen
in South Kerry, did not seek re-election after serving just one term.

The country went to the polls again within 12
months, in June of 1938, where the same seven deputies were re-elected with the
three in South Kerry unopposed.

The next election of 1943, saw Lynch and Crowley
re-elected with Flynn retiring in South Kerry to be replaced by party colleague
John Healy, while in North Kerry, Kissane and McEllistrim were re-elected but
O’Sullivan and Fuller lost their seats to Labour’s Dan Spring and local
man
Paddy Finnucane of Urlee who was representing Clann na Talmhan (The
Farmer’s Party). Finnucane reverted to Independent in 1951 and held his seat
until his retirement in 1969.


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Latest in technology courtesy of Broadsheet.ie!

 We have gone so far forward we are meeting ourselves coming back.

The Polaroid Z2300 Instant Digital Camera, due out this August: a 10MP sensor and optional 2x3in ‘smudge-proof’, sticky-backed prints from its onboard Zink printer.

No word on the cost of consumables but, given the legacy of its predecessors, we’re guessing ‘not cheap’.

uncrate/pic

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Spotted in a Social Welfare office in Tullamore yesterday.

I guess they just swanned in to see if there was anything for them.

Showband Days

Yesterday was all about Hennesseys. You read about the three people who had been sponsored and the mystery of how only two arrived in Australia. Thank you, Sean O’Connell, for solving the riddle.

Apparently Johanna “declined to emigrate” and a £2 penalty had to be paid.

Now we have a story.

Why did Johanna stay behind?

What became of her?

Are her descendants still living on North Kerry?

I hope somebody can answer those questions for us.

You can read about Sean’s own Hennesseys here

 http://northkerryreachingout.com/index.php/listowel-memories/156-amazing-north-kerry-links

Today I have a trip down memory lane for some of my older readers.

This is the Bunny Dalton band featuring the late Bunny Dalton, his two sons and Teddy Moloney. This official band photo was taken by the river Feale. Many is the Listowel person who danced to the music of this quartet.  Memories, memories!

This is the same Bunny Dalton with some Charles St. neighbours. Any help with names or an account of the occasion would be appreciated.

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