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: Childers’ Park Page 2 of 3

Aspects of Listowel Childers’ park, Mike the Pies for Music and Phone box or WiFi hub

Chaffinch photographed by Chris Grayson

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Awakening Trees


Our trees in public places are a delight to watch as they change from the dullness of winter into the glorious colours of spring and summer.

These trees in the park were planted by Scoil Realta na Maidine.

This dense copse has grown really quickly.

Magnificent trees on the pitch and putt course will soon bud into leaf.

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More Progress on the commemorative garden



This beautiful golden sand adds to the jewelled effect.



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Prestigious Award for Mike the Pies




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We have Phone Boxes with Working? Phone in Listowel too



On William Street




According to the sign its a WiFi hub. I must test it out.

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When You’re making plans for Easter Monday…..



If you’ve overindulged with the Easter eggs or even if you haven’t, Listowel Writers’ Week’s Cruinniú na Cásca event is just the ticket:


Beginning at 11am on
Monday 17th April from The Seanchai Centre in Listowel Square, the morning walk
will take you around the beautiful and resourceful River Feale. You will see
and hear some dramatised stories, poems and excerpts from the plays of
Listowel’s literary giants such as Bryan MacMahon, John B. Keane, Dan Keane,
Maurice Walsh, Gabriel Fitzmaurice, Brendan Kennelly, Billy Keane and many
more.

The walk is free, and
will begin with the opening of an open art exhibition by local artists both
professional and amateur followed by a brief introduction to the walk. Along
the walk we will be entertained with short performances by local actors. After
the walk, we will return to the Seanchai Centre for complimentary tea &
coffee.

Castleisland, Dublin phone boxes and lights in Listowel’s Childers’ Park

Deirdre Lyons took this photo recently in The Garden of Europe. Isn’t it beautiful?

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Castleisland


Last week I had occasion to pass a few hours in Castleisland. It is a really interesting town. I sometimes feel that Castleisland people are closer to their rural roots than other Kerry people. I overheard these gems on the street;

” Let me tell you now while I’ve a holt of you…..”

“75? She is in her eye. She’s 85 and she looks every day of it.”

This great likeness of Con Houlihan, one of Castleisland’s most famous sons, stands in the town centre.

This premises is currently idle.

A native of Castleisland informed me that this landmark is called The Fountain. This confirms my belief that people are different in this town. To me this is a pump. I can’t see anything that makes this column a fountain but if Castle Island people want to call it a fountain who am I to differ?

A reminder of Castleisland’s dark history

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Phoneboxes on Connell Bridge, Dublin in the 1970s

Photo: Stair na hEireann on Facebook

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Lighting our Way through the park

If, like me, you were walking in the park on Thursday March 23 2017, you might have wondered why all the lovely lights that are such a great addition to the park in recent years were still on in mid morning. Wonder no more. On my way through the park I met Conor Moriarty whom I knew would be a likely man to know the answer. He did. It was he who had turned them on in order to identify which ones were faulty. They are all now in full working order.

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A Wedding Video from 1962





Wedding of Tommy Murphy and Olivia Featherstone



Paul Murphy sent me this great old video to share. Here is his accompanying email:

My mother was manager of the Arms, hired by Joe Locke, got married in Dublin because she knew people up there.



Listowel people in the video include my Dad’s sisters, Mossie Walsh down the square, with his wife Kats who still lives there, other Walshs, the guy sitting next to the old lady is I think Stephen Stack, the  pharmacist, where The Gentlemen’s Barber is now.



The old lady is my Gran Aunt Ciss Perryman from Beale who ran Mountain View in Ballybunion up until the 80’s. Also from Ballybunion is my uncle Paddy Dowling, who is doing the toasting, his daughter mames was well known in Ballybunion, who died tragically in a freak accident a few years ago. Feel free to ask any questions.

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In London on Friday last 




Nancy and Derry Kelly, both from Listowel, celebrated 50 years of happy marriage.

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Wedding with Fireworks




John Kelliher just happened to be in The  Square on Saturday April 1 2017. He just happened to have his camera with him so he got a shot or two of the firework display which was put on to celebrate a local wedding.



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Don’t Forget



Cashen, daffodils and a real oldie from Presentation Convent, Listowel



Ballybunion at Evening, February 2017


Photo: Bridget O’Connor

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Ballyduff Memories


If you are from the Cashen area of Ballyduff , this is a great page for trips down Memory Lane

Cashen Connections

The Cashen school – 1943

Front Row (Lt) to (Rt) :Maureen Spring (KIlmore), Ita Rochford (The Cashen), Brenda Costello (Knopogue),Kathleen Spring (Kilmore), Eileen Sheehan (Clahane),Eileen Power (Knopogue), Mary B. Enright (Kilmore),Vera Sullivan (Houlihan) (The Cashen), Ambrose Dowling (The Cashen), Sean Gorman (Kilmore).
Back Row (Lt) to (Rt) : ________, Ena Godley (The Cashen), Patsy Stack-Sullivan (Kilmore), Nora Lyons (The Cashen), Seamus McCarthy(Knopogue), Bob Browne (Clahane), Bunny Mahony (The Cashen),Denis Enright (Kilmore), Seamus Rourke (The Cashen), Michael Rochford (The Cashen)

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We Care with a Chair



Every time I visit this lovely garden in Childers’ Park there seems to be a development. They have added two seats, a flagpole and some trees.




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The Daffodils are out



I took the above photographs on paths through the Town Park.


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Nuns and Scouts



A man called Mike Hannon posted this old photo on the internet. I wonder if it was taken during the big international scout jamboree.

Presentation Convent Then and Now, a poem and the Community Centre extension

The 1916 installation in January 2017




It looks great.

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Presentation Convent, then and now



My photographs of the convent  made so many people feel sad that I thought I’d better post a last few nice photographs from the convent in its heyday, the way we all prefer to remember it.


So sad!



When I was writing some convent memories earlier in the week, I included this Facebook comment from Maria Sham

What a waste! Sr Dympna loved the gardens, with the help of a man named Mackassey. I remember walking around the gardens following the Priest with the Blessed Sacrament all of us in our white dresses. It was Corpus Christi. We had another name for it. Does anyone know what it was ?

Seems that lots of people know what it was, Maria. It was the Quadrant Ore Celebration of the Eucharist.

James Kenny did a bit of research on this practice. This is what he wrote;

 “Maria
Sham referred to a procession at the Presentation Convent during Corpus Christi and was querying if it had a name. It was called the Quarantore, official name
is Quadrant’ Ore. I remember the processions….I was an altar boy at the time and had the great
“honour” of leading out the procession with the other boys and the priests.

The Quarantore wasForty Hours’ Devotion; a Roman Catholic exercise of devotion in which continuous prayer is made for forty hours before the Blessed Sacrament in solemn exposition. It commonly occurred in a succession of churches,
with one finishing prayers at the same time as the next takes it up

A celebration of such a devotion was begun by a Solemn Mass or “Mass of Exposition”, and ended by a “Mass of
Deposition”. Each of these masses includes a procession and the litany of
the saints being chanted.

Theword derives from early 17th century  Italian: quaranta
meaning forty and ore meaning  hours.

I don’t recollect if the procession in the convent
grounds was the beginning or the end of the forth hours adoration.

Although the precise origin of the Forty Hours’ Devotion is wrapped in a
good deal of obscurity, the custom of exposing the Blessed Sacrament in one church after another is recorded as having
started as a novelty in Milan, in May, 1537.”

Margaret Dillon remembers Listowel’s Quadrant Ore well. The Eucharist in a monstrance was held aloft by the priest. That year’s communicants (girls) in two lines came forward and strewed petals before the Eucharist. This was a carefully choreographed exercise. Sr. Dympna was in charge and she drilled the girls in what to do. At a certain point, the girls who were at the front went to the back and two new girls took over the petal duty at the front of the line.

Vincent Carmody remembers this Corpus Christi procession too. Vincent was an altar boy in the convent chapel and on Corpus Christi he got a day off school to participate in the the procession. The ceremony was part of Quadrant Ore or forty hours of prayer to mark the feast of the Body of Christ. 



As Vincent remembers it the blessed sacrament was taken in the monstrance from the altar where it had stood during the Quarantore exposition and it was carried down the corridor of the convent followed by the nuns and the Children of Mary. It was carried out the front door and around the front lawn following the path, before being returned again to the chapel.



Seán Keane remembers it well. He wrote “No doubt you were there for the “Quarantori” as I think the Corpus Christi procession was called ( forty (Quarenta) days after Easter Sunday?)The girls scattered petals of flowers from baskets,onto the ground in front of the priests at the head of the procession around the convent grounds.

I was one of the young Altar boys who served the priest at all the ceremonies in the convent church.

Sr Aloyius was our taskmaster

The 7.30 am Mass was a bit of a bind but was compensated for by the freedom to roam which we took and the generosity in the kitchens which we availed of while we waited to serve at benediction after retreats for the Children of Mary etc.

I recall seeing a nice photo of the group of us Altar boys taken in front of the convent door

( exactly as in our picture) about 1960.

Others will have more.”

Maura McConnell remembers it as well. “The procession through the convent gardens on Corpus Christi was known as Quarant’Ore  . The garden always looked immaculate then and woe betide you if you were caught walking on the grass 😂 Maura”

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A Poem for You


I Like to Walk with Nana

I like to walk with Nana,

Her steps are small  like mine.

She never says “let’s hurry-up!

She always takes her time.

I like to walk with Nana,

Her eyes see things like mine.

Shiny stones, a fluffy cloud,

Stars at night that shine.

People rush their whole day through,

They rarely stop to see.

I’m glad that God made Nanas

unrushed and young like me!

Author: unknown

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From the Archives



Kerryman 4 January 1947



South Kerry Domestic Servant’s Fatal Injuries. About 6. 10 pm on

Christmas Eve, while seventeen years old Miss Mary Curran a domestic

servant, of  Coomastow, Ahatubrid, was proceeding home from her

employer’s place at Waterville, she was involved in a collision with a

motor lorry at Kinneigh, seven miles from Caherciveen and received

injuries to which she succumbed in about 20 minutes.

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Progress on the Community Centre Extension, January 11 2017



Listowel Town Park and Gorse Fires in Moanvenlagh

Nesting Time

( Photo;  Timothy John MacSweeney)

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Saturday in Childers’ Park

Listowel is a truly beautiful place to live. One of its many treasures is the Cows Lawn/Childers Park. Here are a few photos I took on an Saturday morning walk there recently.

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Listowel Juvenile Rugby Training


It was heartwarming to see all the little would-be Jonathan Sextons and their trainers at work in the park on Saturday morning.

“A child, more than all the other gifts that Earth can offer to declining man brings hope with it and forward looking thoughts.”      Wordsworth

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Photobomb Irish style




( photo: Live Gaelic)



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Celtic Crosses in St. Michael’s Graveyard



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In Childers’ Park

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Nearly Here Now




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Gorse Fires



There has been much coverage in the media of the horrific gorse fires which threatened the National Park in Killarney recently. Unfortunately it was not just in Killarney that gorse fires did damage. Liz Brosnan and John Curtin took the following photos of fires near Listowel in Moanvelagh last week.

(Liz Brosnan)
(John Curtin)

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Silver Lining; Carrots and Flowers for the winner


Many Clouds, the winner of Saturday’s Aintree Grand National has his own Facebook page. He posted some photos taken by his friends at his post races party.

photos; Many Clouds

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