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: Christmas customs

Christmas in Kerry, Hospice Tree and Muddy Paws relocated

St. John’s Listowel on Dec 1 2019

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Christmas Customs


From The Dúchas Schools collection

Christmas Night
In the district the preparation for Christmas began with cleaning and decoration of the house. Sprays of holly, ivy, and mistletoe are used for decorating the walls and windows. Christmas is usually a busy time for the shopkeepers for every housekeeper goes to the nearest town for a supply of provisions and dainties and Christmas candles.

Christmas Eve, one or perhaps two large candles are placed on each window. At nightfall the candles are lighted and the supper is prepared. The table is laid with all sorts of cakes and jams and fruits. Then a big fire is made and a log of bog deal placed in the centre of it – (yule-log). Then all sit down to a delicious meal.

When it is all over and everything in order each person is treated to whatever they wish, whiskey, wine or porter while the children have their own refreshment – lemonade, lemon-soda etc. Then where there are musical instruments in the house a few hours of enjoyment follow.
About ten o’clock the rosary is said and all are in bed for midnight.

Collector Nora M. Stack- Address, Lahardane, Co. Kerry

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Muddy Paws has Moved


Muddy Paws Dog Grooming is now across the road beside Betty McGrath’s.

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Blessing Ceremony at the Remembrance Tree



Keeping the flame, we gathered outside St. John’s on Sunday December 1 2019 to remember those we had lost to cancer. 

People braved the cold to gather in The Square.

People bought commemorative yellow ribbons and attached them to the tree.

Stalwarts of Listowel Hospice committee, Jenny Tarrant and John Croghan were there early.

 Local people who came out to remember

Helen Moylan ties on her ribbon

Elaine Lyons, one of the chief organisers of the project attaching a ribbon

Lovely to see children there too.

Máire Logue was offering tea and a biscuit.

Members of the local Hospice Committee in St. John’s Listowel on Dec 1 2019

Marie and Judith were remembering too.

Sr. Margaret and Canon Declan O’Connor, both of whom have lost family members in 2019.

Batt O’Keeffe explained what the tree was about and spoke a bit about the hospice.

Canon Declan blessed the tree.

We all looked skywards, remembering.



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Teachers



I printed the below list of rules last week and it reminded Nicholas of a fictional scene in a Bryan MacMahon play.


Mary, very interesting list of contract conditions and rules for U.S. female teachers in 1923. 

The ‘at least two petticoat’ rule reminded me of Listowel’s Bryan McMahon’s  quote in, I think, his book, The Honey Spike: ‘Two legs in the one stocking!’ The so-and-sos are coming.’ This chastity warning was said to have  been called out by Travellers to their  women when a Traveller from a certain Kerry family approached them. 

Shop windows, Flowers at the Courthouse, Christmas Customs and A Christmas Craft Fair

Listowel Castle December 2019

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Some Lovely Shopwindows


Listowel shopkeepers make a great effort with their window displays always.

Cheryl’s lovely crochet crib figures are on the NCBI window.

NCBI

McKenna’s Winter Wonderland

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Work at Listowel Courthouse courtyard



They look like flowerbeds in the making.

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Christmas Cleaning from the Dúchas collection


The first job always seemed to be the cleaning and painting.

Christmas Customs

It is an old custom to clean up the house the week before Christmas, to white wash it and paint all the furniture. All the old people like to go to Tralee for the Christmas.

On St. Stephen’s day boys flock together and go around with the wren. They dress up in various kinds of clothes and get a dead wren and a bit of holly. They go from house to house and sing and play and dance. The people of the house give them some money and sometimes give them drink.

The old people put up holly around the windows and mantles for Christmas. On the Eve of each holiday candles are lighted through out the Christmas.

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Christmas is a merry time for young and old. Five days before Christmas the people go to a town or village for their Christmas supplies.

The first sign of Christmas is the houses are whitewashed and the places cleaned. On Christmas Eve the candles

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Mike’s Murals




Mike O’Donnell’s own photo of himself painting the old Kerryman masthead over the door of The Kerryman building

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Listowel Tree 2019






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Christmas Craft Fair



I never got round to posting these last week. This was the Christmas Craft Fair in Kerry Writers’ Museum with some lovely things to buy.

The heavenly Elle Marie ODwyer is a new face at Listowel craft fairs. I love her new song, Christmas by the Lee. Have a listen.

Our local historian, Vincent Carmody was there with his chronicles of old Listowel and old Newcastlewest

Anne and Katie’s snowmen and candy canes were very popular.

Frances O’Keeffe is the best knitter and knitting designer I know. Her cupcake dolls are a new addition to her range and they’re gorgeous. I also love this Rhode Island Red hen tea cozy.

This lady had beautiful large or small Christmas arrangements.

New Kerry Jersey, Gap of Dunloe and a Teacher Contract in 1923 and Christmas Parking

A Christmas Robin


Photo; Chris Grayson

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Do you Like the New Jersey?



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The Gap of Dunloe from old Kerry Photos


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Holycross and Sive


Billy Keane visited Holycross recently to lend his support to the local drama group who chose the John B. Keane classic, Sive. for their 2019 production.

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I missed this very special event in St. John’s. Poetry from the Pulpit was a great successs with local minor celebrities reading their favourite poems. I think this is our own recently retired Vicar Joe.

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The Good Old Days


Patrick O’Shea shared this on Facebook. It is from the US but I dont know if terms this side of the pond were much better.



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It’s No Ordinary Panto….It’s a Listowel Panto




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Christmas Parking in Listowel….Good News


Free parking arrangements will be put in place in Listowel in the run up to Christmas.

Beginning this Saturday, parking will be free in the town for up to two hours every day; this will continue until January 1st.

Parking on Sundays will continue to be free, as usual, during this period.

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Christmas Customs from the Dúchas Folklore Collection


Old Times Christmas
Long ago the people were not as well fed as they are now days. They had to buy meal when there was no flour, and then wet the meal with boiling water and in this way they made the bread. This bread was eaten with a cup of butter milk. There were no ovens or pans for baking but a griddle hung over the fire by means of the pot hanger and in this way the bread was baked in squares. Latter on in years they got a querns for grinding oats, and when it was ground the sieved was got and this used to keep all the shells of the oats, and leave the oaten meal through. They used also make bread from this and this bread was called oaten meal bread. This was given to the people for their dinner. The supper the people used to have that time was to get a fist full of oaten meal and put it in a wooden cup of butter milk and stir it with a piece of a stick. The people had nothing for Christmas but “stampy”. It was made a few day before Christmas. They would get the potatoes, and cut them up with a grater. Then they would get a flannel cloth and put the cut potatoes into it. Then they would twist the cloth and the water would come out though the cloth. Then it would be put down to bake, and this would be eaten on Christmas morning.
Collector, Jerry Moloney- Informant, Maurice Shanahan, Address, Liscullane, Co. Kerry.

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