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: Christmas Page 2 of 3

Old Tralee, A handmade Christmas craft and a new Phone shop opens

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On December 6, 2019

In Uncategorized

Robin in Full Voice

 Photo; Chris Grayson

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Old Tralee


There is a great page on Facebook

Historical Tralee and Surrounding Areas

They regularly post lovely old photos of Tralee. Here are a few recent ones.

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Don’t be Alone on Christmas Day

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A Christmas Craft



I posted this picture before of Rosie and her Christmas house. Since then I’ve photographed her beautiful creation in more detail for you.

What creative talent!

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New Shop on William Street

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Christmas in Old Ireland


From the School’s Folklore Collection

Christmas Day
Christmas comes but once a year;
When it comes it brings good cheer,
When it goes it leaves us here,
And what will we do for the rest of the year.
When Christmas morning dawns everyone is up early and goes to early Mass, and many receive Holy Communion. When people meet on their way to Mass their salutes to each other are:- “A happy Christmas to you” and the reply is – “Many happy returns”. The children are all anxiety to see what Santa Claus has brought them.
When Mass and breakfast are over the children play with their toys while the elders are busy preparing the Christmas dinner.
The chief features of an Irish Christmas dinner are – roast turkey, or goose and a plum pudding. The remainder of the day is spent in the enjoyment and peace of the home, and the family circle.
Christmas customs vary from country to country but the spirit of Christmas is the same the wide world over. It is the time of peace, and it is also the feast for the children, because it was first the feast of the Child Jesus who was born in Bethlehem nearly two thousand long years ago.

Collector Máighréad Ní Chearbhaill- Address, Ballybunnion, Co. Kerry. Teacher: Máire de Stac.

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On the Beat


Time was when you never saw a Garda patrolling alone and I don’t think I’ve ever before seen a Garda on the beat around my housing estate. I welcome the development though.

Saturday October 19 2019, A Holy Show, Book Promoting and Christmas in Listowel

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On October 24, 2019

In Uncategorized



Photo: Elizabeth Dunn

This is the scene on the stage at St. John’s on Saturday evening, October 19 2019 as we launched “A Minute of Your Time’,

Self praise is no praise but please indulge me for a minute while I wallow in the afterglow of a great night.

“A mighty night for a mighty woman” was one comment I loved.

“The best value I ever got for €20; a book, a concert and a party.”

People often say to me that I have no idea how important this blog is in the lives of some people. If I was in any doubt before, I know now.

Thank you Noelle for the lovely handwritten card and to Lisa for sending me an electronic message hand written with her new Apple pen, to Mary and Dave for the flowers from Texas and to Norah for the apple tarts and buns.

I have been snowed under with good messages and kind words and particularly with praise for the book.

Here is a link to last week’s Radio Kerry’s Just a Thought. I would do well to heed my own advice in Friday’s one…Walk easy when your jug is full.

Just a Thought

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Apparition in Tralee?


This is the image everyone is talking about, and to be honest, I can see why. This is a display cabinet in a Tralee antique shop. It had been in the shop a while as it is used for display purposes and was not really on sale. Then a customer spotted the uncanny resemblance in the pattern of the grain of the wood to common images of the Blessed Virgin. The media got wind of it and suddenly it’s like Ballinspittle 2.

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My Book Tour


A Minute of Your Time is on sale in all the Listowel bookshops and in Super Valu. They are all so so kind to me.

The big boys of the book selling world dont really want self published books and they make the battle to get on to their shelves very daunting and unwelcoming.

I am my own publisher and my own agent and now I am my own book distributor as well. I’m loving meeting all the lovely people in small shops.

 Here I am in Knocknagoshel with the welcoming friendly Kieran in his shop. Kieran plays Radio Kerry all day long in his lovely local shop and he knew my voice from the radio. While I was in town I took a wander around lovely Knocknagoshel and I’ll be bringing you lots more photos of that hillside paradise very soon

One of the highlights of my book tour was meeting the charming Ann and Mary in Ann Lyons beautiful shop in Abbeyfeale.

If you are ever in Abbeyfeale, call in to this lovely shop. You’d never know what you’d find there . It is a gem. It’s next door to The Ploughman




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Christmas comes Early to Listowel


Here are some photos to get you in the Christmas mood. They are of some of the lovely displays in Listowel Garden Centre’s Christmas shop.

€3 Note, Enterprise Town and Eamon Kelly’s Christmas long ago

By

On December 14, 2017

In Uncategorized

Not exactly Rudolf but a red stag in Killarney last week. Photo by Chris Grayson

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Well, I never


I thought you might be as surprised as I was by this fact from Durrus History


While reading the evidence before a parliamentary enquiry into land tenure taken in Bantry in 1844 I came across a reference to a tenant paying his landlord with a £3 note.  I never came across this before, I do remember the old orange 10 shilling note.

When I checked it out the history was interesting.  Ireland apparently joined sterling in 1825 (currency fluctuations are not new) and the Bank of Ireland was given authority to issue notes.  Included was the £3 and 30 shilling notes.

In 1844 a farm laborer was lucky to get 8p. per day and the salary of a Resident Magistrate started at £300 per annum.  If you took  a laborer now at a low €75 a day that would give the value of £3 at €6,750 or the pay of the modern equivalent of a Resident Magistrate a District Justice at €123K then the value of £3 would be €12,300. Obviously the differential between £1 and £5 was too much hence the £3 note!

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The Last of the Enterprise Town photos

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Christmas in Kerry in the 1920s

This account by Eamon Kelly of his childhood Christmas is from a book called Christmas in Ireland by Colin Morrison

….It was the quality
of the candlelight, too shy you’d say to penetrate into every nook and corner,
and giving the kitchen the appearance of an old oil painting that I remember
from Christmases long ago. I remember too all the work that went into making
the house ready for  the feast -bringing
in the berry holly to deck out the kitchen, fixing the candles and cutting the
log, Bloc na Nollag, and placing it in position in the hearth lying flat as it
fell, we were told, and the sods of turf standing as they were cut. It took the
block some time to take fire but when it did the chairs had to be moved back,
even the cat had to shift herself when the little jets of steam and sparks
making loud reports came from the log. In the wider circle, we, the small lads
sat on the floor with cups of lemonade and sweet cake after the Christmas Eve
supper of ling, white onion sauce and laughing potatoes. And we made room for a
neighbor or two while my father uncorked a big earthenware jar and landed out a
few healthy taoscáns of the dark liquid and it was  “Happy Christmas, Merry Christmas everyone”
reechoing what was painted on the mottos pinned to the chimney breast.

(more tomorrow)


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An Invitation for You 



Writers’ Week fun prize, Sheehy’s Tea and a Gary MacMahon poem

By

On December 20, 2016

In Uncategorized



This eagle owl was photographed by Chris Grayson. Superb photo you’ll agree.

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It’s That Time of Year




Saturday fun run in Ballincolllig Regional Park

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We have a Winner


At the recent BOI enterprise town expo the good folk at Listowel Writers’ Week set people scratching their heads and racking their brains to come up with the last line of a Limerick.


Here are some of the good sports who chanced their arms at a spot of poetry.

The librarian didn’t win it. The bankers didn’t win it. The solicitors didn’t win it. The boardgamers didn’t win it. The postmistress didn’t win it. Restauranteurs,  business executives and retailers all had a go.

The winner was a schoolboy. Here he is, Patrick Brosnan who might have got a little help from his sister and mother.


Here is his winning entry;

Finish the Limerick Competition

There was a young man from Listowel

Who wrote mainly prose on the whole

But a poem the right size

Won him a Writers’ Week Prize

And that sent him off on a roll.

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A Welcome Gift

Recently I called on a friend and she made me a lovely cup of tea. When I told her how much I was enjoying the tea, she reached into her press and presented me with this packet of tea.

As you can see from the lable, Sheehys, who pack the tea, have a few more strings to their bow.

My friend, Judy, as well as giving me the tea gave me an absolutely beautiful Christmas card. It was especially made a few years ago as a fundraiser for St. Gabriel’s in Dooradoyle in Limerick.

The image on the card is of Gallarus Oratory on Christmas Night and the verses inside are by the late great Garry MacMahon.

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Glenroe, Orlagh Winters and Christmas in Listowel

By

On December 3, 2015

In Uncategorized

Photo:Janusz Trzsesicki


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Sunday Nights Have Never been the same

photo; Irish Abroad

This is the late Joe Lynch in his best known role, Dinny Byrne in the Irish soap, Glenroe. When the closing credits rolled and the lovely theme tune, Cuaichín Gleann Neifin struck up, you knew the weekend was over and it was time to gird your loins for the week ahead.

There wouldn’t be “anything’ stirrin” until next Sunday night.

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Orlagh Winters on Tralee Today; What Lies Beneath

Tralee Today is a great resource for us North Kerry people. One of the contributors to this online news site is Orlagh Winters.

You might remember Orlagh as the M.C. at Listowel Tidy Towns recycled fashion event at Listowel Races. She is really affable, bubbly and engaging. This is why I was taken aback when I read her article in Tralee Today a few weeks ago. I’m sharing it with you below. 

I saved it for nearer to Christmas when its message might strike a chord.

Orlagh Winters  

APOLOGIES for not having a column last week, but
I was in CUH having tests.

I can now finally say that I am cancer free and
boy what a feeling it is. For the last five years I have contemplated life and
how it has changed completely for me.

Pre-cancer I had my dream job, jetting all over
the world and visiting new and exciting places.  I love meeting new people
and my job afforded me that luxury.

Of course there were times that I missed
important happenings in the lives of friends and family but I always made up
for it when I returned.

Pre-cancer I dreamt of being a mother but that
dream was taken from me when I was deemed infertile due to chemotherapy. I
could get angry, I could get upset but what is the point of that?

Harbouring ill thoughts, I truly believe, can
damage your peace of mind. Sure I do get  teary-eyed when I get the news that
one of my friends is expecting a baby, but I always do that alone and never let
it be known to the excited mum-to-be.

Social media is a wonderful tool to stay
connected with friends that you don’t see on a regular basis, but it is also a
means to feel a little nostalgic  when you see the beautiful babies that
they have.

Back to school photos and last week’s Halloween
photos were everywhere of children enjoying the trick or treating. Sometimes I
find it very hard to think of what might have been.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t feel contempt or
jealousy when I see the offsprings of my friends and family. What I do feel
anger towards, are the idiots who think that it is completely acceptable to
assume that my not having a child was a choice I made for selfish reasons.

Recently I met a guy I had not seen in years and he
commented that me having children would have gotten in the way of my “fabulous
life”.

To say I was mad would be an understatement and
to be frank if I was a violent person, he would be missing a testicle right
now. In fact he would probably be missing two.

Absolutely there are women in the world who make
the decision not to have children and that is their business. I admire them for
the stance they take and make no apologies for it and rightly so.

Christmas is around the corner and once again
there will be photos of children visiting Santa or opening presents all over
social media. I will shed a little tear, no doubt, but I will also see the good
in it and laugh at the terrified faces of the toddlers placed on the knee of a
scary looking man with a white beard.

Spare a thought for those of us who would have
loved the opportunity to be a parent and don’t presume that it was a choice we
made not to be one.

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Some Festive Shop Windows


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My Family on their first trip of 2015 to the skating rink




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