Tag: Church St. Page 1 of 5

Listowel Races 2022

By listowelconnection

On September 26, 2022

In Listowel, Listowel Races, Schools

Day 1 of Listowel Harvest Festival of Racing 2022, Sunday September 18th

And I was there with my friend, Bridget O’Connor.

I was back on The Island on the last day, Saturday, Sept 24 2022 for Listowel Tidy Towns sustainable fashion event.

And the winner is…

Andrea Thornton is the queen of sustainable fashion. She rarely buys anything new. When her gorgeous dress was bought, it was already vintage with a slightly rusted metal zip and a few rust stains on the lace. Her headpiece came from Vincent’s in Listowel when it was called Second Time Around. She wore her shoes at a Bronte literary event in the UK.

Her fan had to be the most inventive reuse of something. It started life as a Barbie doll’s dress.

Two babies later, the dress still fits Andrea as well as it did on her 21st.

The runner up is another vintage affectionado. Amy G. loves her life, travelling around the world, selecting pieces for her pre loved business.

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When The Owner is an Artist …

Traditionally everything in Listowel shuts down for Race Week. Work stops on building sites in town. This premises on Church Street was no exception but look at how they painted the boarded up window to match the colour scheme of the shopfront.

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Tralee Pillar Box from Another Era

This Tralee postbox dates from the reign of Edward VII so it was put there between 1901 and 1910. Hasn’t it weathered the years well?

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St. Michael’s 1972 Past Pupils Reunion

Back L to R. Jim Larkin,Maurice Sheehy, Jack Flavin, Tom Stack, Brendan Keane, Eddie Flaherty, John Hartnett, Aidan Murphy, Finbarr Prendiville, Gerard Hussey, David Kissane.Front. L to R. Paddy Quilter,Gerard Neville,Jimmy Fitzmaurice, Joe Horgan,Seamus Kennelly, Neil Brosnan, Jer Riordan.

Names supplied by Jimmy Fitzmaurice.

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The Greatest Irish Athlete Ever?

The eccentric Cork athlete , when asked how he felt after winning his 5th. World Championship said in typical understated fashion ‘Fine”.

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The Beautiful Kingdom

By listowelconnection

On July 22, 2022

In Poem

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Church Street supporting the team.

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Irishisms by Ronan Moore

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The Kingdom

Beautiful Knightstown pier at evening in July 2022

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Getting behind the Team

Listowel is pulling out all the stops to support Kerry

Listowel Vincent de Paul shop.

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The Ghost Train

Dan Doyle remembers going to an All Ireland final in the bad old days. Dan writes essays about growing up in The Black Valley in what seems like a different age.

Dan Doyle Black Valley All Ireland

So long ago we went to Dublin for the All Ireland final. We went on the Ghost Train from all over Kerry. We went on the Ghost Train as it was the only way to get to Croke Park before motor cars. The train traveled through the night and it was packed.

It started back in West Kerry and men from Portmagee and Waterville and Sneem and Kenmare took the train. These were the pure men of Kerry, big and tough men of the land and the sea, men who carried parts of pigs heads wrapped in news paper and tied with a bit of binder twine. These men had overcoats and caps on them and big hands from digging the land and pulling in nets with fish that time.

My mom came home from the village and told me go. She handed me a 10 bob note and to this day i dont know where she got it as we never had much money. So she said go as some of the older lads were going from the village of Milltown. So down to Rathpook i went at around 7 or 8. 1955 I think this one was and I stepped into the train, They say Calcutta in the back streets are full this Ghost train had them all beat, full to the rafters, men playing 31, men sitting on the toilet playing old beat up melodeons and those great men asked if we were alone and they told us stick together when we got to Dublin. It was easy to pick these men out, they all looked alike. That was before fashion came to Kerry, big grey overcoats and big caps on their head that they put on as babies and never took off i think until God called them home. Some even wore wellingtons turned down at the top, they were a sight but one thing for sure nobody bothered them in the big city, so to say this train steamed through the night would be an exaggeration in fact some times it stopped as if to draw a breath and went backwards and stopped again and seemed to collect itself as if making up its mind if it wanted to go forward or not .

We got to Dublin finally at bright of day in the morning and we followed the big overcoats to mass. That was the way things were done that time. W e got to the field early and that day it was a big crowd 82 thousand I think. Kerry and Dublin and our neighbor down the road John Cronin played center half back. He was a friend to all of us young lads at the cross roads as he came up our road. Walking was his exercise. He was black headed and big and he was an Army man and he was no one to mess with in that time of tough men. John Dowling of Tralee was another physical man who didnt know his own strength.

As the evening sun went down it was over. Kerry won, they beat the Dubs. The men on the train going home they talked about next year already they had bottles of porter in their pockets of these big coats they still had bits of pigs’ heads and crubeens but by now the wrapping paper was long gone and they shared the last of the grub with us and it tasted great. Old turn over bread was torn asunder and passed around. We went home to Kerry and the bon fires burned as we crossed the Kerry border.

We said good bye at Rathpook station and we never saw each other again. the Ghost Train stopped soon after and the place got civilized but let me tell you all the adventure lives on. The 10 bob note from my mom makes me remember her still. She was the smallest in the house. She was special because she found a way to put us kids first. My dad was a big tough man but he stood in awe of the job she did raising us. I loved that time of my life I loved seeing Kerry win but that was only a small part of the story for me. I carry it for a lifetime ,

Good luck to Kerry against Galway on Sunday ,they are carrying on a tradition started long ago. If they win it will carry us through the winter thinking about it ,someone less known on the team will have a big game and thats the way it is. The ref will throw the ball in and the atmosphere at Croke Park will make your heart beat quickly. It is good to be from Kerry on All Ireland day . Iwill listen to Ambrose o Donovan on the radio i will listen as that is the way my dad before me did it to Micheal o Hehir and i will pace the floor like he did.

Come on the Kingdom

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John B. Keane dramas

By listowelconnection

On November 18, 2021

In Listowel

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Did you Know?

The Dandy Lodge, built between 1845 and 1897, was the only house on the Bridge Road. There were no other houses on Bridge Road until 1929. The Gurtenard Estate wall ran along the left hand side of the road and a mud ditch bordering a wood ran along the right hand side.

The Carnegie Library was the only other building on Bridge Road. It was burned down in 1922 during a period of violent civil disturbance in Listowel.

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Sive at 50

To mark the half century of John B. Keane’s Sive, the Listowel Players staged a special production of the play.

These pages from the programme take us back to the glory days of drama in Listowel. We remember all the good people who were involved, some no longer with us.

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A John B. Keane Play in Listowel in 2021

(Photos from Patsy and Frances Kennedy)

From November 25 to 29 2021 St. John’s Theatre Group will present Moll, a drama by John B. Keane in St John’s, Listowel, nightly at 8.00 p.m. Strict Covid guidelines will be followed so capacity will be limited. If you don’t want to miss it, book early

Batt O’Keeffe and Frances Kennedy in character

The P.P. and curates

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Great News

We have free wifi in Listowel Town Square

This is a screenshot from my phone yesterday, November 17 2021.

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From The Advertiser

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Church Street Restoration, Asdee Chapel

By listowelconnection

On October 26, 2021

In History, Listowel, Poem

Two pictures of Coomeenole in West Kerry taken by Éamon ÓMurchú on the same evening at almost the same time.

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Loyal to the Traditional Facade

Many premises in Listowel are undergoing refurbishment at the moment. In keeping with Listowel’s status as a Historic Town, Kerry County Council’s Heritage Officer is closely involved with the renovations. This house on Church Street is a case in point.

It is being lovingly restored by its present owner who takes her role as custodian of our traditional architecture very seriously.

Since I took the first photo the door has been painted.

This is a picture of the same house one hundred years ago. This picture was taken in the aftermath of the infamous Black and Tan raid in Church Street which saw the next door premises, Flavin’s, completely destroyed and much of Lower Church Street burned and looted.

Note how the present owner has restored the original look of the house and her new windows are absolutely faithful to the old design.

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The Story of Asdee Chapel Continued

From Shannonside Annual 1956

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M.S. Society Busking Day 2010

Musicians and volunteers in Main Street on one of the good old days.

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A Lovely poem from the late John McCarthy

(from John McCarthy’s anthology Hope on a Rope)

John was a passionate compassionate poet who tackled the subject of mental illness before it was fashionable to do so. He was an activist credited with starting the Gay Pride movement in Cork.

He was a great friend of John B. and Mary Keane.

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Nun in India, Jellyfish and the Blue Bag

By listowelconnection

On August 10, 2021

In History, Listowel

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Jellyfish

This photograph was taken by Martin Moore in Fermoyle. It is the most jellyfish I have seen on one beach so far this summer. There are lots of them on all our beaches, including Ballybunion. I’m told they are not the stinging kind. But I wouldn’t take my chances.

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A Listowel Connection?

Can anyone tell us if this lady was an aunt of the late Canon Leahy of Listowel?

Advocate, Melbourne, Sat 4 Sep 1909

IRISH NUNS IN INDIA

Again the Daughters of the Cross have to record the loss of one of their Sisters, who died at Anand on Sunday, 18th July, after an illness of only a few hours. Sister Agnes Mary was born in Kerry, Ireland, in April, 1865, and joined the congregation at Liege in October, 1884.Two years later she arrived in India, and since that time worked with the greatest earnestness in the convents at Karachi, Igatpuri, Bandra, Panchgani, Dadar, and finally at Anand, of which house she was made Superioress in December, 1908. In the first week of July, cholera broke out in that locality, and some of the orphan children confided to the care of the Sisters; contracted the disease. A few cases proved fatal. However, on Sunday last it was hoped that the epidemic had ceased, an intimation to that effect

having been written by the Superioress herself, little thinking that she would be the next chosen victim. Sister Agnes Mary saw without fear death approaching, and was perfectly calm and resigned to God’s holy will. During the years she spent in India, and in whatever house she laboured, she was ever a subject of the greatest edification to her Sisters in religion and to all with whom She came in contact. Her happy disposition endeared her to everyone, and her loss will be keenly felt. Quietly and religiously she spent her days, and one may truly say: “She went about doing good.” Her death was a fit crowning to her life—a victim to duty, she has fallen at her post.

R.I.P.—Bombay “Examiner.”

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Church Street Art

It looks like this mural may soon be on the move. I hope they find a suitable new home for it not too far from the homes of the two Church Street natives it so fittingly commemorates.

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The Blue Bag

Once upon a time, but not so long ago I don’t remember it, Laundry washing was done by hand in a big tub. Clothes were washed with soap and rubbed on a washboard until clean. Washing was almost always done on a Monday.

For some unfathonable reason, tablecloths, sheets and other big items of household linen were white. Natural white linen and cotton are prone to yellowing, particularly if left exposed to sunlight.

There were no tumble dryers in those days so the washed laundry was hung to dry on an outdoor clothesline.

Enter the blue bag. This was a little muslin bag containing a cube of Reckitts Blue. This whitener/bleach was put into the water for the final rinse and it kept the whites “whiter than white”.

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Nice Gesture from An Post

This is the nearest post box to the Portland Row home of our Olympic champion Kellie Harrington. An Post spray painted it gold in her honour with a message of congratulations as well.

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