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
You’ll have to enlarge to read the history of this gorgeous pice of craftsmanship.
The beautiful detail is a lasting tribute to the work of these master craftsmen.
This piece on top is not explained but would seem to have associations with its previous religious owners.
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In Boherbue
My visitor, Phil, grew up in the little village of Boherbue on the Cork Kerry border. It’s in Co. Cork but in the diocese of Kerry.
Now a centre of activity in the village is this hub which has the local supermarket, the post office and a really lovely café.
Here we met up with some old friends and some family of old friends.
The range of ages in this photo is close to a century. Boherbue is a vibrant close knit community. Listening to some of these reminiscing was a pleasure. Three of the people in this picture once worked in the post office when everyone in town visited the post office for some errand or other. The telephone exchange was also housed there. In those days the telephonist knew all the numbers by heart. There is a story here for another day.
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Family Visit
My next visitors were Carine and Bobby and the lovely Reggie.
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From the Newspaper Archives
April 1930
A few good-steed salmon were amongst those landed within the past
few days, between Kilmorna and Abbeyfeale. John Creaghe Harnett got three, 10 to 15 lbs.; J. Kelly, Kilmorna, landed a 28.5 lb. salmon; J. Hickey, one 19 lbs.; W. R. Collins, two, 10 and 12 lbs.; M. Galvin, Duagh, one, 10 lbs.; J. Relihan. one, 11 lbs.; D. Downey, two, 9 and 10
lbs.; J. Clancy, one, 11 lbs.; W C. Harnett, one 9 lbs.
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Beautiful Paintwork
Isn’t this superb?
I managed to find signwriter, Martin Chute, nearby so he posed for me with another of his beautiful masterpieces. I think this just might be my new favourite shop front, not mad for the flags but I’ll allow that bow to modernity.
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Martin is now working on this shop next door. It’s much more minimalist and a contrast to the buildings on either side. It’s going to be an interiors shop I’m told, soft furnishings and homewares.
Great to see new life coming back to town.
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A Fact
Fred Bauer (1918 -2002), the designer of the Pringles can, had his ashes buried in one.
According to a story in Kerry’s Eye, Listowel is due a windfall of €900,00 to bring “three transformational projects” to planning stage by 2024.
The re-establishment of Listowel Town Square as the cultural heart and economic centre of Listowel.
Positioning of Listowel as a hub of activity tourism in North Kerry
Establishment of a state of the art enterprise centre space for remote working.
“The Public Realm Plan also aims to enable Listowel Town to transition to a competitive, low carbon, climate -resilient and environmentally sustainable economy.” John Kennelly, Listowel Town Manager.
Three more concrete parts of the plan are
Development of the Neodata site as an outdoor activity hub
Turn the Ball Alley into an outdoor performance space. (This is not part of the plan but I think that maybe when no one is performing there it could be used to revive handball)
Reimagining Kerry Writers’ Museum
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Bike Stands
Especially for the folk coming into town via our new greenway, but for local cyclists as well, bike stands are popping up all over.
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Memories, Memories
Eleanor Belcher’s story continues…
There were several families in the Small Square who were part of our ‘gang’ . Gertie Kennelly and I started school together. She cried so much that she was brought home for another year. Her father used to stand outside the shop and tell me on my way home from school that all my father had to do was to say ‘put out your tongue ‘ and ask for £1.
There were the Sheehy boys across the road who were very much part of our childhood. Jerry was the comic lover. The Galvins, Mercedes and Monty were at the Central Hotel with its ‘Erin go Bragh’ plaster relief. They had two older half brothers who lived in the USA and came home occasionally bringing amazing gifts for Merc and Monty. There was an icecream machine in Galvins and getting a cone from there was a huge treat.
There were not many cars , Mr Galvin had one similar to Mr McElligott. The road ran on the opposite side of St John’s church then. We played outside all the time, ball games and ‘picky’ and hopscotch on the footpath. . Rollerskating became very popular as we got to about seven/ eight and on halfday Mondays we had races along the main road. Maura Fealey was the star.! A picture of us rollerskaters appeared in the Kerryman and was used to illustrate a Kerryman book of photographs to capture the 60s which was published some years ago.
(Thank you, Dave O’Sullivan for finding the photo. And he found the other one referred to in the caption as well.)
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A Familiar Face in a Familiar Place
I ran into Kay Landy in The St. Vincent de Paul shop on Saturday July 22 2023. Kay was a stalwart of that shop and of the local Vincent de Paul society for years. It was lovely to see her looking so well. She was accompanied on Saturday by her daughter, Breda.
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A Fact
Greg Norman won the British Open Golf Championship at Tunberry in 1986.
Remember last week I brought you the lovely old Protestant church in my native Kanturk.
Quite far away on foot but no distance as the crow flies is this gate into the same church.
It is located right beside the side entrance to Egmond House, a short cut for the gentry to their Sunday service.
Lots of little titbits of history to be learned in the new heritage trail.
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Finuge GAA reliving the glory days
I spotted the following on Facebook.
Eamonn Fitzmaurice and Paul Galvin…photo Finuge GAA on Facebook
,
It’s coming up to the 10 year anniversary of our club’s appearance in the All Ireland Intermediate final in Croke Park. Time flies!
This piece below captures Éamonn Fitmaurices reflections in 2019 on what was a hectic and fun time for our club…
enjoy!!
Eamonn Fitzmaurice on Club Glory and Defeat
04 Feb 2019 Club , Kerry GAA and County
BY SHANE STAPLETON
Eamonn Fitzmaurice’s case is not an unusual one. He grew up dreaming of glory with club and county, but then out of the blue came the two buses at once.
He had already lifted the Sam Maguire as a player. But for 2013, the Kerry county board appointed this managerial novice as successor to Jack O’Connor, as the locals expected.
All the while, Fitzmaurice was one of the veteran players on the Finuge team in hot pursuit of an AIB All-Ireland IFC title. Two ambitions coming into view, with one complicating the other. As if that wasn’t enough, Fitzmaurice was also managing Pobalscoil Chorca Dhuibhne in the Corn Uí Mhuirí.
“The month of January in 2013 was completely mad,” Fitzmaurice tells AIB GAA. “I was involved with Finuge, with Kerry, and with the school as well, so I had three gear bags going! I remember one weekend we had a match on the Friday with the school in the Corn Uí Mhuirí, which we won. Then on the Saturday, we played against Tipp in the McGrath Cup, and won. On the Sunday then, we played the All-Ireland semi-final against the Kildare side Monasterevin, so it was a crazy weekend but brilliant because we won all the games.”
If only every weekend could be so easy. As it turned out, Fitzmaurice would lead his school to Munster glory in the Corn Uí Mhuirí, but spring would not run so smoothly for the Kingdom, as they lost four league games in a row and the pressure mounted.
While all of this was happening, he had to prepare for a February 9th clash with the Tyrone champions, Cookstown Fr Rocks, led by Owen Mulligan. Heading into the game, all the talk centred around the rivalry between the two counties over the previous decade; of Paul Galvin and Fitzmaurice going toe-to-toe with Mulligan and Raymond Mulgrew (who had just returned from two years in Australia) once more.
“My last game at Croke Park had been with Kerry in 2006, the All-Ireland final (win over Mayo),” says Fitzmaurice. “I didn’t think I’d be back playing there, and here we were about six and a half years later.
“We had gotten to the junior club All-Ireland in 2005 and beaten Stewartstown Harps but that was the year before it was moved to Croke Park, so we had played that final in Portlaoise. We lost a few intermediate finals in Kerry but finally won it in 2012, and then made it to the All-Ireland. It was fantastic to get back to Croke Park after so long.
“We trained very hard for that final. I remember the last hard session that we had before the final, it must have been a week out. But we had this training game where you got the ball and four or five lads would tackle you, just trying to condition ourselves for what we expected against a Tyrone side. It didn’t turn out to be the best idea, because Jack Corridan ended up with a broken nose and there was a bit of a row! I think I’m still getting blamed for it to this day, but it wasn’t me.”
In contact sport, anything can happen, and Fitzmaurice is able to look back and see the funny side of it now. But the stories didn’t end there.
“For the final, we decided to travel up the night before and stayed at the Louis Fitzgerald Hotel which is outside Dublin (near the Red Cow roundabout). We had a bit of time to kill on the Saturday, so we were out in the car park having a kick-around, but there were balls flying out on the M7 (motorway), and lads dancing out trying to retrieve them.”
Unfortunately for the north Kerry side, the big day didn’t go as planned. Finuge trailed by just a point at half-time but Mulgrew and another returning Cookstown player, Barry Mulligan, would help inspire the Tyrone men to a 1-9 to 0-6 win.
“We had always been a physical side, but we felt it wouldn’t suit us against a Tyrone side,” says Fitzmaurice. “We worked on discipline and maybe that took the natural edge off us. They were cuter on the day.”
It turned out to be Fitzmaurice’s final game for the club, and though he was disappointed to miss out on playing senior with Finuge, he needed to focus on his duties as Kerry manager — to give it his full attention. He may have missed out on All-Irelands with his club and ultimately as county boss in 2013, but he would lead the Kingdom and Pobalscoil Chorca Dhuibhne to the promised land in 2014.
As with most GAA careers, it begins and ends with the club for Fitzmaurice. He grew up just outside Lixnaw and was an accomplished hurler, but ultimately football took over when an under-16 tournament in Limerick proved he could compete with the best footballers around. Three miles separate his two clubs, and the two co-exist in harmony.
“Finuge is a small place, there’s a shop, a pub, the field, and a teach siamsa — a thatched cottage which is a centre for traditional music and dancing. Lixnaw then, to the west, has four pubs, two or three shops, and a church. Paul Galvin and Trevor McKenna would be out that way too. There’s no rivalry between the two clubs and a lot of lads played both codes.”
He explains that he started out as a centre-back in hurling but ultimately made the move out to midfield for his biggest days with Lixnaw. “I enjoyed the hurling and I was centre-back but when I was away playing football, I found it hard to get my touch back. Paul got his touch back a lot quicker. So, they put me out at midfield to be a workhorse and I played there for the three county finals we won.
“GAA is a huge part of the community and it’s unusual in a way because I come from the west part of the parish, and it was all hurling when I was younger, but I got more attached to the football over time,” Fitzmaurice adds. “I was in Finuge recently and I was looking at a tribute wall of club honours, and prior to our group, we had just two North Kerry championships won in the late ‘60s and ‘80s.
“Then we went from Division 5 to Division 1, like going from Junior B to senior. In the middle of it, we didn’t take much notice and you expect to win more, but it really was a golden age (winning county and Munster titles at junior and intermediate).”
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Yondr in St. Michael’s
Photo John Kelliher for The Kerryman
Boys in St. Michael’s pop their phones into a locked pouch for the duration of the school day.
There was Tommy Tiernan thinking he had came up with something revolutionary when St. Michael’s had it all the time.
Tommy says he paid a fortune to an American company for these pouches that he used for the first time in Vicar Street last week. If you have booked for his gig you will be contacted to say that it’s a phone free event. Tommy hired extra staff to implement this. He bought 1,000 of the Yondr pouches and everyone who enters the bar is given one and their phone is locked into it by a staff member, to be released only when the gig is over.
If you need your phone for a medical reason you will be given a wristband identifying you as a special case and your phone will be unlocked instantly if necessary.
Three shops in a row on William Street, all closed.
Meanwhile McKenna’s has been repainted.
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A few more then and now photographs
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Guess what Michael Lynch (archivist) found in the archives of the County Library.
It’s the choir from Listowel Ontario who visited us in 1971.
Michael writes:
“Just a wee bit about the Listowel Ontario Choir! I’ve found a photograph (attached) in “The Kerryman” photo archive. It appeared in the paper on 8 May 1971, and was accompanied by a note stating that the Choir had just finished up at the Cork International Choral Festival, winning 1st prizes in the No. 2 Schools and No. 4 Schools Competitions. They also finished 2nd in the No. 3 Schools Competition.
The Choir also played a concert at the KillarneyTown Hall (3 May 1971) as part of the Pan Celtic Festival.
There’s a good article in “The Kerryman” on 19 June 1971, which states that Listowel Youth Club’s finances (which had been built up through organising “hops at the Plaza”) had been drained by their provision of hospitality for the Canadian choir. Two dances at the Listowel Arms had severely dented their finances.”
(It sounds like they ate us out of house and home.)
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You heard it here first….maybe
Namir Karim, our genial host in Scribes is opening a craft shop. He should be up and running in time for all your Christmas gifts. Craft demonstrations, classes etc are all in the plans so watch this space!
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Good news on the Great Southern Trail
“Kerry County Council have made an application for funding for the extension of the Great Southern Trail under the National Cycle Network funding scheme. This fund of over 6 million will be allocated to Local Authorities and priority will be given to “ projects that are off road and have the potential to be world class trip attractors in their own right”. An announcement should be made before year end from the Department of Transport on the successful applicants.” (Jimmy Moloney)
