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: Crowley’s

The Beauty that is Listowel

By

On June 14, 2024

In History, Listowel, Poem

Flower lined road to the courthouse in June 2014

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Loss of Innocence

Listowel poet, Paddy Glavin, mined his Listowel memories for inspiration.

This poem resonates with me these days as I learn of the catastrophic fish kill in my hometown.

Due to a terrible misadventure at the Uisce Eireann water treatment plant at Freemount, toxic water was discharged into the river Allow, a tributary of the Blackwater. For a stretch of at least 4 kilometers, everything was poisoned. Even the insects didn’t escape.

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Signs of Growth

This premises is getting a massive makeover.

When I came to town it was Crowley’s shop.

The shop has had many changes of business since and many coats of paint, layered over old coats of paint.

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On Martin Moore’s Walk

We were lucky to have on the walk as well as Matin, our guide, two very knowledgeable local men.

The above picture is of Michael Guerin telling us watery stories. Did you know that once the water supply went so horribly wrong that the water, instead of coming from the river, flowed the wrong way and nearly flooded the town.

It is a great pity that this walk wasn’t recorded as it was full of stories and anecdotes that deserve a wider audience.

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Conscription: a Hot Topic in 1016

The Liberator (Tralee), Thursday, October 05, 1916

Emigration; When they know the worth of Irishmen as lighting men they stop emigration to keep them at home that weekly a few might go to fight for England’s glory and nothing for Ireland but to wait until after the war.. What was to stop England in June, 1914, giving Home Rule to Ireland. Had they given it then the men who were now opposing the threats of conscription would give it their support. They had a starving agricultural little country, without trade or commerce or manufactures. He was sorry that Mr. Redmond and the Irish Party before they started the recruiting campaign did not say that the shores of Ireland would be defended by Irishmen. Mr. Redmond and his Party were now going to oppose conscription. “Why did they not oppose it when they had an opportunity? He was not one of those men who would set one party against another, but he should say that the present Irish Parliamentary Party has as hopelessly failed as ever a Party in God’s earthly world. Many the Convention he (Mr. O’Shea) trotted up to Dublin for and left his bed at three o’clock in the morning for a minor little question, but why would not a Conscription convention of the Irish people be summoned to give expression to the views of the people. The Party want to divide the country. Redmond divided the Volunteers and is trying to divide the people to attain his own selfish ends

(Jer Kennelly found this in an old newspaper. Unfortunately he didn’t record who was speaking.)

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A Fact

King Charles 111 was crowned in 2022. The first coins bearing his image did not go into circulation until December 2023..

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Aidan’s Fruit and Veg, Ballykinlar Memories and All Kinds of Everything

By

On September 14, 2020

In Uncategorized

 

Malahide Marina photographed by Eamon ÓMurchú

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Crowleys/ All Kinds of Everything

Here are some of the things you can buy in All Kinds of Everything. Martin Chute painted the sign.

All Kinds of Everything is housed in the premises that was the birthplace of this local T.D.

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New Shop in The Square

It;’s great to welcome a new shop to Listowel Town Square. This is a fruit and vegetablele shop being run by the man who used to sell his stock in The Square at the Friday market. Now you can buy his fresh produce any day.

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A Friendship  Forged in Adversity

( Story from Lynda Kieran in The Leinster Express)

Paul Murphy of Listowel sent this photo of a prison football team in Ballykinlar in 1921 to The Leinster Express. Paul’s great grandfather is on the right.

Read on to see why he sent it.

Laois people are being asked to help trace the family of a butcher who formed a close friendship in an infamous British prison camp in Ireland during the War of Independence.

A letter has been found in Kerry dating back to 1956, sent to a Mrs Murphy on the death of her husband Thomas Murphy.

It is from Thomas Cribbin in Portarlington, and it is a bittersweet letter as he recalls his friend, and regrets never making it down to Listowel to meet and talk to him before his death.

The two were the butchers in the Ballykinlar Prison Camp, an internment camp in Co. Down opened by the British authorities to inprison Irish men in the War of Independence. It was famed for its brutality.

 

“Dear Mrs Murphy, It was with deep regret I read on today’s Independent of your husband’s death. I sincerely offer you and your family my deepest sympathy.

“I was a very close friend of Tom’s in Ballykinlar Internment Camp. We worked side by side during that period, when cutting up the meat for our comrades. I had never the joy of passing through Listowel but I was always hoping to do so in the near future, so that I could meet and talk of bygone days but alas it’s now too late. May he rest in peace. 

Sincerely yours, Thomas Cribbin, Victualler, Portarlington.”

The letter was found by Thomas Murphy’s grandson Paul Murphy also from Listowel.

He also sent the Leinster Express the photo of his grandad in a football team in 1921 in the prison and wonders if Thomas Cribbin might also be in that photo.

“Rummaging through my dad’s stuff, I came across this letter from a man from Portarlington. He and my grandad were the butchers in the infamous Ballykinlar prison camp in Down. Is his family still around? The prison picture includes my dad and maybe the other Thomas in 1921,” he said.

“I’d just like to say to his family how appreciative I am about this letter. It’s a nice story coming up to the centenary,” he said.

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An Email from a Blog follower

Hi Mary,

I loved seeing your mention of the Irish lacrosse showing such respect to the Iroquois team. I live in Syracuse and this area is rich in history.  The Skanonh Center (Great Law of Peace Center) is located here and is a gold mine of information. You might enjoy visiting the website, www.skanonhcenter.org.

All the best

Angela Barry Melfi

Dorans Then and Now, Patrick Keough walks the Kerry Way and a Station Cat

By

On July 24, 2018

In Uncategorized




1916 commemorative Garden, July 2018

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Crowley’s Corner now Doran’s Pharmacy



Photo: The John Hannon Archive



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Hiking The Kerry Way

A friend recently sent me a link to this blog post

Trecking The Kerry Way

Read this account of Patrick Keough’s walk and you will want to “arise and go there”

Here are just a few snippets.

The Kerry Way Trail takes you over some of Ireland’s highest mountains, majestic coastlines, remote valleys, native forests and breathtaking scenic vistas.

The terrain along the Kerry Way is much more extreme and remote than the Camino to Santiago, however the scenic views are magnificent and awe inspiring. I also got myself lost a few times hiking the mountain ridges in dense fog. It was a frightening experience not being able to find the trail markers then looking at my phone and realizing I had no service. Luckily after about 4 km of searching and some praying I found my way back to the trail. It was an introspective trek, in addition to a great personal challenge.

After a week of hiking over rugged deserted terrain I started thinking what it must have been like for the Irish people 200 years ago. No creature comforts, no cars, phones or electricity. I can’t even imagine how hard life must have been just traveling from town to town by foot or horse cart.

It’s difficult doing justice with words describing the majestic beauty of the Kerry landscape. It’s the same as it was thousands of years ago. Towering rocky hillsides, flowing dark rivers and miles and miles of wet boggy grass and yellow gorse. I feel very blessed and a little overwhelmed hiking in this timeless unspoiled environment. Looking upon my surroundings this morning bathed in crisp dawn light I feel Gods presence in nature.

This is just a small taste of this marvellous blogpost. Here is the link again. Read it all and look at Patrick’s marvellous photos. If you don’t have the energy to undertake it, this is the next best thing to being there.


The Kerry Way

All photos and text are copyright  to Patrick Keough



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Summer Visitors




When I called in to Listowel Writers’ Week office last week, I found Máire and Eilish entertaining Jim and Liz Dunn and their visiting grandchildren.



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This Cat is going nowhere




Member of staff at Tralee railway station

Philip O’Carroll of Cahirdown

By

On July 24, 2012

In Uncategorized

Three from the internet to start your day!

I wonder how much it made?

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This has to be the dearest carpark in Ireland.  It’s in Dublin.

Adds a bit to the day’s shopping bill!

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A giraffe Mammy kisses her new baby in Dublin Zoo last week.

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Why did I put three instead of two or one?

Here’s why.

The “rule of three” is a
principle in writing that suggests that things that come in threes are
inherently funnier, more satisfying, or more effective than other numbers of
things. The reader/audience of this form of text is also more likely to consume
information if it is written in groups of threes. A series of three is often
used to create a progression in which the tension is created, then built up, built up
even more, and finally released. –Wikipedia

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There is a good piece in last week’s Kerryman about Dr. Philip O’Carroll, another very talented son of Listowel. Philip is a brother of the late Louis. Philip now lives in a prestigious area in California, a world away from his native Cahirdown where he grew up in a family of 15. Like many of his siblings, Philip is multitalented and has risen to the top in his chosen profession; neurology. His main area of interest is Alzheimers Disease. He calls it the “revenge of unexpected consequences for modern medicine.” More people are living longer and so more people are getting diseases usually seen in the elderly.

But this is not why he is in the news. He has co written a screenplay and we could be seeing it on our screens in years to come.

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I found the following photo on the internet, Do you remember when Lower William Street looked like this? Was Centra Crowleys?

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