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: dresser

St. Bartholomew Could Save summer 2024

By

On July 22, 2024

In Listowel, Personal

St. John’s on a July morning 2024

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Very Disappointed Doggie here

We deserved a draw!

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Just because…..

Our darling Aoife

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A Scrap of Hope

From Folklore.ie

If it rains on July 15 St. Swithin’s Day, ( and it did), many of you will have grown up with this folklore regarding the date ie if it rains on that day, it will rain for forty more days.

Swithin (or Swithun to give him his proper name) was a 9th century Anglo-Saxon bishop and his folklore has survived right across England, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall and Ireland since. You even find it in Newfoundland or where people from these countries settled.

To be fair, it pissed down in Ireland last year on this day and didn’t really let up all year. However, I did hear it said that the bowld Saint Bartholomew’s Day on the 24th of August could cancel Swithin’s curse as apparently once St. Bartholomew’s Day comes, he’ll wipe all the rain and tears away.

That verse goes like this “Of all the tears that St. Swithin does cry, St. Bartholomew will wipe them dry”.

And speaking of tears, I’d say there was a lot of water flowing in England last night and you can blame the Spainish for that!

Text: Michael Fortune

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Remember This?

This picture was on a British Legacy group site. It could have been any kitchen in Ireland in the 1950s and 60s.

We are back in the day before built- in kitchens. This dresser was the height of sophistication.

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A Definition

From The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce

bigot n. a person who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.

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A Fact

The population of India has more people than the entire western hemisphere.

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Seán McCarthy Weekend, Queen’s Old Castle/Dealz, Pitch and Putt, Sand Art and A Dresser

By

On July 2, 2019

In Uncategorized

A June Wedding

June is high season for weddings. I attended a lovely wedding in Cork on June 21st. The beautiful bride is a cake maker. Her own was a triumph.

Wedding favours when you are from Midleton

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The Late Great Seán McCarthy

This is Peggy Sweeney’s songbook. Peggy is the acknowledged best interpreter of a McCarthy song.

Peggy is on the far right in this photo with her sister and her sister in law.

Sean McCarthy was born in 1923 in Sandes’ Bog outside Listowel. He was one of ten children. His was a poor but happy family. His house was always filled with music and singing. It was in the U.S to where he emigrated, that Sean developed his gift for writing and composing. His early childhood in Listowel and his friendship with Bryan MacMahon, who recognised him from the start as a having a special gift, had sown the seeds of a great writing career. He wrote many ballads, poems, books for children, humorous essays and many articles for The Kerryman. His soft Kerry voice was familiar to listeners to Sunday Miscellany for many years. He contributed to many many TV and radio programmes.

He is commemorated every year in Finuge at the festival that bears his name. Find out details of this year’s weekend on their Facebook page

Sean McCarthy Memorial Weekend

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Spotted in Cork

How the mighty have fallen. I remember it when it was The Queen’s Old Castle.

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A Few Photos from the Munster Championship

Listowel Pitch and Putt course looked splendid for the big competition.

The scamp on the right told me he was playing. He wasn’t.

This local player was playing alright.

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Fun New Event in Ballybunion


( Photos from Wild Atlantic Way, Ballybunion sand art events on Facebook)



A new record for a new event; the most people doing the same sand art picture at the same time. The record which stands at 207 will, no doubt, be broken before the summer is over.

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An Old Dresser



Do you remember when every kitchen had one of these or one very like it?

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Tarbert’s 1916 Memorial



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