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: Eamon Kelly Page 2 of 3

North Kerry, Clounmacon boots, Eamon Kelly and Alison Spittle at the Young adult Bookfest 2018

By

On November 23, 2018

In Uncategorized

St. John’s, Bryan MacMahon statue and Seanchaí



Entrance to Kerry Writers’Museum

<<<<<<<<<<,





Visiting North Kerry


Patty Faley took these photos on her recent holiday.

The visitors  were disappointed to find Carrigafoyle Castle closed.

Patty took this on the way to Lislaughtin.

<<<<<<<



Clounmacon and Boot wearing



From the schools folklore collection in Dúchas

“Some of people used not wear boots until they were eighteen or nineteen years long ago.”

Some of people used not wear boots until they were eighteen or nineteen years long ago. They used to work in the fields and in the dikes and the frost cracking under their feet. Jack Mahoney used never wear boots and he could walk on any thing and he would not feel it. he used to walk on bushes and on briars and he would not feel it.

Most of the children go barefoot in the summer but they put them on in the winter. They throw the water they use for washing wash their feet if they did not throw out the water after washing their feet they should get up in the middle of the night and throw it out.

Some people used to wear clogs locally. They used to wear them in the winter but they are not worn now at all.

There was a tannery in Listowel about three miles form here. The National Bank is now built where it stood. About fifty or sixty years ago brogues used be worn. They were made of cheap leather and stitched. In Listowel up near the top of church Street lived a man named Johnny the Cottoners or Johnny O’ Connor. He used make brogues and sell them at the big fair in Listowel and Abbeyfeale. In the same street lived two men named Mick 

the Nailer and Jacky the Nailer. They used make the heavy nails that were driven into the soles of the shoes.

Most shoemakers at that time used cut out the uppers themselves and sew them and the boots used hold a long time.

Collector- Martin Kennelly, Address  Dromin, Co. Kerry

Informant  John Shanahan- Age   69- Address,  Dromin, Co. Kerry

<<<<<<



More Local Doors


<<<<<<<<<


A Seanchaí remembered at The Seanchaí



I took the two photos below at The Seanchí, Kerry Writers’ Museum. I grew up listening to Eamon Kelly on the radio. I was a child in pre TV times when people sat down and paid attention to the radio. My mother loved a good story and Eamon Kelly was far and away her favourite storyteller.

BryanMacMahon, John B. Keane and Eamon Kelly



Passing on the stories.


<<<<<,<<<<

Young Adult Bookfest 2018


On November 15 2018 over 800 North Kerry and West Limerick second level students gathered  in Listowel Community Centre for a great day of entertainment and education, organised by Listowel Writers’ Week.

Among the inspiring speakers was Edaein O’Connell.

Eilish and Máire met Alison Spittle at the centre.

Alison was a photographer’s dream, willingly posing for all my snaps, with Kay Halpin, Catherine Moylan, Seán Lyons and Joanne O’Riordan.

<<<<<<<<,



1938 Ireland



This story, which I found shared on Twitter, falls into the category of truth stranger than fiction.

Eamon Kelly’s 1920s Christmas Customs, a poem and a photo for Christmas ’17

By

On December 19, 2017

In Uncategorized

Love consists not in looking at one another but in looking together in the same direction.

Khalil Gibran

Photo taken in The Gap of Dunloe by Chris Grayson

<<<<<<


Eamon Kelly Remembers Christmas Long Ago


…..Then we’d be
praying for night to fall. for you couldn’t see the right effect until the
candles were lit. The honour would fall to the youngest in the house. The
father would lift the child up saying “In the name of The Father, The Son….”
And when the child had blessed himself, he would put the lighting spill to the
candle, and from that candle the other candles would be lit, and he’s be half
daft with excitement, enjoying the blaze of light, and running fro the rooms
into the kitchen and out into the yard to see what the effect was like from the
outside. When we’d get tired of looking at the candles in our own windows, we’d
turn and try to name the neighbours’ houses as the bunches of lights came on,
two windows here and three windows there, across the dark countryside and away
up to the foot of the hills. And sure as anything, someone would be late and
we’d rush in to my mother saying, ”Faith then there’s no light on yet in
Rossacrew!”

“Go n ye’re
knees,” my mother would say. The time she’d pick for the rosary, just when the
salt ling was ready and the white onion sauce and the potatoes steaming over
the fire. But I suppose there’d be no religion in the world only for the women.
The rosary in our house did not end at five decades. Not at all, after the Hail
Holy Queen our mother would start into the trimmings

“Come Holy Ghost,
send down those beams,

Which sweetly flow
in silver streams.”

She’d pray for
everyone in sickness and in need and the poor souls and the sinful souls who at
that very moment was trembling before the judgment seat above. She’d pray for
the sailor on the seas. “Protect him from the tempest, O Lord, and bring him
safely home.” And the lone traveller on the highway, and, of course, our
emigrants, and, last of all, the members of our own family

God bless and save
us all

St. Patrick,
Bridget and Colmcille

Guard each wall.

May the queen of
Heaven

And the angels
bright

Keep us and our
home

From harm this
night.

<<<<<<<



A Christmas Poem




Twinkle Twinkle    by Jane Taylor

Twinkle twinkle
little star.

How I wonder what
you are.

Up above the world
so high,

Like a diamond in
the sky.

When the blazing
sun is gone,

And he nothing
shines upon,

Then you show your
little light.

Twinkle, twinklw
through the night.

Then the traveller
in the dark

Thanks you for
your tiny spark.

He would not see
which way to go,

If you did not
twinkle so.

In the dark blue
sky you keep,

And often through
my curtains peep,

Forr you never
shut your eye

Til the sun is in
the sky.

As your bright and
tiny spark,

Lights the
traveller in the dark.

Though I know not
what you are

Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

<<<<<<<<<<<


A Welcome Return



Jackie McGillicuddy made a welcome return to his old spot behind the counter at Corbett and Fitzgibbon’s. The shop now names McGillicuddy’s Toys is run by his son Seán who is with him in the photo which they posted on Twitter.

<<<<<<


Thought for the Season    from Dr. Suess





Winter in Goa, Slimming World and Christmas long ago.

By

On December 18, 2017

In Uncategorized

The timeless unspoiled beauty of the Gap of Dunloe is captured in December 2017 by a man who appreciates the beauty of Kerry and captures it lovingly in photos….Chris Grayson.

<<<<<<<


Winter in Goa



It’s a long way from O’Connell’s Avenue to Goa. Maria Sham is a loyal follower of Listowel connection and she has already shared her memories of a happy childhood spent in her O’Connell’s Avenue home.

Maria Sham today

I don’t know if Maria is in this photo but these are the people she knew growing up.

Maria now lives in England and from there she recently took the holiday of a lifetime to Goa. Here the weather, the lifestyle, the economy, everything is a world away from our side of the world. Here are some of  Maria’s photos.

As you can see she spent much of her time on the beach.

This last photo is of a young man harvesting betel nut. Betel is the main ingredient in paan.

“If you’ve never
tried paan — a post-meal mainstay at social gatherings
and banquet halls in India — it can be a bit hard to explain to
the uninitiated. Part breath freshener, part digestive aid, paan is essentially a wad of dried fruits, spices
and seeds wrapped into a large green leaf from the betel nut plant. Think of
those little candied fennel seeds you spoon into your hand at Indian
restaurant, times 1,000. With paan, you pick up
the entire triangular-shaped package and stuff it into your cheek pocket,
chewing a few times to get the juices moving. The betel leaf, a mild stimulant,
turns brick red as it’s masticated and puts a slight pep in your step. After
all the juices have been released, you spit out the mushy bolus and toss it in
the trash — breath fresher, stomach lighter and head abuzz.” Source: Wikipedia.

<<<<<<<<

New Business on Charles St.



Do you remember I posted this photo and I told you I’d tell you what shop was going in here? Well the answer is that it is not a shop at all but Slimming World.

<<<<<<<<

My Favourite Shop


When I visited my favourite shop recently I saw some new faces. It’s great to see some lovely sympathetic women joining the welcoming friendly and invariably cheerful staff in this excellent shop. You’d never know what treasure you will find in Listowel’s Vincent de Paul shop and at a very affordable price.

<<<<<<<<<

Another Eamon Kelly description of Christmases in  the 1920s


The Season of
Light by Eamon Kelly from

The Rub of the
Relic 1978

No word of a lie
but Christmas was something to write home about when I was small. Oh, the way
we looked forward to twilight on Christmas Eve, for when darkness fell it was
Christmas Night, the greatest night of all the year. We youngsters would be up
at the crack of dawn that morning to have the house ready for the night.

Berry holly would
have to be cut and brought in to deck out the windows, the top of the dresser,
the back of the settle and the clevvy, We’d bring ivy too and put a sprig of
laurel behind the pictures, above the lintel of the door and around the
fireplace. But we wouldn’t overdo it for, if we did our mother would cut it
down a bit, reminding us that she’d like to feel she was in her own home for
Christmas and not in the middle of a wood!

Well The
transformation we would bring about in the kitchen with all the greenery! But
we weren’t finished yet The Christmas candles would have to be prepared; these
were of white tallow as thick as the handle of a spade and nearly as tall. In
some houses, they’d scoop out a hole in a turnip and put a candle sitting into
it.  A big crock we’d use. We’d put the
candle standing into that and pack it around with sand. If you hadn’t sand,
bran or pollard would do.

When the candle was firm in position we’d spike sprigs
of holly or laurel into the sand about the candle and we’d have coloured paper
too to put around the outside of the crock to take the bare look off it. With
that same coloured paper the girls in the family, if they were anyway handy,
could make paper flowers to decorate the holly. Then what would cap it all was
a length of young ivy to spiral up around the candle – it looked lovely. That
done, we would go through the same manoeuvre until
there was a candle in a crock for every window in the house.

(more tomorrow)

<<<<<<<



Christmas Jumper Day




Staff at Listowel Credit Union took part in Radio Kerry’s Christmas Jumper Day for St. Vincent de Paul and they posted this photo on Twitter.

Nighttime in Listowel December 2017

By

On December 15, 2017

In Uncategorized

Listowel Castle at night

<<<<<<


The very last of the exhibitors at the BOI Enterprise Town event

<<<<<<<<<

December 2017 Nightime in Listowel

<<<<<<



Christmas in the 1920s by Eamon Kelly     Concluded


…..The hearth was the
friendliest place in the house. The place to talk, to sing and to listen to a
good story, to hear the conversation of the grown-ups and to let on not to hear
little bits of gossip or some scandal our elders seemed to take an unlaughing
pleasure in. The hearth was the place where the mother read out the American
letters from Aunt Margaret, Aunt Mary and our Aunty Bridgie, and counted out
the dollars they, and Aunt Liz, had sent us. We would all repeat the American
address where our aunts lived to see who’d remember it best. It was Ditmar’s
Boulevard, Astoria, Queens, Long Island, New York. The hearth was the place
where we knelt before the supper on Christmas Eve for The Rosary with the
trimmings we thought would never end.

When it was time
for us all small lads to go to bed we’d hang up our stockings along the mantle
shelf and on the crane to make sure Daidí na Nollag wouldn’t forget us. Even if
was only a new penny it would be welcome. A penny was a great treat in those
days when you would get five bulls eyes for a half penny and two peggy’s legs
for a full penny. In the end we would have to be hunted to bed we would be so
lazy leaving the warm hearth. But the promise of driving in the pony and trap
through the dark to early mass in the morning would finally shift us, but we
weren’t gone yet. We’d all have to stand at the front door to admire the
bunches of lights in the houses down along the valley and up the rising ground
to Rossacrew, all the little lights winking and blinking through the dark
until, as the man said, the earth below looked like a reflection of the starry
Heaven above.

<<<<<<<




The Listowel Arms is looking very festive




<<<<<<<,



The Catechism



Boy did people remember this! I think the following email sums up most of the feedback I got .

Hi, Mary, The Catechism had ‘all the answers’ – and was all black-and-white! No grey areas! O tempora O mores!

In my young days – 50s and 60s – religion was terrorised into us- often accompanied by a bit of pummelling, just to concentrate the mind!

Even to this day, churches can  inspire an atavistic dread of hell-fire and damnation. We must only trust that there is something better in store for us. We shall see…

The most-remembered thing about the Catechism for me is the phrase concocted from reversing its  letters: Master Sits In His Chair Each Time At Catechism. (Except when he rises to cuff home the message of love and forgiveness!).

€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

<<<<<<<<<<<

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!

<<<<<<<<<


The Last of the Enterprise Town photos

<<<<<<


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)


<<<<<


An Invitation for You 



Page 2 of 3

Previous

Next

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén