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: Elizabeth Stack

Tales Old and New, Far and Near

Friday in The Square in February 2024

A Poem

Memories of Childhood.

We had neighbours one time,
That lived under the hill.
In my prayers I remember, 
And think of them still.
And sometimes I think, it was just yesterday. 
But it fact it is really, 
A lifetime away. 

Two brothers, two sisters, 
A dog and a cat, 
There was Katherine and Celia,
And Tomas and Pat.
All single, unmarried, 
Their name is long gone. 
And its sad there was no one, 
To carry it on. 

The sisters kept house, 
It was neat as a pin. 
And a welcome was there,
For whoever went in. 
The brothers they worked, 
On the farm every day. 
And at nightime together, 
They knelt down to pray.
While auld Ringo the dog,
By the fire lay quiet. 
Where himself and the cat, 
Settled in for the night.

Now Pat could play music, 
And Tomas could sing.
At parties in old times
Great joy they did bring.
Celia sang also, and Kate
In her chair, 
Read stories for children, 
From Kitty the Hare.

Old customs, old fashioned, 
Indeed this was true.
And the ways of today’s world,
These folk never knew.
No modern components, back then
In the day,
Their work was all done in the old fashioned way.
And I can remember when nightime would fall,
Their light it then came, from a lamp
On the wall.

With the turf from the bog on an
open hearth fire,
All the cooking was done, that your
heart would desire. 
And a fine soda cake, it was baked as a rule,
And left on the window sill, outside to cool.

To see this house now, it would make
Your heart sore,
For the weeds and the briars grow up
through the floor.
No windows or doors, and the roof has
Caved in,
Never more to be lived in, in this life again. 
A fine happy home, one time back in the day.
Taken over by time, as the years passed away.

God be good to them now, 
There all gone to their rest, 
To the place that the good lord
Reserves for the best.
But my memories of childhood, sometimes 
let me see,
The old ways of life, that one time used to be.
And sometimes I think back, 
And remember them still, 
Our auld neighbours one time, 
That lived under the hill. 

Martin O’Hara   © 12/9/2022

Elizabeth Stack and Mary O’Rourke

News from New York

“On Saturday , at a reading of JB Keane’s hilarious and sometimes poignant  Letters of a Matchmaker, are  Elizabeth Stack PhD  William street Listowel ,  and Mary ORourke  R.N.C  of  Church Street Listowel at the Irish Historical Society NY.

Elizabeth is the new appointed Executive director of the IHS and hosted a wonderful gathering.”

Interesting Artefacts

While visiting family in Ballincollig I attended a great night tripping down memory lane. Ten members of the society each brought an artefact and they got 5 minutes each to tell us about the item they brought.

A good crowd gathered for the meeting, mostly people of my own vintage but I did meet Niamh who had just done her Pre Junior Cert.

First up was Rod McConnell. Even though he is Scottish his family artefact was from Northern Ireland. It was a Repeal card. It dates back to Daniel O’Connell and the move to repeal the Act of Union in 1831.

Rod’s great great grandfather, James Gallagher, worked in a mill owned by the Leslie family. He said they were the same Leslies as the Ballincollig Leslies who lived in Wilton in an estate later owned by the SMA and now Wilton Shopping Centre. I wonder if they are the same Leslies as the Tarbert family of the same name.

Rod’s card had a map of Ireland on one side and some facts about Ireland on the other side.

Ireland had a population of 8.5 million people. It now has about 5.1 million so I don’t think we are “full” .

Ireland had 2.5 million acres of bog according to this 1844 artefact.

A Marian Grotto

Marian grottos are dotted all over the countryside in Ireland. This one is in the carpark of the Bon Secours Hospital in Cork.

A Fact

The population of Ireland is around 5 million. There are 80 million people around the world with Irish passports or Irish roots.

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A Successful Emigrant and A Memory of a Success

The Square , February 2024

Elizabeth Stack, Listowel and the U.S.

Story from Kerry’s Eye, Joe OMuircheartaigh

Basketball in Pres. In 1986

Firstly I must explain why I keep posting the cover of the yearbook every time I post an extract from it.

Many people come to Listowel Connection through a search engine, some months or years after the post they land on was uploaded so, for them, I treat every post as if it was one off.

Unity Stone in Kanturk

Things to look forward to

I photographed these from The Advertiser

A Fact

The official name of Ireland is Republic of Ireland and the official name as Gaeilge is Éire.

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Opening Night Listowel Writers’ week 2018, Elizabeth Stack’s New Post and Emmetts Under 16s

Charming mosaic picture in the window of Olive Stack’s Gallery

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Photos taken at Opening Night, Listowel Writers’ Week 2018

Niall MacMonagle was here to work, but not tonight. Also working were Máire Logue, Maria McGrath, Maria Leahy, Noel Twomey and Louise Lyons.  Eddie Moylan came to support his daughter, Catherine who introduced proceedings on the night and Robert Pierce and the Walshes of Aspire Technology were there to present their prizes. The rest were heading to the Listowel Arms for a night out, one of the highlights of the Listowel season.

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Emmetts Abú


I spotted this story and photos on Listowel Emmetts’ website

Emmets U16’s choose the bog over the beach 😀

Fair play to our U16 team and mentors who spent this evening in the bog with Seamus Stack. It was all for a great cause too as the turf will be sold to raise much needed funds for The Nano Nagle School here in Listowel. 



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 Listowel Lady doing well



This is the account in this week’s Kerryman of Elizabeth Stack of Listowel and her new job.

This is what it says in The Irish Echo;

The Irish American Heritage Museum has a new director.

Elizabeth Stack has taken the helm and has plans to extend the reach of the museum beyond its physical location in New York’s state capital, Albany.

“I have lots of plans for the museum and am excited to settle in to the capital region,” said Stack, who previously worked at the Institute of Irish Studies at Fordham University.

“I am looking forward to meeting the wider community,” said Stack who indicated her intent to extend the museum’s activities beyond its home city.

The museum describes its educational mission as “To preserve and tell the story of the contributions of the Irish people and their culture in America, inspiring individuals to examine the importance of their own heritage as part of the American cultural mosaic.”

The museum was first organized in 1986 by the New York State American-Irish Legislators Society and was initially financed by the State Natural Heritage Trust, the State Council on the Arts, and private donations.

Initially, and after it opened in June, 1990, the museum was located on the grounds of the Irish Culture and Sports Center in East Durham, in New York’s Catskills region.

In 1992, the museum was permanently chartered by the Board of Regents of the State of New York as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

The museum was relocated to downtown Albany in 2012. The 3,250 square foot space opened on January 17, 2012 and includes the Paul O’Dwyer Library and the Ancient Order of Hibernians’ archives.

Exhibits at the museum have included: “Irish in the Civil War,” which looked at Irish Americans in the American Civil War; “The Irish and the Erie Canal,” which highlighted the contributions of the Irish in all phases of the Erie Canal construction, and “Dublin: Then and Now,” which included photographs of the streets of Dublin in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

States the museum on its website: “Our museum….provides year-round access to our exhibits, our Paul O’Dwyer Library, lectures, presentations, film screenings, book signings and other special programs and events.

“The Museum was an integral force in providing instruction in New York State’s public schools about the Irish Famine of 1845-1853.  Further, we are the first Museum of its kind here in America to have exhibited at the National Library in Dublin.”

The museum is located at 370 Broadway in Albany.

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Remembered with Love


Sunday, June 10, would have been Fr. Pat Moore’s birthday. In this age of social media, people find solace in posting messages on a dead loved ones’ page. I visited Fr. Pat’s page on his birthday and it was lovely to see the old pictures of his smiling brave presence among us.

Ní imithe uainn atá sé, ach imithe romhainn.





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