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: emigration

Emigration once again

https://www.facebook.com/notes/jimmy-moloney/minutes-listowel-town-council-meeting-051211/10150575025531042

This is the link to the minutes of Listowel Town Council’s December meeting. The councillors addressed issues like dog-fouling, which is particularly bad on the footpaths in town, parking and the septic tank controversy. I am glad to see the imminent reforming of a traders association.

Thank you, Jimmy Moloney, for keeping us up to date on the issues exercising our town councillors. Jimmy has opened the doors of the council chamber to us all.

________________________________________________________

From The Kerryman a story of success for a horse with a Listowel connection

Wednesday January 04 2012

FORMER Listowel natives Patricia and Maurice Regan, proprietors of the Newtown Anner Stud Farm at Clonmel, commenced the new year in the best possible style at Fakenham on Sunday where their hurdler, Joan Darc, trained at Newmarket by Bill Quinlan and ridden for the first time by Matt Crawley, won the 2ml 4f selling hurdle impressively by seven lengths from the favourite Group Leader.

The winner was challenging the leader when making a serious blunder at the third last as her rider went out the side door, but he somehow managed to cling on and get back into the saddle, before going to the front two out, and being heavily eased on the flat to race home a most impressive winner.

_________________________________________

Jimmy Halpin and his doorman provide passers by on Church St. with an amusing commentary on the economic state of the country.

Santa has returned to the North Pole and now Rico has taken up his post at the shop door.

Jim introduces Rico to some curious little girls.

Rico’s grim warning.

Speaking of the parlous state of our dear country’s economy, emigration has become a fact of life for rural communities like ours. I want to take this opportunity to wish Bon Voyage to a dear friend, Mairead, who, next week, is heading out on her great Australian adventure. My photo shows her bidding farewell to her friend, Jim.

Mairead is going to join a young North Kerry diaspora who have relocated to the Perth area down under. Like so many others, she is “only going for a year”. But, like so many others, will she fall in love with the lifestyle and find a better future far away from our shores?

In the days before the internet, mobile phones, Skype and easy air travel we knew the phenomenon of the American wake. In the 1930s, 40s and 50s the neighbours gathered in the house of the soon -to -depart emigrants and held a hooley of singing, storytelling and dancing. The atmosphere had the air of the traditional wake,  great sorrow mixed with reminiscence. The family and neighbours knew that it would be a very long time before they saw these young people again. The ageing parents were often afraid that they would never again see their children this side of the grave. 

Partings nowadays are just as sad. The hooley is usually in the local pub. The departing young people are looking forward to a new sunny and prosperous life. Australia and Canada have replaced the U.S. as the preferred destinations and young people tell me that you are as likely to meet a Listowel person on the street in any big city in Australia as you are to meet them in Dublin or Cork.

Bon Voyage, Mairead! May you realise your dreams and come back safely to us. You will be missed.

Where have all the flowers gone?

It’s December 21st. The weather in Listowel is balmy, mild and damp and I have just been listening on the radio to a past pupil of mine describe how she is going to spend her first Christmas in Australia, far away from her native Listowel. I fell to thinking back to the fifties of my youth when some of our brightest and most hard working were living in immigrant communities in England and the U.S.

Since famine times, emigration has been part of our culture. It has connected our little island to the big world. It has enriched our knowledge of the world and our gene pool. I don’t deny the great heartache and loneliness it has caused but I acknowledge the positive effects it has had on us all.

I am now retired and so have time to join lots of local clubs. I am struck by the number of people I encounter who have spent many years abroad.  They now live in Listowel and its environs and are the backbones of these groups.  Some are returned emigrants; some the descendants of emigrants; some have very little Irish in them at all.  They all contribute to the fabric of the rural Irish community they now call home.

Enough philosophising!

This is Presentation Convent Listowel. Over the years it housed many powerful women. The contribution of these women to Listowel life is largely forgotten by historians.

Doesn’t this old photo take you back? This was when nuns were nuns. I recognise Sr. Gemma and Sr. Cyril but the rest are unknown to me. I’ll seek out their names today.

This photo was taken in 1994. By then nuns had become sisters and were allowed a certain individual identity.

Today there is no-one in the convent. The remaining sisters are scattered and a way of life is no more.

For recent and not so recent emigrants…a new forum launches today

Today’s Irish Times article is about the scourge of emigration, not in famine times but today.

Today, The Irish Times launches Generation Emigration, a conversation – on the web and in print – with Ireland’s mobile citizens, wherever they may be in the world Introducing the project, its curator CIARA KENNY looks at how the internet has made the world a smaller, cosier place for emigrants

IT IS NIGHTFALL in the Doyle household in Manly, Sydney, and two-year-old Valentine is putting on her pyjamas, brushing her teeth, and getting tucked in to bed. A laptop glows beside her as she settles down to sleep, her Irish and French grandparents joining in the bedtime routine by webcam from the other side of the world.

“I don’t think we could do it without Skype,” says Vallie’s father Devin (41), a screenwriter from Portmarnock in Dublin, who emigrated to Australia with his French wife Nadège in 2007.

“Facebook is fantastic for maintaining a sense of involvement with friends and family back home, but Skype is making it possible for our daughter to know her grandparents. Although they desperately miss not being able to hug her, at least she knows what they look like, and they can see her growing.”

For the vast majority of Irish emigrants, the days of waiting by the postbox for a letter from home have long been replaced by instant communication across thousands of miles. Facebook, Twitter and Skype have created online communities that span continents.

The experience of living so far from home has changed dramatically for Devin since he first lived in Australia in the 1990s.

“Phone contact was possible but expensive, and my parents didn’t have email, let alone Skype,” he says. His mother used to cut out articles she thought he’d like from The Irish Times and send them by “snail mail”, and his father would spend a small fortune posting VHS tapes of Premiership football matches.

Although he still enjoys getting clippings in the post and seeing his mum’s handwriting, Devin can read the articles on The Irish Times website and watch the football matches live online.

“The boys in our family bond a lot through football, and nowadays we can sit down and watch the matches together live on the internet. We’ll often run a Skype text chat on the side while we’re doing something else on the computer, if we’re online at the same time. It’s nice. We chat about the weather, the football, aviation, war films, jazz . . . I’d go so far as to say that I’m probably even more in touch with my father now than I would have been at home.”

Facebook and Twitter have also affected long-distance relationships in a profound way by facilitating “passive monitoring” of friends’ lives, according to Lee Komito, a senior lecturer in the School of Information and Library Studies in University College Dublin, who is researching the impact of social media on migration.

“Internet users can browse photos of their friends online, read status updates, see what events their contacts have attended, and generally keep up-to-date with daily life back in Ireland,” says Komito. “They can also watch programmes and videos online, listen to Irish radio, read the news, and completely surround themselves with exactly the same information and social interaction that they would engage with online at home,” he adds.

“But the most distinct benefit of these new media technologies is the fact that you can combine the visual, text and audio components, and in real time. No one would say it is as good as being there with the person, but it is very close to it.”

THE INTERNET HAS removed much of the anxiety from the process of moving abroad but it has also made planning much easier. Today’s emigrants can use it to research their destination, apply for visas, view apartments, send out CVs, and even carry out job interviews over Skype.

“Those who are planning to move to Canada now see the internet as their first and main resource,” says Brian Reynolds, who runs IrishAlien.com, a forum and information resource for Irish people in Canada. “We have a few thousand visitors to our site on average per week, asking the same questions we did when we arrived. What’s the best city to live in? How long does it take to get a job? What is the rent like? These are issues for everyone, from the qualified lawyer to the student.”

Online social networks have replaced the traditional role of the Irish pub or community centre as the place to create social and professional links in their new hometown.

“Networking with other Irish people is not necessarily about gathering around an Irish cultural activity to reminisce about home anymore,” explains Mary-Clare Connellan, who launched GlasLondon.com in May, which aims to provide an online space where Irish people can connect with one another, and a resource of “how to” information for Irish people who have recently arrived in the city.

“Irish people want to network with each other because they have a similar attitude to business, to meeting people, and to helping each other. The first networking event we held attracted people from every single profession you could think of,” she says.

Komito believes links created through social networking may create a more mobile Irish population.

“If these contacts are maintained over a long time, people are more likely to have connections who can help them to suss out whether there are better opportunities somewhere else. Before, people would leave Ireland and establish themselves in a new place, and it would be rare for them to up sticks and resettle in another place, unless they were coming back home again. That is changing,” he says.

‘Social media is the new way of creating an ex-pat community’

LONDON

Jane Kenny (27)

Three months after her graduation from NCAD this summer, Kenny, a textile designer and fashion blogger from Dublin, moved to London to pursue a career in fashion. She has used Twitter and her fashion blog, Noisy Shoes, to bridge her professional transition between countries.

“I have a fashion line in Om Diva on Drury Street, in Dublin and I can coordinate everything from here by email, and use Facebook and my blog to promote it. While I want to base myself here in London, I like the idea of being able to still work and have connections in Dublin, as I think it is a great city. That would be really difficult without social media.”

Kenny has also used social media to create a new circle of friends in London. “The old notion of going to the Irish pub seems so foreign to me, I would never dream of going to one, unless to watch the rugby. Instead, I use social networking sites to find other places that would be more suited to my interests. Social media is the new way of creating an ex-pat community.”

LOS ANGELES

Emily Gotto (28)

From Kinsale, Co Cork, Gotto has spent her life on the move. Since graduating with a BA from UCD in 2006, she has lived in Dublin, Nottingham, New Zealand and Spain.

She is currently living in Los Angeles finishing an MA in film audio visual management, but is planning to move to New York in September.

“I move every three months on average. I didn’t plan it that way; it just happened really,” she says.

Social media has been an important way for Gotto to remain connected to Dublin, which she calls her “real home”, and keep herself up-to-date with what’s happening in her friends’ lives back in Ireland.

“I’m lucky to have a very accepting and loyal and generally amazing bunch of mates that grab me on Skype for a chat or comment on my pictures on Facebook, even though they are rarely ever in them these days, which makes me feel as though I didn’t sacrifice one life for another.”

Gotto says her new network of friends in LA were made mostly through other friends and introductions on Facebook.

THE RETURNED EMIGRANT

Róisín Cameron (27)

When Cameron returned to live in Dublin last month after almost five years in London and New York, new faces among her old circle of friends were familiar before they had even met.

“Coming back to Ireland has been hard,” she says. “But the internet definitely helped me to keep a handle on what was going on here while I was away. When I am introduced to someone new here now, I will probably already know their name because I recognise them from photos on my friends’ Facebook pages.”

Cameron, who is taking a break from publishing to do a masters’ in American Studies in UCD, used Gmail Chat instant messenger to keep in touch with close friends while living abroad, but says Facebook was important for keeping up-to-date with what was happening among her wider social circle.

“If I had to rely solely on email, I don’t think I would have lost touch with close friends, but I definitely would have fallen out of contact with acquaintances,” she says. “But by reading their Facebook posts for a week, you are staying in each other’s lives without having to make any effort.”

Generation Emigration: An Irish Times editorial project

LAST YEAR, an average of more than 100 Irish people a day went overseas in search of opportunities and adventure. This mass exodus of Irish citizens will have a lasting impact on their lives, on the lives of those they’ve left behind, and on our society and economy.

Today, The Irish Times launches Generation Emigration, an online and print initiative aimed at this current generation of mobile Irish citizens. It’s a two-way dialogue that will be curated and facilitated by Ciara Kenny.

Online, a multimedia blog on irishtimes.com will feature stories and opinion pieces from Irish people overseas and other guest contributors, news for the Irish community abroad, and a discussion section where readers can express opinions, ask questions and debate a range of issues relating to Irish emigration.

In print, the newspaper will highlight a different emigrant experience every Friday, through interviews with Irish people living in diverse locations around the world.

Readers are invited to contribute their views, news, experiences and stories.

You can access the blog at irishtimes.com/generationemigration

Follow it on Twitter @GenEmigration

Keep in touch on our Facebook page, facebook.com/generationemigration

Or you can email us on emigration@irishtimes.com 

From The Workhouse in Listowel To Australia at the age of 15

Today I have a great story from a lovely lady, Julie Evans.  She is pictured below with her huband, Glyn on a recent trip to Turkey.

First I have to make a few minor announcements;

1.  Thanks a million to everyone who has sent me material. I am really grateful to people who are helping me write this. Without your help I would have to rely on the own meagre resources and we would have more stories culled from the newspapers and less of the real meat like today’s post. I will get round to using all the stuff eventually so please be patient with me. And do keep it coming!

2.   I’m thrilled to see that I have a few new “followers” BUT, be warned, you won’t get email alerts unless you put your email address into the little feedburner box underneath the followers pics. I have no access to the email addresses of followers unless you email me at listowelconnection@gmail.com

3. Don’t forget tonight in The Family Centre. Bring whatever details you have and we’ll see what we can achieve.

4.  Keep plugging away at the quiz. This could be won on a small score, I feel.

5.  If you have any ideas for NKRO, email them to me or to nkreachingout@gmail.com

Now, as promised, the story of Bridget Ryan

This is Bridget as an old lady. We have no photo of her from her time in Ireland.

Bridget Ryan’s Story (by Julie Evans)

(I am so proud of my grt-grt grandmother, Bridget. She crossed the world as

little more than a child, left all that was known and familiar, made a newlife in a very different country, became the mother of 12 children who tooktheir places as well established Australians and was loved and respected byher community – what more could one seek? )

Bridget was born in County Limerick. Her obituary says “native of Limerick, Ireland”. Her obituary also says she died (10 November 1909) just before her 74th birthday which would have fallen on Christmas Day 1909. From this I assume she was born 25 December 1835.

Bridget’s New South Wales Death Certificate gives her father as Anthony Ryan, soldier and her mother as Johanna Hynes.

Re Johanna:Records in Bruff show that Johanna was the daughter of Timothy Haynes and Anne Hogan. Her baptism was 29 December 1808. Only marriage record for her parents is possibly one found for Timothy Hynes and Ellen Hogan on 25 October 1795.

Re Anthony and Johanna:A Limerick researcher found a marriage record giving the groom’s name as Lanty and then crossed out and replaced as Lancelot. The bride was Johanna Hynes and marriage took place 2 July 1831 in the Roman Catholic Church of Bruff. Witnesses were James Gavin and Anne Power. After Lancelot’s name were the words miles keeper. Miles is Latin for soldier but not sure of meaning of keeper in this context.

I assume that Johanna died before Bridget left for Australia (there is a record of a death in County Limerick in 1833 but I do not know if it is the correct record).

According to family lore, Bridget claimed to have been educated by French Nuns. It is interesting to note that The Faithful Companions of Jesus(founded in Amiens n France in 1820 by Marie Madelaine de Bonnault d’Houet)came to Ireland in 1842 and, as the original site at Oughterarde was too remote, they moved their school to Limerick in 1844 and opened a school on the Laurel Hill property in 1845. Could this have been where Bridget received her schooling? The Sisters also opened a school in Bruff in 1856 but this was after Bridget left Ireland for Australia.

According to NSW State Records, Bridget left Plymouth 28 October 1849 on the vessel Thomas Arbuthnot and arrived in Sydney, Australia on 3 February 1850. Her departure papers say that she came from Listowel Union ##see below. The Thomas Arbuthnot was carrying a number of girls as part of the Earl Grey Scheme. She must have been on one of the last vessels as the Scheme was suspended in May 1850. Below is some information about the Scheme.

http://museumvictoria.com.au/immigrationmuseum/discoverycentre/your-questions/earl-grey-scheme/)

The Great Famine in Ireland in the 1840s was a time of great change for the people of Ireland. The population of Ireland reduced significantly during this time with many people making the voyage to Australia.

Among those making the journey were approximately 4000 Irish female orphans under the Earl Grey Scheme. The immigration scheme was the brain-child of Earl Grey. He was the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and designed the program to meet an Australian demand for domestic servants and marriageable young women. It would also serve to reduce overcrowding in Irish workhouses.

In the late 1840s many ships came to Australia bringing young girls travelling alone. Ships carrying orphan girls included the William Stewart in May 1848 with 51 aboard, followed by the Mahomed Shah in July 1848 with 12 orphan girls. The largest number of orphans arrived on the Pemberton in May 1849 as part of the Earl Grey Scheme. 305 orphans disembarked from this ship after a voyage of 113 days.

The orphans arrived in Sydney, Adelaide, Hobart and Port Phillip and from these ports were spread across eastern Australia. Many suffered at the hands of their employers and husbands with beatings and violence. Others found their experience in Australia to be prosperous. Many married successful gold miners, landowners, farmers and shop keepers and led happy and fulfilling lives in Australia.

The scheme was relatively short-lived and only lasted two years as many ‘anti’ groups saw Australia being flooded with Irish immigrants. These young women were condemned in local newspapers as being unskilled, untrained and useless, and a financial strain on Australia. The Earl Grey scheme, although the brain-child of the Irish Secretary of State for the Colonies, was funded by the Australian people. In May 1850 the scheme was suspended. With the beginning of the gold rush, discussions surrounding assisted immigration passages were dropped as many migrants were now willing to pay for their own journey in the hope of making it big on the gold fields of Australia.

As you can see Julie has done some very thorough and painstaking research on her ancestor’s story. Tomorrow I will post more of Bridget’s story, including some material provided to Julie by Michael Lynch, archivist in The Kerry County Library. 

This story is very interesting, in the light of what is happening today with so many of our young people emigrating to Australia. What was once the largest prison in the world is now the resort of choice for so many.

Another lovely emigrant story

Mike the Pies today

Last night we had our monthly meeting of North Kerry Reaching Out (I’ll tell you all about that anon.). One of the items on our agenda was the choosing of our logo. An idea that was thrown about was to incorporate a symbol of emigration. The strongest symbol of emigration is a tear;  deor in Irish gave us the word deoraí; exile or emigrant. Traditionally emigration was associated with sadness but today’s tale shows how this initial sadness can be turned around with success in the land of opportunity.

The background to this story is this. My trusty collaborator, Vincent emailed all his contacts and sent out a plea for them to contribute stories to my blog.  Roger McElligott was the first to reply. Here today is his lovely poignant tale of his family’s journey from Upper William St. to The Golden State.

Vincent,

Here is my write-up on  No. 28.  

It was fun to do.  Thanks for the opportunity.

Roger

The McElligotts of Upper William Street,

Listowel, Co. Kerry, Ireland:

The McElligotts, of 28 Upper William Street, my grandparents, were William McElligott and Mary Dillon and their children: Mary (Mae), Michael, Margaret (Rita), William (my father), Patrick and Emmett.  Mae, the oldest, was born in May of 1890.

They operated a pub and a grocery store that shared a tiny triangular vestibule at street level.  In the rear area, where there were a stable and workshops, from which they operated general contracting and funeral undertaking businesses.  But, even with all that variety, they found the times financially difficult.  So, on hearing of the San Francisco earthquake and fire of April, 1906, they decided to emigrate to San Francisco, with the hope that their skills in the construction business could lead them to success in faraway California.

With that, they sold 28 Upper William Street to the O’Connors (Mike-the-Pie) and sailed the Atlantic from Queenstown, now Cobh, County Cork, on the brand new Mauretania, sister ship to the much more famous Lusitania.  Mary (Dillon) did not have her heart in it, but along she went with sixteen year old Mae and a younger Rita in tow.  The three surviving boys Michael, William and Emmett (Patrick had died in some epidemic.) were left at a boarding school in Ireland:  the Cistercian abbey of Mount St. Joseph, Roscrea, Co. Tipperary.

After the crossing and their 3,000 mile train trip across the continent, they may have gone to San Francisco, none of us knows for sure.  But, somehow, for reasons long forgotten, they ended up in Sacramento, 90 miles east of San Francisco, where my grandfather did find good employment as the supervisor of construction for large multistory buildings, most of which are still standing.  (That speaks well for him.)

My grandfather, William, built a house in Sacramento and, in 1912, when the boys had all finished at the boarding school in Roscrea, he sent for them to make their move to Sacramento.  It was decided, by my grandparents, that a chaperone would be in order and they enlisted Jim Taylor, who was husband to Margaret (Peg) Dillon, my grandmother’s sister.  Jim and Peg were then living at 54 Charles Street, Listowel.  That address was then linked to the Dillon family.

(Peg ended up in Sacramento too, but I don’t know when or how she arrived.)

Jim Taylor lived to be 102 years of age and, to the last, told of the horrors he experienced keeping his three charges in line.  If it was half as bad and he told it, he had experienced a tough-tough time on that long-long journey by ship and by rail.

In the living room of the Sacramento house hung a large photo of the Lartigue monorail steaming through a grove of trees.  My dad, William Ignatius, loved to tell of the mischief he and his brothers perpetrated against the Lartigue,  They  would find an incline along the rail and coat it with axle grease, so they could watch the train struggle to gain traction.

Another of the family stories that has to do with 28 Upper William Street:  That small triangular vestibule was used for what the boys thought was the most fun they could have.  British troops would spend evenings in the pub. After they had put away plenty of pints, the boys would tie a trip-wire across the entry door of the vestibule and then would feign a fist fight in the center of the street.  When the soldiers came rushing out to intervene, they would pile up like cord wood in the doorway. Those troops must have had short memories or there was a lot of turnover.

But, I once told this story to Bryan MacMahon and he said he found it believable. 

I first saw Listowel in 1975, when I was 41 and have been back another seven times to stay at Mount Rivers, attend Writers’ Week, go to the races in September and to just hang around for a few days. With any luck, my wife and I will return soon.  It is truly “Lovely Listowel.”

Roger William McElligott

Sacramento, California

Page 4 of 4

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén