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: hatching

Hatching continued, Kennelly Travel and a Cork shop has the last laugh.

Phew! Is she Gone?



That was some storm. I haven’t been out so no photos except those on Twitter

Eerily quiet Dawson Street Dublin on October 16 2017.

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Behan’s and The Horseshoe

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A Flea and a Fly flew into a Fleadh




I love it when people are trawling through the Kennelly photo archive and come across something Listowel related and share it.

I don’t know who these boys are or a date for the photo but I’m presuming it was a fancy dress parade prior to Listowel’s hosting of Fleadh Cheoil na hEireann.

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Cobwebs in the mist





A few spider facts for you;

If a thread of steel could be made as fine as a spider’s silk, the steel would be less strong.

Spiders webs have been used in Indonesia to catch fish.

A baby spider is born with the ability to spin a web. He doesn’t have to be taught.


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Hatching  by John B. Keane  (part 2…continued from yesterday)

The reluctant hatcher was presented with a
saucer of hoochpaste but showed no interest at first. It didn’t look very appetizing
so the woman of the house spoon fed her until she began to cluck appreciatively
and cock her head high for more. I never saw any creature of the female gender
take so quickly to booze. In less than three minutes the saucer was empty and
she was sleeping as soundly as a drunken apostate during a long sermon.

“She’ll die surely.” Said the woman of the
house.

“She won’t nor die,” said himself who knew
from long experience that a person could be dead drunk without being dead. How
right he was! She slept for several hours without moving, contributing
throughout every moment of her repose to the hatching process beneath her craw.
When she awakened she tried to rise but failed. She fell asleep again. The next
awakening was different. She staggered around the kitchen until she arrived at
the door where she was assailed by that arch enemy of all forms of drunkenness;
fresh air. It revived her instantly but a second saucer of hoochmeal was
prepared and presented to her before she 
could sober up. Afterwards she fell asleep for a whole day.

After a fortnight the eggs were hatched.
There emerged twelve of tha handsomest chicks you ever saw.

The hatcher died soon afterwards of liver
disease but she had nobly served her purpose and if some may crib about forcing
her into alcoholism, I say to these to come and have a gander at the chicks she
hatched. They grew up into outstanding specimens of their breed, seven hens and
five cocks.One hen who wandered too far from the fowl run was carried off by a
fox but tte other eleven survived and I know for a fact that not a solitary
one of that fine clutch put a taste of booze to their beaks to the day they
departed for the heavenly henhouse in the sky. So we see some more good uses to
which whiskey may be put as if there weren’t enough already

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Only in Cork




The shop is Scally’s in Clonakilty and the photo appeared on Reddit.

A Hatching Hen, an Irish wake, Aughrim and a Mystery Building

Bailey and Co. in Main Street





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Hatching     (an essay by John B. Keane0

I remember once there was a somewhat
contrary hatching hen appointed to sit on a clutch of eggs which weren’t her
own. She was a Sussex Blue and the eggs were laid by a Rhode Island Red. Maybe
this is why she was so reluctant to remain sitting on the eggs. Did hens have a
way of knowing one egg from another? I suspect they did.

Certain hens will hatch anything from
pheasant to duck eggs but there are no two birds alike as the cock said to the
drake. Let us return, however, to our own bird and her reluctance to hatch the
eggs of a stranger. There she would settle, trancelike, as only hens can, when
suddenly for no apparent reason she would make for the door. She would be
recaptured instantly and reminded firmly of her obligations. No sooner would
she be reseated than she would desert once more. She exasperated the entire
household whose every member took a turn keeping an eye on her.

“There’s only one cure for the hoor,” announced an old woman who happened to call one evening for the loan of a cup
of sugar.

“What’s that?” we all asked.

“The bottle,” said she. We waited for an
elaboration. None came. We asked again.

“What bottle?” said she,”but the hot
stuff.”

Of course we all knew what the hot stuff
was. Wasn’t the man of the house and his cronies greatly addicted to it without
any great harm!

“It will rest the creature,” said the old
woman, “ and it will keep her off her feet.”

Up in “The Room” was a bottle of the very
hot stuff in question, as hot, according to himself, as ever was brewed.

“Mix it,” said the old woman, “with a
saucer of Indian meal and you’ll end up with a nice paste that she will find
palatable.

(Tune in tomorrow to find out how the hen took to the gargle)

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Irish Wake Linen



This picture is from 1962 and is in included in The National Treasures collection. The person who contributed it was the daughter of the woman whose job it was to lay people out for the wake when wakes were held in people’s homes. The linen was hand made  especially for the purpose.

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After Aughrim



I learned this poem in school. I came upon it recently in an old school book. Aughrim was the bloodiest battle ever on Irish soil. It was fought in 1691. 7,000 lives were lost .

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Behind the Garda Barracks



At a guess I’d say it’s old stables from the days when when the guards rode horses . If anyone knows what it really is I’d welcome the information.

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