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: holy well

Holy Well in Coolard, The Ball Alley, the Vincent de Paul shop and Michael Healy Rae in Woulfe’s

By

On December 3, 2018

In Uncategorized

Sunday Morning Walk



Childers’ Park, Listowel Co. Kerry November 18 2018

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Well in Coolard  (Dúchas Collection)

There is a holy well in Coolard and many people visited it on certain days. The same prayers are said at every well and whilst saying it they make nine rounds. When people visit the well they take a bottle of the water home with them and some moss. The water of the above well cures sore throats and rheumatism. The water of the well is never used for any domestic purpose. There was a scarcity of water and the people took the water from the blessed well. They couldn’t get it to boil.

Rinn Tuirc School collection 10 5 1938.

St Bartholomew’s Well, Coolard, Lisselton

Collector Nancy Hanrahan-Informant- Michael Hanrahan, Age 60

The blessed well is situated in a thick wood near Coolard. The well is shallow and a stream of fresh water flows from it. Many people in the district visit the well three times a year, to pay rounds. They go around the well nine times and they say three rosaries. If they have not the rosaries finished when going around, they kneel by the well and finish them. When they are going home they leave money or holy pictures or pieces of cloth on the tree beside the well. Anyone having sores washes them in the water. They also take three sips of the water and also some water with them. The people living near the well use the water for household purposes. It is said that the well was situated farther up on the wood once. A woman washed clothes in it. Then it moved down to where it is at the present time.

Holy Wells 17 – 11- ’38

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Woodford Pottery Nativity



I love my Woodford Pottery crib. I will light a tea light in it every evening from now to Christmas.



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The Ball Alley



Listowel men of a certain age remember the ball alley with great fondness. There have been essays and poems written about the exploits of Listowel’s handballers. I don’t know if the Sheehy brothers who are commemorated on this seat were among the champions but they would have certainly enjoyed being reminded of the days when the ball alley was the centre of young men’s social calendar.




Some years ago in a project undertaken by the young people of Xistance Youth Café the walls of the now disused alley were decorated with graffiti. Over time the pictures have taken a battering from the weather but most are still intact and looking beautiful.



These Pictures are on the side walls. The end wall has had to be replastered.




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Second Time Around




One of my favourite Listowel shops is Second Time Around, the St. Vincent de Paul shop on Upper William Street. It is always staffed by smiling friendly volunteers and there are always great bargains to be had from the stock donated by some really kind  (and stylish) donors.



On Wednesday week when I called in I met these two lovely ladies, Ingrid and EileenR looking after the shop.



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A Booksigning at  Woulfe’s


Michael Healy Rae signing John Hartnett’s copy of his book, Time to Talk



Michael with John and the shop staff, Fiona, Mary and Brenda



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Lyre Postman Retires



(Photo and text from Joe Harrington on Facebook)




Our Postman, Seán O’Connell, on his last day as Lyreacrompane Postman delivering the mail to Norrie Connell, Carrigcannon on Friday November 30 2018. Seán has been the postman in the Lyreacrompane district for 38 years! Happy retirement Seán.


Doors, Nash’s Well and Billy MacSweeney and the Christmas Goose.

By

On November 16, 2018

In Uncategorized

Garden of Europe, Listowel

Photo: Charlie Nolan

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Some Listowel Doors


“We have our exits and our entrances…..”

These doors are off the beaten track and so not as aesthetically pleasing as doors on the street.

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Another Holy Well



(Story from the Dúchas folklore collection)


There is a holy well in the farm of Ml Nash, Rossmore, Tahilla. This well is there hundreds of years & may still be seen. There is the following folk tale told of it still.

Long ago, when priests were not allowed to say Mass, a priest was going to say Mass across the bay (Kenmare Bay, which is here three miles wide). He saw a crowd of Protestant soldiers coming after him. He got on his horse & struck him with the whip & jumped him over the three miles of water which flows between Tuosist (in Ivera) and Rossmore Island (in Iveragh.

When the horse “landed” he struck his hooves on the rock & the sign of the cross appeared.

Rossmore Island County Kerry from Mrs Ml Nash.

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A Face to a Name




My daughter, Cliona and I went to Café Hanna in John R’s for brunch on Saturday November 10 2018. Eggs Benedict for breakfast on a Saturday morning is not our usual repast but it was the weekend of Listowel Food Fair (The Food Fair was brilliant but my report on that will have to wait til next week.)



There we met Billy MacSweeney. Cliona took the photo of me with him. She is not so good with the zoom button. I took him with his friend and former neighbour Pierse Walsh.



Billy is a great supporter of Listowel Connection. Recently he wrote entertainingly of his wanderings around the town and trips to the bog with Jack Leahy. I knew there were many more stories where they came from and sure enough, Billy proved to be a very entertaining breakfast companion.



He told us the story of a mad Christmas goose who nearly never made it to the dinner table. She broke a window in Church Street on her way home to be fattened for the Christmas dinner and the owner of the window threatened to confiscate her as payment for the damage to his property.



Billy told us about the turf shed concerts with some of the finest Church Street talent on show, and he told me a great story of a Knocknagoshel lady who played a vital role in World War 2. All will be revealed next week.



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Flora Sandes




I mentioned this lady last week and wondered if she were related to the Sandes of Collis Sandes fame or the notorious landlord who gave his name to Newtownsandes. I have been informed by several people that she is indeed from the same family and she is related to Elise Sandes who set up the Soldiers’ Homes as well.



Flora is descended from the Sandes of Sallow Glen. She led a life of service and adventure and she is the subject of tea biographies.

Listowel Children in the 1960s, A Holy Well and Armistice Day Centenary Commemorations in Listowel

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On November 14, 2018

In Uncategorized






The River Feale behind the Listowel Arms; Photo: Charlie Nolan

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Old Pals

“Fond memory brings the light of other days around me.”

Bernard O’Connell who lived in Upper William Street Listowel and now lives in Canada posted to Facebook this picture of his childhood friends.

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A Holy Well



From the schools folklore collection at Dúchas


Tarbert School collection. Nora Scanlon, Dooncaha.

Our Holy Wells

There is a well in Tarmons known as St. Senan’s. It is in the corner of Buckley’s field in Ballintubber.

This well is not deep and a stream flows out of it. Always in the month of May people pay rounds at this well on every Saturday of the month.

This is how people pay rounds. People pick up seven pebbles out of the stream and then kneel down at the well and start reciting the Rosary. Then they start at the right hand side of the well and walk slowly all round reciting a decade of the Rosary while going round. At the end of each decade they throw one pebble away. Then when the seventh round is paid they kneel down and finish the Rosary. Then they take three drinks out of the well and wash their faces at the stream. Then they usually tie a piece of cloth on an overhanging bush. It is said that according as the cloth wears away the disease wears off the patient.

It is called St. Senan’s well because it was St. Senan who blessed its waters. From the well you can see the ruins of seven churches and round tower in Scattery built by St. Senan.

There are no fish in the well and the water is not used for household purposes. Once a woman went to fill her kettle at the well. She forgot to bring a vessel with which to fill her kettle. She left her kettle at the well and went back for a saucepan. When she returned the well had disappeared and the bush with it. It went from the top of the hill to the side where it is now.

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A Thought


As Asphalt and concrete

 Replace bushes and trees,

As highways and buildings 

Replace marshes and woods

What will replace the song of the birds?

Tony Chen

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Only in Ireland


Photo; Random Cork Stuff

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People at the Armistice Day Centenary Commemoration in Listowel




On a cold showery Sunday a good crowd turned up to commemorate the men who endured appalling hardship in the most awful of wars. Cold and rain were nothing compared to weeks spent in wet trenches with rats for company.

Carmel Gornall was there with her brother and two sisters in law.

Carmel’s sisters in law had grandfathers who served in The Great war.

Great to see Jim Halpin brave the cold to be part of it. Jim has done more than most in North Kerry to make sure that the names of the brave men who fought will be remembered.




Local history lovers and retired military men turned out in numbers to remember.

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One to Watch

 Bánú nó Slánú:  Thursday TG4  9.30p.m.

This documentary looks at the small town way of life that is dying a death in Ireland, as illustrated by a visit to once thriving towns in Kerry and Leitrim. Ballylongford in north Kerry has seen its mill, creamery and many businesses close over the last 30 years. In 2017, no new children started in the national school for the first time in living memory and its post office is now under threat.  One of the last small farmers in the village, Donal O’Connor, who’s in his 70s, sums things up: “I’m the last of the family. There are no small farmers anymore.”  Kiltyclogher in north Leitrim made the headlines when it launched a media campaign to attract people to move to the village. Six  families made the move, helping to save the local school  – but one year on, how does the future look? Did the newcomers stay? And have they done enough?

(Photo and text from Irish Times TV Guide)

Holidays, Holy Well in Ardfert and that flood of 1828

By

On January 14, 2016

In Uncategorized

Holidays


Do you remember when going on your holidays meant going a few miles out the road to your cousins? Those were the best holidays except, maybe,  for the times when your cousins came over from England for a bit and brought with them a few hand-me downs. 

Those lucky enough to have visiting American cousins were the really lucky ones. Americans were rich and often has gadgets like cameras. I grew up in a house with no camera. Most of the photos of us as children were taken by American relatives. 

When cousins came you got taken places, often only to visit other relatives but that was the height of excitement in  the 1950s. Cousins from abroad loved jobs like saving hay, a trip to the bog or the well, bringing in the cows or having a go at pulping mangolds. This stuff was all new to them and they thought it was all “great gas’. Because they enjoyed it so much, it didn’t seem like drudgery any more.

I was reminded of all of this when I got some holiday snaps from my peripatetic friends at Christmas.


While I was at home in rain soaked Ireland other people were sharing their holiday snaps from exotic destinations.

My sister in law was in Vietnam

My niece went to Venice.

My friend, Mary Sobieralski, was in Cologne.



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Women pray at a holy well in Ardfert  sometime in the 1930s


Photo; Ireland The Old Country

One thing that fascinates me about this photo is the very colorful shawls on the two women on the left. These are more like table coverings and not at all like anything I have ever seen before worn by Kerry women.

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Listowel Drama



Sive marked a pinnacle of successful drama for Listowel folk.

Below is Liam O Hainnín’s photo of the sleeve of his L.P. of the play.




Listowel Drama Group are taking to the road again. Next March in Holycross in Tipperary a wider audience will get a chance to see the brilliant production of Blythe Spirit we all enjoyed so much last year.

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Apropos My Flooding in Abbeyfeale Story



I posted this last week: 

Irish Examiner 1841-1999, Saturday, 25 January, 1941; Page: 10

MRS. M. STACK, M0YNSHA. ABBEYFEALE.

The most destructive flood in the Feale for a century was recalled by
the death of Mrs. Nano Stack, of Moynsha, Abbeyfeale, which took place
in her 90th year, after some weeks illness. About the middle of the
fifties of the last century. Mrs. Stack, when a child of about six
years old, was save  by her brother, the late Dl. O’Connor , Church
Street, Abbeyfeale, who took her in his arms, and climbing a wall of
their house at Islandanny, which the big Feale flood had isolated,
remained  so until the flood subsided. This flood, which occurred in
August, broke down the Feale Valley with tremendous depth and force,
and swept to their death eleven persons.

and it drew this response from Nicky Leonard:

Hi, Mary,  I have read your very interesting  account of the narrow escape, at Islandanny.  of Mrs. Nano Stack from the great Feale  flood.

I had previously come across the following report  in the Spectator of 1858; it probably refers to the same great flood. How factual the account of the deaths and destruction at Abbeyfeale is, I am not certain. The last paragraph is particularly apt  in the light of the current Great Floods.
Best wishes,  Nicky Leonard: 


From The Spectator of 25 September 1858:

“…there have been very serious floods in Limerick, Kerry, and Cork. At Abbeyfeale, in the river Feale, five persons were drowned, bridges, houses, and a great deal of property destroyed. 


In Cork and Connemara alike walls were swept down; vessels carried from their moorings; stacks of corn, hay, oats floated off; potato fields submerged; horses drowned. 


The destructive effects of this sudden rising of the waters in the south of Ireland will be painfully felt in many a village and homestead.”




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