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: Jerry Kiernan

A Runner, a Baker and a Poem

By

On February 15, 2024

In Listowel, Personal, Poem

Lower William Street in February 2024

<<<<<<<<<

Jerry Kiernan to be Honoured

Image and text from Tralee Marathon on Facebook

This year’s Tralee 10K (14th Sept) will honour the great Jerry Kiernan, every participant will receive a commemorative Jerry Kiernan medal. Jerry was born in Listowel. At the 1984 LA Olympics Jerry finished 9th in the Marathon he also won the Dublin Marathon in 1982 and 1992.

<<<<<<<<<

A Family Milestone

I have no sister and only one sister-in-law, so Breeda is an important part of the Ahern Cogan family. Here are the Cogan cousins at Breeda’s big birthday recently.

Me and my children on our night out

<<<<<<<<<<

A Poem to Ponder

If you didn’t get the roses, the chocolates, the champagne or even a card yesterday, listen to this from U A Fanthorpe.

Atlas

There is a kind of love called maintenance
Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it;

Which checks the insurance, and doesn’t forget
The milkman; which remembers to plant bulbs;

Which answers letters; which knows the way
The money goes; which deals with dentists

And Road Fund Tax and meeting trains,
And postcards to the lonely; which upholds

The permanently rickety elaborate
Structures of living, which is Atlas.

And maintenance is the sensible side of love,
Which knows what time and weather are doing
To my brickwork; insulates my faulty wiring;
Laughs at my dryrotten jokes; remembers
My need for gloss and grouting; which keeps
My suspect edifice upright in air,
As Atlas did the sky.

<<<<<<<<<<<

Dating a Postbox

I photographed this postbox in Ballincollig and my Ballincollig based daughter found the era of this particular logo on the An Post website

<<<<<<<<<

A Fact

Last month’s statistics to assure you that you are in good company

<<<<<<<

Halloweens of Old

By

On November 1, 2023

In Listowel

Old Presentation Convent chapel in October 2023

<<<<<<<<

Remembering a Great Athlete

<<<<<<<<

Just a Thought

Link to my last week’s reflections on Radio Kerry;

Just a Thought

<<<<<<<<<

Halloween in the Old Days

Mick O’Callaghan reminisces about Halloween nights during his Kerry childhood.

I remember in school we were reminded to pray for all the saints that had no special day assigned to them on the calendar. The church had set November 1st aside as a special day for this remembrance and they called it All Hallows Day with the day before that called All Hallows Eve or Halloween. November 2nd is called All Souls Day .We really prayed for these saints and visited the church. This was very much part of our formative years.

My father and uncle told us it was a pagan festival from Celtic Ireland. Samhain was the division of the year between summer and winter when the other world and ours were closest and it was the time when the living and dead were closest. Druids dressed up as spirits to avoid being carried away during the night in case they met spirits.

This is where all this dressing up at Halloween comes from with children and adults dressing up in scary costumes.

When I came to the east coast in 1967, I was amazed at this dressing up tradition when everyone dressed up and went out on the town with children doing Trick or Treat. I had never experienced such a massive Halloween community event during my childhood in Kerry.

     The big event there was the celebration at home with the barmbrack taking centre stage. Barry’s Bakery did a huge trade in these. They were rich curney loaves made with the fruit soaked in barm, the left over from fermenting beer and ale giving it that rich taste. There is probably a newer recipe nowadays. Each brack contained a rag, a coin, and a ring or a pea. If you got the coin, you were in for a rich year ahead. The rag was an omen of a poor year ahead while the ring designated love or happiness and the pea meant that you would not get married that year. It was all good fun. My mother was always so careful when cutting the brack to warn us about checking each piece carefully.

      My father used cut out a turnip and placed a candle in it. This was to remember the light given to Stingy Jack by the devil to guide him around in the darkness because he would not be allowed into heaven or hell after he died because he tricked the devil, and he was not in favour with the good lord above either.  At least that is what I told the children every Halloween during my teaching years. The Jack o’ Lantern tradition is also mixed up in this area. The Irish brought this tradition with them when they emigrated in their millions to the USA during famine years, I believe, but because the USA is more pumpkin than turnip country the pumpkin took over from the turnip. The carving of the pumpkin was also very much part of American Halloween and Thanksgiving Festival with pumpkin pie and soup and whatever else you can think of.

Now we too have pumpkins everywhere and ne’er turnip in sight.

In my youth we enjoyed snap apple at home, and this was great fun also. An apple was tied on the door jamb with a string, and we had to try and slow it down and bite it. It was such a hygienic game, I don’t think.

     My uncle would arrive every Halloween with his sack of lovely eating and cooking apples. He told us that in times past apples were offered as sacrifice to the gods in thanksgiving for a good harvest. He got a big basin, filled it with water and put apples in. Our challenge was to dunk in and get out an apple by biting into it while our hands were tied behind our backs. 

     He also placed some coins which naturally fell to the bottom of the basin so there was quite a lot of water splashed about in our efforts to get the dosh, but it was all good innocent fun. Could you imagine doing that now with covid and sanitiser. No thank you very much.

     My father always grew Kale or curly cabbage and was forever hoping for a blast of frost pre-Halloween so that the cabbage would be ready for the colcannon. This was a special favourite meal. The potatoes were taken from the pit and the fresh onions were brought in from the shed and my grandmother Curran always sent in the proper home-made salted country butter to add to the mash. The eventual colcannon meal was scrumptious. I still love colcannon.

Then there were the ghost stories when my father would emerge with a white sheet thrown over him and with the light down told us exaggerated stories of the banshee with a bit of wailing thrown in which scared the living wits out of us.

Nowadays things seem to have changed with the sweet companies producing millions of small bars and sweets to fill the bags of the Trick Or treaters. We now have Halloween lights and baubles to equal Christmas.

Nuts come with an allergy warning; I was asked last year if I had gluten free sweets.

Mick O Callaghan

<<<<<<<<<

More from Walkabout , a 1980s guide to Listowel

<<<<<<<

In Tattoo Shop Window

Church Street, Listowel

<<<<<<<<<<

Bridget Ryan, Listowel to Sydney in 1850

Sue Greenway, on the left, came to Listowel from her home in California to learn more about her ancestor, Bridget Ryan, who travelled from Ireland to Australia in 1850.

Kay Caball has the whole story in her Kerry Ancestors blog today.

Here is the link;

Bridget Ryan

What a story!

<<<<<<<

A Fact

Listowel Emmets football team scored 22 of their 24 points from play in Sunday’s defeat of a higher ranked Ballymacelligott team in the County Junior Championship 2023.

<<<<<<<

Special Olympics

By

On April 5, 2012

In Uncategorized

Special Olympics is a movement which is well supported in Ireland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Olympics

Visit the local Eagles page here

https://www.facebook.com/pages/North-Kerry-Eagles/200229436658775

In 2003 Special Olympics came to Ireland and we, in Listowel got a chance to be part of it when we played host to Jordan and the torch passed through the town, carried by Gardaí.

Boys from Scoil Realta na Maidine waiting for the torch.

The torch arrives.

The convent school band

Local Gardaí waiting to run along with their colleagues bearing the torch.

Teachers, Madeleine O’Sullivan, Cathal Fitzgerald, Tom O’Connor and P.J. Kenny.

>>>>>>>>

A recent sports story from Donal Nolan of The Kerryman

By DÓNAL NOLAN

Wednesday April 04 2012

A LARGE contingent left Listowel on Wednesday morning to support local girl Savannah Mccarthy in her debut as Republic of Ireland captain against England in an international under-15 girls’ schools soccer tournament in Dublin.

Clubmates and mentors at Listowel Celtic said it was a massive honour for the town to have a local girl as Irish captain. Savannah has long been one of the club’s outstanding female players and was central also to the successes of the Listowel Community Games team in recent years.

“For Savannah and her family it is a great honour that she’s captain,” Dominic Scanlon said. “It is actually amazing to have someone from the town of Listowel captaining Ireland. On behalf of Listowel Celtic we’re extremely proud of her and wish her the very best of luck in the tournament. She has been outstanding for us over the years.”

The tournament is taking place in the Amateur Union League complex in Dublin and Savannah and her teams faced England in their first match on Wednesday morning, with a massive swell of Listowel support behind them. A busload of the young soccer star’s school pals was among the supporters.

– DÓNAL NOLAN

This girl is amazing. I can’t find any match report online but hopes were high, fueled by an early success, as reported in Radio Kerry.

2 Apr 2012

Soccer-Kerry Player Skippers Ireland To Success

Savanah McCarthy’s debut as Republic Of Ireland captain has turned out to be a winning one.

The Irish Girls Schools have beaten the FAI selection in the Bob Doherty International Cup.

Listowel Celtic player McCarthy’s team won 4-2 on penalties after the match ended 1 all.


>>>>>>>>


Also from The Kerryman this story of Listowel’s greatest athlete, Jerry Kiernan:


Wednesday April 04 2012

IT was one of those unforgettable and wonderful Kerry sporting occasions. As an invited guest to the Kerry AAI awards on recently in the River Island Hotel, Castleisland I found myself in the company of many of our county’s greatest athletic sportsmen and women, young and old. A host of awards were presented and I was afforded the great honour of presenting the Hall of Fame award to one of this county’s greatest ever sportsmen and a hero to me, Olympian Jerry Kiernan.

The huge crowd rose to their feet to give this unassuming and pleasant North Kerry man a standing ovation. It was a long overdue accolade for this remarkable Kerry man whose achievements have never been fully acknowledged within his own county. Well done to the Riocht Athletic Club for hosting the event and those who organised this glittering occasion. Sheena Brosnan was responsible for a superb commemorative booklet of the occasion. Gneeveguilla’s Paddy O’donoghue and Kerry AAI chairman Martin Fitzgerald were also deeply involved, and in his role as MC Denny Mcsweeney, one of the great athletic warriors in this county, ensured that everything ran like clock work. The whole night was a credit to one and all.

Jerry Kiernan was born in Brosna, where his father was a member of An Garda Síochána. A very promising footballer in his youth, he won a County Minor championship medal with Feale Rangers and also played for St Michael’s College, Listowel. However, his great love for athletics was born as he watched the best runners in the world compete in the Tokyo Olympics of 1964. He was simply, as he says himself, ‘born to run’.

He won his first medal in Duagh when he

fini s h e d second at a local sports meeting. Little did he realise that this was the beginning of what was to be one of the greatest running careers of any Kerry man. In fact Jerry’s ninth place finish in the Los Angeles Olympic Marathon is the second highest placing ever achieved by an Irishman. John Tracy won the silver in the very same race.

As a youth Jerry won all the major underage titles, Kerry, Munster and All-ireland; his career was blossoming. He left Kerry at eighteen years of age to begin a teaching career in Dublin and joined the famous Clonliffe Harriers Athletic Club, with whom he won a host of All-ireland championships. His ability at a range of distances was astonishing. He was fractionally outside the world record for the ten miles, running this in 46.5 minutes. Jerry ran in four Dublin City Marathons, winning twice and setting the record time in 1982. Then, in a classic mile race in June 1976, the he became the first from the county and only the seventh Irishm a n to run under four minutes for the distance. Rod Dixon was the winner.

Kiernan competed all over the world despite his commitment to his teaching career. Halfmarathons, full marathons, 10km, the mile or 3,000 m (he held the then Irish record for this distance), Jerry took them all in his stride. He excelled at cross-country running and won All-irelands at Under-18, Under20 and senior level in 1984. He was a regular on the Irish team, winning close to sixty green singlets: a magnificent achievement. When the book of Kerry’s greatest athletes is finally written, Jerry Kiernan will be right there at the very top.

In the Los Angeles Olympic Marathon of 1984 he proved beyond a doubt that he was equal to the world’s very best. Finishing ninth, despite cramping a lot towards the finish, was an astonishing achievement when you consider that this was one of the greatest fields of marathon runners ever assembled: Carlos Lopez of Portugal won the gold in a new Olympic record time, John Treacy was second for Ireland, and Charlie Spedding of England was third. Other legendary names in the field of 105 athletes running shoulder to shoulder with the Brosna man that blistering hot day in Los Angeles included Alberto Salazar (USA), Takeshi So ( Japan), Rob de Castella (Australia), Joseph Nzau (Kenya) and the legendary Toshihiko Seko ( Japan).

We can only speculate what further greatness Jerry Kiernan would have achieved had he gone to America and become a full-time athlete.

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén