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: Jim Halpin Page 2 of 3

Killarney. Listowel photos from 1994 and North Kerry Harriers in Moyvane

At the Tim Kennelly roundabout on an Autumn Sunday

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By Killarney’s Lakes and Fells


I recently enjoyed a lovely day in “Beauty’s Home”


This fellow looked me right in the eye. There was a fence between us.

Torc




Torc waterfall 


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Kerryman Christmas Supplement 1994


Some shopkeepers and shoppers from the Kerryman supplement of 24 years ago. The photgraphs for the paper were taken by Brendan Landy. I took photos of the photos as they appeared in the paper. Sorry for the very poor quality.


 Ann Heffernan serves Damien Stack in Ned Moriarty’s drapery shop.

Pat Hannon of Hannon’s Book Shop, 6 Main St. shows Clodagh O’Sullivan the range of books and magazines available.

Jim Halpin shows Michael O’Connell  a sea rod at his fishing and shooting supplies shop in Dirrha, Listowel.

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North Kerry Harriers meet in Moyvane at the October Bank Holiday Weekend


(Photos by Elizabeth Brosnan….lots more on her Facebook page)


New business, Ballybunion on the Wild Atlantic Way, and Listowel Military Festival 2017

Theresa Collins of Mallow Camera Club is the photographer.

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New Pharmacy at The Gold Corner


Work is underway on Doran’s Pharmacy due to open soon at this location.

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Ballybunion on the Wild Atlantic Way

These details from the WAW sign point out some of the reasons for  the universal appeal of Ballybunion. I count myself blessed to have it on my doorstep.


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Setting the Spuds


(from Jim Costelloe’s Asdee…..)

Potatoes were grown in drills but the
belief existed that, because the ridges were made in virgin soil (bawn) they
produced better crops. To prepare the soil for drills, which were always made
in broken ground or stubbles, the garden was ploughed as normal. It was later
harrowed with a spring harrow, rolled, harrowed again and again rolled. The
area was then ploughed again, and rolled and again harrowed to make sure there
were no lumps in the soil and that the earth was fine and loose. The process
helped the germination and crop growth of the seed potatoes. When the ground
was ready, the drills were opened using a double boarded plough.

Farmyard dung was then drawn from the dung
heap beside the cowshed with the horse and butt car. It was later spread on all
the furrows with four prong pikes. The drills were now ready for the sciolláns
so all members of the family were called on to spread the seed. The seeds were
laid on the dung in the furrows and the drills were split so that the furrows
with the potatoes on the dung became drills and the drills were the new
furrows. There was less manual work with drills although the spreading of the
sciolláns was severe on the back. The varities of potatoes sown then included
Aran Banners for fowl and farm animals, Kerr’s Pink, Aran Victors (blue ones)
and Records. The early variety, Epicure was set in the kitchen garden near the
house.

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The Siege of Jadotville

Sheila and Leo Quinlan (son of Pat Quinlan) with Ann and Jim Halpin



Jim Halpin is a man who does more then anyone in Listowel to make sure that  the men who served their country are remembered. He has put his money where his mouth is and invested heavily in his excellent military history museum on Church St. and every year he organises a reunion and celebration for his friends and old comrades in The Irish Army Reserve.

Jim invited me to an event he had set up for Friday April 28 2017 in The Seanchaí. I felt privileged to attend.

Kathy Walsh, Dr. Declan Downey and John Pierse at The Seanchaí

After a cheese and wine reception, the dignitaries and honoured guests were piped into the auditorium.




Aoife Thornton, our current mayor, made a presentation to Leo and Sheila Quinlan.


Dr. Declan Downey filled us in on the background to Jadotville and the travesty that followed.


This was the early days of Ireland’s peacekeeping involvement with the United Nations. The African country of Congo had freed itself from its Belgian and French colonisers and was now a republic. The oil and mineral rich Katangan province was backed by rich oil and mining companies in its bid to form an independent state within Congo. The United Nations was called on to help maintain peace between the state forces and the rebels.

Conor Cruise O’Brien was the UN man on the ground when the UN peacekeepers were sent in. O’Brien had no experience as a diplomat and, according to Downey, made a very bad job of it.

Commandant Pat Quinlan, a Kerryman, was the man in charge of the UN compound in Jadotville in Katanga. He and his small band were charged with keeping the peace between the Congolese and Katangan troops whose ranks were swelled with mercenaries brought in by the vested interest in mining and oil.

The siege lasted 6 days with Quinlan’s A Company outnumbered 20 to 1. Orders from O’Brien were to keep fighting even though the Irishmen were inflicting heavy casualties on the Katangans. The peacekeepers had become peace enforcers.

Eventually when they had run out of ammunition and food supplies, every bullet having been fired twice, and Quinlan was left completely on his own, he made the only decision he could to protect the lives of the men in his charge; he surrendered.

………….

We were shown the film starring Jamie Dornan which brought all of this story to life for us. After the surrender the men served a month as prisoners of war while the UN and the Congo debated what to do with them. Eventually they were released and came home to an ignominious lack of welcome. Despite continuous campaigning their heroism was ignored until nine years after Quinlan’s death. In 2016 Quinlan’s reputation was restored and his men honoured by the Irish state which they served so loyally and so well.

At Listowel Military Festival 2017 the surviving members of A company were honoured guests and after the wreath laying ceremony on Saturday April 29 2017, they were invited to stand as their fellow veterans marched past in a gesture of respect for them.


Sheep and Cows at Kingdom County Fair 2016, People on the street and a triumph of a Kerry film



This unusual photo of Ballybunion was taken by Denis Carroll



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Winner with a Listowel Connection



Mike Laffan who works for Kerry Group poses with his prize cow at

The Kingdom County Fair 2016. The man on the left is the judge.

There was lots of fine livestock on display in Ballybeggan.

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Sheep at the show





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A Quick Lesson in Irish surnames on Church St.


Donal Kennedy looked up the variants of the Halpin name and found that it was really half penny. all of our common names have hundreds of variants, it seems.

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The Uncountable Laughter of the Sea


A still from the film

Last week I went to see the most gorgeous film. It is called The Uncountable Laughter of the Sea and it was the most beautiful, thought provoking and awe inspiring film I have ever seen.

It is just 54 minutes long and it is set around An tAth. Padraig OFiannachta and his love for and reverence of Nature as experienced in West Kerry.

Father O’Fiannachta is a Tibetan monk type character and the only other character (they are not really characters as they play themselves) is Patrick O’Neill who also directed the film. He plays a kind of Jesus type role, strolling barefoot through stunningly beautiful Kerry places.

The film is shot using drones and a helicopter. The landscapes are breathtaking and the music and singing soulful and moving. It is a triumph of the editors’ craft.

If you get the opportunity to see this in the cinema, grab the chance. It needs the big screen to do it justice.

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Calling our Washington Diaspora



(source; Mark Holan’s blog)


Kennedy Center “Celebrating a Century of Irish Arts & Culture”

by admin

The global celebration commemorating the centennial of the 1916 Easter Rising takes center stage (several stages, actually) at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. 17 May to 5 June. The “Ireland 100” festival includes dozens of performances from some of Ireland’s best contemporary musicians, dancers, and theater companies – along with other events ranging from a literature series, documentary screenings, installations and culinary arts.

1458168864-Ireland-100-tickets.jpg (288×192)

Fiona Shaw is Artist-in-Residence for the three-week festival, performing and conducting workshops with aspiring actors. Among the festival’s theater offerings are works by Irish playwrights Seán O’Casey (The Plough and the Stars) and Samuel Beckett (the radio play All That Fall), an adaptation from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wakeperformed by Olwen Fouéré (Riverrun), and a performance installation by Enda Walsh (A Girl’s Bedroom).

“The United States and Ireland share a special relationship based on common ancestral ties and shared values,” Festival Curator Alicia Adams said. “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts bears the name of our 35th President, who is especially revered by Ireland as a favorite son.”

Mary Kennedy in Listowel, A Christmas Window, A Photo of some of the old stock and War Dogs

Up Close and Personal

T.J. Mac Sweeney


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 Mary Kennedy in Listowel

When Mary Kennedy of RTE was in Listowel for the filming of the piece on the Military Weekend she popped into Easons to check on how her book was doing.

(Photo: Easons Listowel)

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A More Recent Photo from Paul Murphy’s Album



Tommy Murphy, Frank Enright and John B. Keane


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Christmas at Listowel Florists

Betty McGrath is getting ready for the festive season

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Unusual Casualties of War

The above advertisement was reproduced in Woman’s Weekly recently.

During WW2 some 3,000 household pets helped at the front, side by side with the British soldiers.

Here is how it came about.

Food was rationed and there was no ration allowed for pets. It was forbidden to give meat or biscuits to dogs and many owners found they couldn’t keep their dog, particularly if it was a big breed. The war office set up a dog training school and urged people to give over their family pet to be trained for work  at the front. Dogs carried messages, patrolled and, most valuably, detected mines. Inevitably many lost their lives but they did, as well, save the lives of many.

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A Message of thanks from Jim Halpin


Jim Halpin works harder than anyone to make sure that the sacrifice of the North Kerry men who gave their lives in war will never be forgotten. He is passionate about commemorating them and ensuring that their names will live forever in these parts.

With the help of his colleagues in Listowel Military Tattoo he organized a touching commemorative ceremony on Sunday in St. John’s. I was privileged to be there to witness it and I wrote about it here on Monday. Jim wrote to record his thanks to everyone who took part.

“Thank you, Mary, for your kind words and may I say a thank you also to the schools and their pupils,  their teachers and their parents to Rev. Joe Hardy and Fr. Hegarty, the Killorglin pipers and drummer, our bugler from Mallow and  Joe Murphy for pulling out all the stops to help us in St.Johns at very short notice, the veterans, the wreath layers, the committee and the public who made this a very memorable and solemn day in Listowel.  Jim Halpin”




You can listen to some of the music from the ceremony HERE

Surfing in Ballybunion, William St. in the sixties and Knockane

Sign of summer?








Surfing in Ballybunion: April 2015


Photo: Ballybunion Prints

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Upper William Street in the great bye and bye


A previous posting of this photo on the internet drew this response from our great local historian, Vincent Carmody.

“The old home town looks the same

As I stepped down from the train,”

This is  part of Upper William Street (or as real
townies would call it, Patrick St. or Pound Lane). I have a good idea that
Neddy, the ass, tied to the pole belonged to a really nice lady from Dirrah East
called Han Synan. The pole was (and is) situated outside the late
Nora(Lynch)Buckley /the late Lil Mai O Sullivan’s houses.

On the other side or the road the
house with the brown door was Dr.Tim Buckley’s surgery (he lived with his two
sisters Mollie and Delia across the road in a public house and which was
subsequently the Listowel Post Office). Above the surgery was a back lane which
serviced the rear of Upper William St. and Charles St . Up this laneway also
was the Powerhouse which served as headquarters for the local E.S.B. Up there
also were 2 forges, one belonging to the late Jackie Moore and the other to the
late Val Moore. On the other side of the laneway is St Patrick’s Temperence Hall
which was built in the 1890s. The hall had a major reconstruction makeover
1999-2002. At this time the house above the hall was occupied by an O’Sullivan
family who afterwards moved to Charles St. Next door, which at the time was
derelict, belonged to the late Mike Joe Hennessy of Ballyduff and formerly of
this street. The two houses above these belonged to Mary Moore who used let
them to various tenants. At this time the lower one was let to the town jubilee
nurse, a nurse Anne McDonagh, the upper house to Tom and Peggy Lyons, the two
remaining houses in the photograph belonged to John Francis and Maurice
Carmody. Hopefully this gives a little insight into part of the street of 40
years ago.

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Honesty at The Fair



Marina Stack contacted me after watching the Radharc film Honesty at The Fair

She says


Re the Radharc programme Honesty at the Fair , at 14 mins 13 in is John Stack,  brother of Bob Stack, Maurice Stack, Pat Stack and Mai Stack.  All originally born in Moyessa, Listowel. John later married in Castelisland.

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Cnochán

Today I return to the lore I learned when I visited the school children’s contributions to the National Archive’s Folklore collection in Kerry County
Library , Tralee. One category of the project concentrated on placenames and their
origin.

It is important to remember that the boys and girls recorded the
stories as they heard them from their elders. As we all known, folklore is a mixture
of fact and fiction distilled through the memories of generations who passed on
the information.

There is a townland in Listowel called An Cnochán or
Knockane and this is what an old man told an unnamed schoolgirl. Knockane is a
fairly large hill, made up of sand and clay. The hill is situated between the
rivers Feale and Gale. The story goes that the Danes brought sand from both
rivers to form the hill. The hill is located in a flat boggy plane. It commands
views over both rivers.

To the south of the hill is a spring well, continually
overflowing with clear spring water. This spring never runs dry, even in
periods of extreme drought.

One night a local man dreamed that there was gold in the
hill. He went in the morning to the spot indicated in his dream. He dug and dug
until he came to “the flag”. As he was about to dig up the flag, a bull came charging
towards him. He escaped with his life but he never again meddled with Knockane
Hill.

Sin é mo scéal agus má
tá bréag ann, bíodh
.

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Green Shoots of Recovery in Church Street

New beautician’s opening on Church St. shortly. My mole tells me that Carmel’s in Bridge Road will also open as a beautician’s very soon. We’ll all be looking gorgeous!

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Women in Media 2015

I’m heading to Ballybunion at the weekend for this great event

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Snapped on Church St.




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