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: John B. Keane’s

Aspects of Listowel, Bang Bang and Sam comes home to Listowel

A few aspects of town you might have overlooked


entrance to golf course

I had chosen the above photo for inclusion before I read that Listowel Golf Course has closed. Someone who posts on Boards as Mike Hn posted the below photo recently of the site where the golf course used to be.

woodland walk




from Market St.
old mart car park

house on Market St.





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Bang Bang, a beloved Dublin character


(source:Rare Irish Stuff)
(source:Photos of Dublin)

Bang Bang was the nickname of a well known Dublin character in the sixties and seventies.  He was a grown up cowboy and Dublin was his Dodge City. He used to jump on the running board of buses and “shoot” passers by with his imaginary gun. The “gun” was, in fact, a big key and it is now preserved  in the National Museum. With so much gun crime on the streets of our capital nowadays the key is a reminder of a more innocent age.

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Home is the Hero

Some photos by John Stack of the Listowel homecoming of the victorious Kerry football team.

4 Greats of Football;  Barry John Keane, Eamon Fitzmaurice, Mick Finucane ( The oldest man alive to hold an All Ireland Medal with Kerry) and Shane Enright.

The following photos are from Ian Flavin Photography on Facebook

And one from Bridget O’Connor taken in The Horseshoe

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Read the following account of the new stainless steel urinals in John B. Keane’s and have a good old laugh.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/billy-keane/at-last-a-meeting-of-the-waters-and-victory-in-the-long-battle-to-install-the-weeping-wall-of-listowel-30640530.html

Ballybunion sunset, Confessions of a tyre kicker and Duagh Sports Complex nearing completion

Stunning Ballybunion Sunset witnessed by Mike Enright….a side benefit of fishing.

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Tyre kicker; This term apparently came from the car selling trade and it is used to denote a person who comes in, wastes the salesman’s time by looking at everything, asking lots of questions and leaves without buying anything.

The term implies that the person in question never intended buying anything in the first place and was just a time waster,  so, in that sense, I was a tyre kicker by accident for I did intend buying, I just left without doing so.

What am I talking about?

Let me explain that Billy Keane took part in a RTE1 radio show last week with Derek Mooney when the subject of tyre kickers was the topic of the day. Derek had; a car salesman, an estate agent and a publican (Billy Keane) in to discuss the phenomenon. Billy was discommoded by visitors to John B.’s who come in, take photographs and ask lots of questions but buy nothing. He told us that it upsets his mother even more than it does him.

If the cap fits, as they say, so here is my new culpa.

On Thursday nights they do a marvelous theme night in Allos Bistro. Last Thursday night week the theme was Indian. The meal was delicious, the servings generous and a bottle of wine was imbibed by myself and my two dining companions.

The night was still young when we left Allos so we decided to take in the pub theatre in John B.s and to have our nightcap there.

We arrived just as the play was starting so we decided to wait until the performance was over to order our drink. The play was great. I enjoyed it immensely and took lots of photos for the blog,  but old age, early mornings, hard work and a full belly were combining to cause my friend to nod off.  I suggested that we head for home and the leaba and come to John B.s another night. Without thinking, I had become that pariah of the car, house and drink trade…a tyre kicker.

So there it is. I put my hand up to my sin. I have publicly confessed. I have made a firm purpose of amendment and if you see me in John B’s in future, I’ll have a drink in front of me.

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The Play




John B. Keane’s puts on some great shows during the summer months. This one was a performance by the Athea Drama Group of John B.’s Backwater. The play explores themes close to the playwright’s heart; love, emigration, family conflicts and the small pleasures of life in a rural Irish backwater. The inexperienced actors coped well with performing in a very tight space with their audience close enough to touch them. It was a lovely intimate occasion and an honour to see his play performed in the great man’s own home just below the room in which the play was written.

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That was then, this is now





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The lights are on in Duagh Sports Complex

Isn’t it fabulous, a credit to all involved.

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Listowel Emmetts U8 girls

photo from Listowel Emmets Ladies’ Football page

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Drone view of Electric Picnic on Saturday last



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SItZgvYzLLU

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Extraordinary footage here of Ireland’s strongest man, (Michael) Butty, Sugrue;

http://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/The-amazing-tale-of-Irelands-strongest-man-Michael-Butty-Sugrue-VIDEO.html

A match, some changes and a good night in John B.’s

This and lots more great photos from Sunday’s match are on John Kelliher’s page here;

https://www.facebook.com/john.kelliher.79

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This is a photo from the good old days. Ballybunion was still the place to be in the sunshine yesterday.

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A few changes in Listowel’s streetscape

Above is how it was; below is how it looks today. I think most will agree that it’s shaping up nicely.

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Pat Nolan’s and John B.”s were painted over the summer.

One Thursday evening during August I spend a very entertaining few hours in John B.’s.

The Knockaderry and Clouncagh Players were staging John B.’s The Highest House on The Mountain. They made a great job of adapting the play to the venue and we all enjoyed a great night’s theatre.

Billy Keane with the cast.

That was the night on which Billy twinned his pub with De Danu in Toulouse.

Joan Kenny met her cousin, Pat Hartnett, from Ballybunion.

Eoin Hand was there.

Billy gave Trevor a picture of himself as a jester.

Trevor gave Billy a signed Toulouse rugby jersey which he hoped to see hung beside Jonathan Sexton’s one in the corner by the bar.

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