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: John Molyneaux

An Obituary, a Joke and More

By

On April 28, 2022

In Listowel, Poem, Schools

Knockanure church at Easter 2022 by Jer Kennelly

<<<<<<<<<<<<<

John Molyneaux R.I.P.

David Kissane’s Tribute to the late John Molyneaux concluded

On one particular occasion, my father hadn’t finished the Western he was reading and I went into the college on Saturday Western-less. Scared stiff and I had forgotten the name of the book! If you failed to bring back the book, Mr Molyneaux would ask you what the plot was and who the main characters were. He was not pleased if you weren’t reading these Westerns. Around he came to each desk to collect the books. I could sense a cloud coming over my desk as I struggled to remember the name of the book I hadn’t read! “Well, Kissane, what book have you been reading?” he boomed as I fumbled in my school bag under the desk for the book that wasn’t there. A thick, deep dark silence followed. My fate seemed obvious and inevitable, a feeling so very of those times. Red-cheeked and broken, I called out the name of the only Western I could remember, “Something to Hide” and added with embarrassment, “I think my father borrowed it!” A smile from the teacher and a titter around the class. He passed on but when he was distributing the Westerns a few minutes later for the coming week, he read out the titles so that the students would put up their hands to choose which one they wanted. “And we have one left” he said with a smirk, “Something to Hide”! A dead silence permeated the class and I was ready to sink down through the ground. He allowed the moment to expand as the class awaited an execution! But it was Saturday and all he said was “Kissane, I think you have something to hide all right!” and dropped the book on my desk as the bell was rung outside the door. The great escape.

I read every Western after that and began to manage the complexity that was John Molyneaux.

School days are happening days and very soon after starting in St Michael’s College, the sporting side of John Molyneaux revealed itself to us. It was then his dimensionality was fully experienced. First it was football. With Johnny O’Flaherty, there was a dynamic duo who were charged and innovative in training methodology and intensity. The two Johns taught the full forwards (I was corner forward) to get possession of the long balls sent in and, instead of turning, pass it quickly to the half forwards rushing in. It worked in the Dunloe Cup final against St Brendan’s Killarney in 1970. High ball in from Jerry Kiernan at centre field landed in my hands and I could hear John Molyneaux’s imperious voice on the sideline saying “To Carroll” and before I knew it, I had let the ball into Eamonn O’Carroll’s hands – he was like a jet plane when in flight – and the net was rattled. And the referees were not safe from a Molyneaux-boom if he considered that the whistler was incorrect in his blowing! Total engagement in everything he was involved in. That was the Molyneaux way.

And of course there was athletics. In the mid-1960s, John Molyneaux was the driving force behind the formation of a BLE club in Listowel, assisted by Pat Kiernan, Michael Crowley and Johnny O’Flaherty. St Michael’s College benefitted hugely from the club, and from having the club personnel on the staff. Jerry Kiernan and co were generated. Along with Kiernan, John O’Connell, Pat O’Connell, Eamonn O’Carroll, John Hartnett (our own classmate from the class of ’72) and Gerald Leahy were the young stars of the times. It wasn’t just running…the O’Connells and Hartnett were jumpers of the top calibre. John O’Connell won the All Ireland Colleges gold medal in Santry in June 1970 with a leap of 43 feet 11 and a half inches in the triple jump. There was a broad smile on John Molyneaux’s face that day and for years after. Kiernan’s career is well known and it took Eamonn Coghlan to best him in the All Ireland schools 1500m in 1971 but Jerry was soon to run into legend. Athletics fires lit by John Molyneaux burned for a long time.

From doing running on the football pitch, sometimes without the ball, I was asked by Johnny O’Flaherty to run cross country but compelled by John Molyneaux to compete. And track too and there was the 17 mins something I ran in the 1971 North Munster 5000m to snatch a silver medal at my first North Munster schools attempt behind Mick O’Shea. Hopes were high for the mystical quest of the Munsters but inexperience allowed me to look back a few times on a hot afternoon in Rockwell College track and I got a good look at the leaders pulling away from me. I was bereft. Immediately after the race, John Molyneaux approached me and suggested, with that glint in his eye that “we’ll have to provide you with blinkers the next time, Kissane!” Ice broken. Lesson learned. 

But while dreams were shattered that Rockwell day, a love affair with athletics had begun. It was a treasure John Molyneaux and John O’Flaherty gave me for life. 

On a fine June evening in 1972, our class walked past the budding apple trees outside St Michael’s College for the last time as students. The past had happened and the future was there for the taking. There was no formal goodbye to the teachers but it did dawn on us that something special was being left behind. And special people too, like John Molyneaux.

When the Leaving Cert results reached us in the burning August 1972, there was an A beside Latin on the paper. Vital for college and a grant. My after-vision of John Molyneaux increased even more and his name was mentioned in the celebrations that followed in a Birmingham night club. I even took Latin a subject in first year in UCC but the lectures there never reached the pitch of Mr Molyneaux’s classes and it was jettisoned for second year. 

The next time I met John Molyneaux was in 1979. A fair few of the class of ’72 were also teachers now, scattered all over Ireland. The Clarence Hotel along the Liffey in Dublin and a meeting of the Dublin-based past pupils to assist with the centenary celebrations of the college. St Michael’s had been opened in 1879 in the recycled building that was the Fever Hospital. We never knew that while in the college as students!

John Molyneaux led the committee members who met us that rainy night in Dublin. A chat about how we were faring and it was only then we realised how proficient John Molyneaux was at golf. He was promoting the centenary golf event to be held later. In fact that year, 1979 he was a member of the Ballybunion Golf Club that won the Jimmy Bruen Shield in Portrush. An All Ireland winner. The first team from Kerry to win the honour and John was a key member along with such golfing names as Seán Walsh and Gerry Galvin. The college centenary celebrations were a huge success. Of course they were, with a committee man as effective as John Molyneaux on board.  

Our paths were to cross again when I returned to Kerry as a teacher in 1984. I was representing Tarbert Comprehensive School on the Kerry Colleges Football Board and there was John across the table at my first meeting. A different John now, settled into age and not at the top of the class in front of me. Was still my past-teacher though and he regained his past visage as we got to re-know each other. He was proposing to start a “Silver Circle” fundraising scheme for the Colleges Board. This was something he had been a big fan of and had recruited his students to get involved in over the years. It brought out the sales acumen in many students and accentuated their business skills. It entailed selling lines but with a commitment of a month or so by the punters and an incentive of a percentage stake by the seller. Jerry Riordan from Dromerin was particularly adept at it during our years in the college, partly because the Riordan family had a shop in Dromerin and had a consistent supply of customers. 

John retired in 1990 after a long stint at the profession. He had a long and productive retirement too. He was to be seen in The Town Park (aka the Cows’ Lawn) where he had spent the many happy hours coaching and training footballers and athletes. And he could be seen down by the Feale also. That’s where I met him on that day I last laid eyes on him. 

When a relation, colleague, neighbour, teacher, friend passes away, it is felt by all who are or were acquaintances. When we are shoving on in years, their deaths mean an empty place in the world we know, the irreversible change that lessens what it means to live. That was the feeling I got in the church in Listowel a few weeks ago on the day that John Molyneaux was laid to rest. When Canon Declan O’Connor told the congregation that John Molyneaux was the only son of an only son, was born and died in the same house in Charles St in Listowel and was a hard-working parent and husband, as well as an energetic, resourceful and innovative community and club man, it seemed strange that we hadn’t known some of these facts before. As students we had known only a fraction of the man he was. 

But many people who are gone still continue to grow in our existence. In our after-image of them, we often understand the whys behind the whats. Some of these people indeed become legends. John’s positivity for everything makes him eternal. As John Milton said “Hope proves a person deathless”.

John Molyneaux. Semper Invictus. Always undefeated.

<<<<<<<<<

A Laugh for You

<<<<<<<<<<<<

Junior Infants

Junior Infants in Presentation Primary School from the 1983 School yearbook.

<<<<<<<<<<

<<<<<<<<<<

Our Outdoor Dining and Performance Space

The promise:

Kerry County Council has received funding to provide a covered outdoor meeting, dining, and performance area at the existing pedestrian area in the Square in Listowel.

It’ll comprise three 7×7 metre covered structures on steel frames, LED lighting, as well as seated benches and picnic benches.

The story so far

I don’t like to be negative about a new initiative but I’m disappointed. The covers are more for ornament than use. They may protect you from the sun but they won’t keep out the rain or the wind.

However the project is not finished yet. There are lights to go in and the seating to be restored.

<<<<<<<<

Tinteán

By

On April 27, 2022

In Ballybunion, Listowel, Schools

Easter altar in Ballylongford photographed by Helen Lane

<<<<<<<<<<<

John Molyneaux R.I.P.

This photograph was shared by Martin Moore. A young John Molyneaux is on the right in front. Martin’s Dad, Michael Moore R.I.P. is in the centre at the back.

David Kissane’s Tribute to his former teacher, John Molyneaux continued;

We take up the story here at David’s first days in St. Michael’s.

….

The teachers strode in in turn as the classes revealed themselves. In strode Mr John Molyneaux through the door on our left for our Latin class. Head down, full stride, total silence and up to put his back to the blackboard. He exuded authority. The type of authority that God had in the Old Testament. Lists of books and accoutrements were delivered and warnings about homework and dedication as Mr Molyneaux scanned the class for possible trouble. Or worse. Laziness. Yes sir, we understood what was required. The weight of the college began to be felt. We felt a funeral in our brains as Emily Dickinson had written to the west in the US.

And for the five years that most of our class of ’72 spent in the two upstairs rooms in St Michael’s College, John Molyneaux was a teacher. First and foremost as our Latin teacher, a subject he imparted with the timorem dei (fear of god) that the Roman emperors whom he taught us about had possessed. The amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant that was drilled into us, by both Mr Molyneaux and ourselves, frightened and excited us all at once as he word amo means “I love” and encouraged all sorts of possibilities in our hungry minds. He had an ice of character when teaching in those early days. Roman history was more interesting and the perusing of our text “The Story of the Roman People” by Tappan was immediately a hit with boys interested in war and fighting. We grew into the Latin and the other subjects by hook and by crook. Vercingetorix, Hannibal, Cato, Pompey, Crassus, Romulus and Remus, Lucullus, Cicero, Augustus, the Carthaginians and the Vandals. They became part of our psyche and brought us into a world of battles and wars of the past as the Vietnam war was part of our present in the late 1960s and early 1970s. 

Mr Molyneaux also grew as a character and had his bridging nuances when required. One phrase of his became legendary: “Oh ho!” It was often uttered when a student had made a slip-up in an answer and could have unfortunate consequences but was also used in humorous tales that he would refer to in the course of an aside to the regular routine. When Julius Caesar was faced by daggers, and Brutus (his so-called friend) was among them, the emperor was heard to say “Oh ho!” before the eternal “Et tu, Brute!” According to Mr Molyneaux.

And then there were the English derivatives of Latin words that he usually found a funny angle to explain. When clarifying that the word bullet came from the Latin word for a locket, “bulla” he would have us know that a locket was a shell-like object with a charm inside, ie the gunpowder! Smiles and nods all round. A question about the Latin word “mappa” was answered by one student (from Lisselton) by stating that the word “nappy” derived from it, rather than napkin! Not far away though and Mr Molyneaux smiled at the verbal typo. One all.

Old Latin sayings are a treasure trove of knowledge and he provided the key more more than once. There was the “quis costodiet custodes?” one…who watches the watchers? He related a story about a meeting he was at the week before to appoint river wardens for the Feale and had used the saying to remind the meeting of the necessity to keep an eye on the wardens as well! It reminded us that Mr Molyneaux had another life outside teaching and revealed that in fact he was active in numerous committees. A multi-dimensional human being who contributed to the community that he was born into.

We discovered the further versatility of our Latin teacher when he became our English teacher for Inter Cert. He was immersed in the English language and we were amazed that there was another dimension to his classroom self. Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice is especially remembered as the play he shared with us. He enunciated the central theme of the play with incredible expertise and for many of us that was our way into the genius that was Shakespeare: “How many things by season season’d are?” and “the quality of mercy is not strained” still taste to the memory lollipop.

 I can see Mr Molyneaux now sitting on top of a desk at the head of our thick-walled classroom in St Michael’s on an April day with the world waking up outside and inner worlds waking up in all of us. The red-covered Merchant book in his hand and his gifts as a storyteller casting a spell over the hushed room. All teachers are storytellers and John Molyneaux was a gifted one. No videos or opportunities to see the actual play in those days. It was happening on the classroom stage and in the words of the teacher. The climax of the play had arrived. Shylock had demanded his pound of flesh for a loan not returned by Gratiano and the judge Portia had asked the shivering Gratiano to lay bare his chest for the knife of Shylock. We feasted on John Molyneaux’s words as Portia dramatically adds “But in the cutting, if thou dost shed one drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods are confiscate unto the state of Venice”. We were showered with the magic of the words. And the world beyond time and place. Our new world.

The labels of Jew and Christian would be worked out later when our understanding of religion would be challenged in the years ahead, but something magical had happened that day in our English class. In fact, something magical happened in every class most days.

Gradually his influence came to bear in many other ways. His artistic style of hand-writing was emulated by some of us…a not-joined-up style with the peculiar three-pronged independent letter that was copied and used by this student for the rest of his life. The mention of hand-writing may be a mystery to modern students but in the heady days of 1967-1972 it as a status symbol in many ways. It was also the messaging system to girlfriends and pen pals and family.

One of the abiding memories of Mr Molyneaux’s classes is the Saturday morning westerns’ lends. What? Saturday morning? Yeah, we went to St Michael’s for a half day on Saturday for a few years! Westerns? Yeah! Every Saturday at the end of the Latin class, he would bring in a box of Westerns to lend to us for the week. The genre was very popular at the time with boys and men and authors like Zane Grey and Oliver Strange (the Sudden series) were among the most read. In my case my father always read the borrowed Westerns, and the father of my friend Gerard Neville from Inch likewise fed on the books. 

(More tomorrow)

<<<<<<<<<

A New Chapter for Ballybunion’s Tinteán

This huge theatre, 517 seats, has been beset by problems for a long time. It is brave and enterprising of the new committee to take it on and attempt to revive it and fulfill the dream of its founder, Micheál Carr.

The first concert at Easter 2022 was a great success.

Liam O’Connor, Brian Kennedy and Jimmy Deenihan

There is an ambitious programme planned for the coming months. Let’s hope it is a huge success.

<<<<<<<

Meanwhile back in 1968

Once upon a time in Listowel, the highlight of the social calendar was McKenna’s Staff annual Social. You did not have to work in McKenna’s to get a ticket.

<<<<<<<<<<

Ah lads, what’s going on here ?

I hope the further notice is coming shortly.

<<<<<<<<<<<

John Molyneaux R.I.P.

By

On April 26, 2022

In Just a Thought, Listowel, Poem, Schools

Resurrection altar in St. Mary’s

This annual display on the side altar, as well as all the symbols of Easter includes animals. flowers, water and light.

<<<<<<

Commemorative Manhole Covers

These permanent memorials of 1916 are literally under our feet in town. I photographed this one on Church Street. Try to notice them next time you are out and about.

<<<<<<<<<<<

Memories of an Influential Teacher

“And still they gazed and still the wonder grew

That one small head could carry all he knew.”

Oliver Goldsmith’s The Village Schoolmaster

The late John Molyneaux had a wealth of knowledge and he imparted it to cohorts of pupils in St. Michael’s. He had a prodigious knowledge of football, running and later golfing strategy.

One of his past pupils, David Kissane, published an obituary to his former teacher on line. I am including it here. As it is very long, I will give it to you in instalments.

Semper Invictus

 A tribute to Mr John Molyneaux, St Michael’s College, Listowel

                                                By David Kissane, Class of ’72

It is fifty years ago since a group of about thirty young fellas headed out the gates of St Michael’s College, Listowel and into the wide, wild and wonderful world of the 1970s. As a member of the class of ’72, there is a compulsion to remember the year and its hinterland. Its place in our layered lives. What contributed to what we are cannot go uncelebrated. It just keeps on keeping on.

But how can one capture the colours and contours, the shapes and shadows of half a century ago when the world had a very different texture to what we perceive now in the bóithríns of age? The ships we sailed out in may be wrecked or dismembered. The ports we set sail from are hidden in the mists of time and memory, and our fellow sailors are scattered.

So where does one begin? 

The writer Colm Tóibín once asked the artist Barrie Cooke how he began his paintings. Cooke answered “I make a random mark on the canvas and see what happens”.

Just as I follow Cooke’s suggestion and type a random “J” on the screen, the phone rings. It is Jim Finnerty from Glouria. I look at my J and wonder if Cooke was right! “There’s a man you knew well after passing away in Listowel” Jim announced. Listowel, I thought out loud as Jim let the news simmer in the wok of my memories. A number of names came to mind before Jim said “John Molyneaux”.

And then my canvas began to fill in. I write the name of Mr John Molyneaux, my Latin and English teacher, my athletics and football coach, and the dam opens. For the five years I spent in St Michael’s College, Listowel, he was an enduring presence, a multi-dimensional man who had a huge influence in our lives for those budding years. An icon.

Of course the first question that challenged my memory was “when did I last see John Molyneaux?”

About three years ago I parked my van down by the Feale off the Square in Listowel. Near Carroll’s Yard. Near the entrance bridge to Listowel Racecourse where you’d hear “Throw me down something!” on race days in sepia Septembers. As I returned to the van with a brand new chimney cowl, I saw him coming along the bank of the river. Lively as always, thoughtful, loaded with intention, energised quietly by the magic of the Feale walk, eyes down. I knew immediately if was him although I hadn’t met him in thirty years or more. 

I almost said “Sir”. There is something un-shielding about meeting our old teachers. For us teachers, there is often a similar feeling when we meet former students.

“Hallo”, I said. He looked up and at me and it was that same look that I had forgotten with the passing of the years. Stored in the subconscious though. A moment of silence. I heard myself say my name. “I know” he said and a pathway opened up between the two of us and five minutes of reacquaintance. The older face transformed itself back through the years and the voice reframed its undeniable Mr Molyneaux-ness. 

“We might have a chat about athletics sometime?” I broached timidly and he nodded. I was talking to the man who helped discover Jerry Kiernan and a host of other athletes. We parted and my day was enriched and changed.

Time and Covid played their cruel games and the chat never took place.

I will regret that for as long as memory is my colleague. 

A group of raw first year students entered St Michael’s College in September 1967 having done an entrance exam the previous May. From the hinterland of Listowel and the town itself. There were only two from Lisselton NS some eight miles away off the Ballybunion-Listowel road. Francis Kennelly and myself, coincidentally from the same townland of Lacca. And distantly related as well. 

The novices of 1967 were the first beneficiaries of Donagh O’Malley’s free education bill with free transport and no fees. Up to then second-level education was the premise of the wealthy. Now we were part of a historical educational development which would change the face of Ireland forever. Educate that you may be free, Pádraig Pearse had said long before he was executed in 1916. 

In we went to the famed, and sometimes feared St Michael’s College, imposing and immobile. Two storeys of history and education above the ground and one storey below looking out on our little minds. Long walk in like an estate house with manicured lawns and apple trees. We were told by those in the know that if we picked the apples that were growing on those trees that autumn that it would have worse repercussions than when Adam was persuaded by Eve to prove his manhood by picking the Granny Smiths in the Garden of Paradise. The principal, Fr Danny Long would punish the picker with impunity. We were herded up the spotted clackety marble stairs and looked down on the trees to our right and pondered the decree of ne tangere. Do not touch.

(more tomorrow)

<<<<<<<<<<

Turf

Photo by Caroline O’Sullivan taken near Listowel

CUTTING THE TURF.

A poem by Martin O’Hara

Ah god be with the

Good auld days. 

And the times, of long ago.

For to get the peat, 

for our household heat, 

To the bog, we had to go.

No modern ways, back

In those days.

All in life, you would require. 

Was a fine turf spade, 

That the blacksmith made. 

To secure, yourself a fire. 

With Patrick’s day, 

out of the way. 

It was time, to make a start. 

With the bike and dog, 

Off to the bog. 

And some, by ass and cart.

From countrywide, to

The mountainside. 

The journeys, would begin. 

To replace once more, the

Old turf store. 

For the wintertime again.

Now the cutting of a

Bank of turf, 

This job was done, with pride. 

The cleaning first, was

Taken off, 

And placed down at the side. 

The peat exposed for 

Cutting now, 

Was cut out, with the spade.

And the sods of turf

Upon the bank, 

In rows, were neatly laid.

With the turf now dry,

 As time went by. 

The footing, would begin. 

From countrywide, to

The mountainside. 

The people came again. 

With pains, and aches, 

And many breaks. 

We stood them, row by row. 

And to season then, they

Would begin. 

Where the mountain breezes

Blow. 

In harvest time, with

Weather fine, 

Once more, we would return. 

The turf by now, in perfect shape. 

Was good enough to burn. 

With the ass and cart, we

Made a start. 

To take them to the road. 

And a stack did rise, 

Before our eyes. 

Growing bigger, with each load. 

Now to take them home, 

For wintertime. 

To the bog, we came

Once more. 

With a fine big stack, built

Out the back. 

We renewed, our winter store. 

That was our way, and

Still today. 

This tradition, carries on, 

but In time they say. 

It will pass away, and

Forever will be gone. 

No bog, no more, for

The winter store. 

Only memories, that

Live on. 

Of our working ways, back

In the days. 

That are now, long past and gone. 

Martin O’Hara   3 /3/2020. ©

<<<<<<<<

Just a Thought

My reflections from Radio Kerry which were broadcast last week April 18 to April 22 2022

Just a Thought

<<<<<<<<

Molly, The Pantomime in the seventies, St. Michael’s Ball in 1999 and a Barn Dance in 2019

By

On February 14, 2019

In Uncategorized

Doggy in the Window

If Molly had a big red button, she’d put it here.



<<<<<<<<

When the pantomime was the talk of the town


<<<<<<<


Year 1987; Photographer Danny Gordon




<<<<<<<


St. Michael’s Black Tie Ball


They’re planning a black tie ball in St. Michael’s. It will be held on March 15th 2019 and tickets are available at the school.

The last time they held such an event was in  December 1999  when the college was celebrating 120 years of education for boys in Listowel.  Here is the souvenir booklet.

<<<<<<,



Barn Dance




I found this photo on Facebook of two happy barn dancers, Patsy Kennedy and Kay Lane at William Street on Friday 8 2019 for Listowel’s barn dance in aid of Listowel Tidy Town’s proposed purchase of a van.

Thade Gowran and John B. Keane and Mike the Pie’s before the All Ireland

By

On September 18, 2015

In Uncategorized

A Lovely Little Corner of Town



<<<<<<<

Promising Golfer with a strong Listowel Sporting Pedigree


John Molyneaux Jr. goes to US on Golf Scholarship

John, son of Des and Elaine Molyneaux, and grandson of John and Georgina Molyneaux Charles St., and Tommy and Alice Sheahan of the Square, having just completed his Leaving Certificate has now joined Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina on golf scholarship where he plans to complete a Business/Finance Degree. John spends his summers and as much time as he can at other times of the year in Listowel with his grandparents and in Ballybunion.  Having played golf as a tot with his grandfather on the bag at the now closed Listowel Golf Club he subsequently joined Ballybunion Golf Club. In the last couple of years he won an All-Ireland Junior Cup Winners medal in 2013 with the Club, is the 2014 Club Scratch Match Play winner, 2014 Kerry Boys Championship runner up, and was named the 2015 Club Junior Captain.  This summer he played on Ballybunion’s 2015 Munster pennant winning Junior Foursomes team and for Munster in the 2015 U18 Irish Interprovincial Golf Championship.

Footnote: John attended secondary school at St. Benildus College in Dublin, which has had a long-time Listowel connection through now retired teacher Maurice McMahon and author of “Mr Mac – A Blackboard Memoir”.


<<<<<<<

Thade Gowran Descendants


Thade Gowran was a naive poet born in Meenscovane, Duagh. Thade, “was a part-time labourer, water-diviner, ballad-maker, composer and holder of Raffles at his cottage home in Knocknacrohy. He died at the youthful age of fifty seven probably from acute ulcers. He is remembered as a pale-faced, rather lanky man, the kind of man country people would describe as rawly.”  John B. Keane.


Thade was constantly writing verse and thankfully he wrote his compositions  down. So, unlike Paddy Drury, a local poet of similar ilk, his ballads have survived to this day . 


Thade’s descendants are anxious to learn more about him and to keep the memory of their famous ancestor alive. To that end Fran Blyth and family came to North Kerry this summer. They felt at home and connected to the landscape here. They’ll be back!



Michael, Alexis and Sean, great great great grandchildren of poet and balladeer, Thade Gowran at his plaque in Duagh earlier this year.

This is Thade Gowran’s granddaughter, Hannah Flaherty who passed away in 2003. She never forgot her Irish roots and her famous grandfather.

Fran Blyth with her mother, Hannah Flaherty R.I.P. on a previous visit to Ireland.

Hannah Flaherty Bardsley on her wedding day. Note the horseshoes which all brides used to carry (for luck) back in the day.

Thade Gowran was a great composer of impromptu verses. He followed in the ancient bardic tradition of writing ballads to chronicle the story of the times he lived in and the people who shared the locale with him.

Below is his poem about a neighbour of his who married late in life.

“I’ll sing a song about a man, O’Connor James is he,

A man who led the airy life to the age of sixty three.

One day as he sat in his lonely cot the sun was shining grand,

His temperature was rising high and the heat he couldn’t stand.

The day passed on and night came on the ramblers they showed up,

The brothers Keefe, Tom Danagher, Jeff Morrissey and Buck.

‘Cheer up’

Says Tom to Jim, ‘Cheer up again and aise your troubled mind,

The first of May’s not far away and a wife for you I’ll find.’

They tackled up Tom Frank’s grey steed as the bells did loudly ring,

And heading out beyond Knockmaol the arrived that night in Glin.

They got a great reception, they got porter by the tierce,

And then and there poor James did swear he’d marry Minnie Pierce.

But now that he is married his troubles are not o’er,

For when he’s out he wants no man to stand inside his door.”

John B. wrote of Thade Gowran;

“Thade Gowran never had a poem published in his lifetime. The intellectuals or so-called intellectuals of the time were trying to move away from the folksy rhymes which were so popular in the countryside. It was the dawn of modern verse, most of which was without rhyme or reason. The more nebulous and meaningless the poem the more praise was heaped on the head of the composer. Anything which was easily understood was frowned upon. There were some honourable exceptions but by and large there was little room for Thade Gowran’s ballads in the papers or magazines of the time. In fact, Thade would be looked upon by his urban contemporaries as a bit of a hick. His work failed to confuse and was, therefore, of little importance to those who might have encouraged its publication.

It is a shame indeed that he was not taken seriously beyond the countryside. Whatever it about the urban Celt there is a destructive drop in him which has little tolerance for his rustic brother or for his own beginnings.”

<<<<<<<



A Little Hubris for All Ireland Weekend?







<<<<<<<<<


Pinning his colours to the mast





Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén