Lower Church Street in April 2023
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Friday Market
Our Friday Market in The Square has been slow to get back on its feet after Covid. There were only three stalls there on the April Friday I visited. Hopeful we will soon see the market back to full strength and maybe even with a bit of music.
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Trees on Listowel Pitch and Putt Course
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President Biden, A Listowel Connection
I’ve posted this before but it is timely to post again.
Eamon OMurchú in 1974 is seated on the steps of Capitol Hill with Senator Joe Biden.
Here in Éamon’s words is the story behind the picture:
During the summers of 1974, 1975 and 1976, it was my pleasure and privilege to act as Group Leader on Summer Teacher Programmes to University of Delaware, U.S.A. Teachers from first-level, second-level and third-level from Irish Schools, Colleges and Universities participated in these programmes on Comparative Education. A central element of these programmes was that we stayed at weekends with host-families. It was my privilege to stay with a family in Wilmington each year – and I am ever since in very close contact with that family. Another element of the programme was a five-day stay in Washington D.C., during which we visited the White House, the Capitol, the Irish Embassy, the Kennedy Centre, Arlington Cemetery and other locations of importance and of interest.
It was also my privilege to greet Ted Kennedy on the steps of the Capitol in 1975 – and I also have a photograph of that occasion!
Through these teacher programmes many Irish teachers during the 1960s and 1970s had the opportunity to visit the United States during the summer, study at American Universities, stay with American families, learn about the American educational system and way of life, while at the same time bringing to America the rich cultural heritage of music, song and literature here in Ireland. We used every opportunity to do this. The man who spearheaded these programmes was Mr. Stephen Daly of ITP Travel, Terenure, who, sadly, is no longer with us.
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In Tralee
I took this photo recently of The Kerryman building in Tralee. What a lovely old streetscape, well preserved.
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A Lorgadawn Hurler in Kilbaha
(From Kilbaha School in the Schools’ Folklore Collection in the National Library)
One day below in Mick Hanrahan’s field there was a hurling Match and a lorgadán came out of the ditch with a hurley, and he sided up with one team and it was him that was hurling all the time, so the two teams said they would play the lorgadán and as fast as he would hurl the ball he would have it hurled again before it would reach the ground so it was him that won. Then they all gathered around him to catch him but when they were near him he leaped over their heads and went nto the ditch.
This tale was told to Patrick Kennelly to Patrick McMahon
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A Fact
Leonardo da Vinci was one of the most extraordinary people who ever lived. He was a painter, sculptor, architect and engineer.
He was the first to record that the number of rings in a cross section of a tree trunk reveals its age. He also discovered the the width between the rings indicates the annual moisture.
His party trick… he could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time.
He could also bend iron with his bare hands.
Extraordinary or what?
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