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: Listowel P.O.

Kissane Gathering, Some old ads and Listowel Post Office today.

Someone brought his tiger to the beach again.

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From Time Travel, Kerry




Bridge Road, then and now.

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Back to 1960


Kay Caball kept this programme from 1960. It was great value for two shillings. It is full of little interesting tidbits for the local historian.

I am fascinated by the language of the advertisements. Is there such a thing  as a Draper’s Shop any more? My late mother served her time for 7 years in one such shop. If you told her the size of your window she could cut your curtain material ready for you to sew. She knew the “secret” price marking system so that she could calculate the discount for the regular customer.  She wrapped and unwrapped everything in brown paper and tied it up before returning it to the shelf. If she had a spare minute (which was seldom) she had knitting at the ready out of sight of the customers. There was a men’s side and a women’s side in Crotty’s of Kanturk (that is where she worked). She never ventured to the men’s counter except as a customer.

It seems now like another era.







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Kissane Gathering….the schedule


This is what Eamon Ó Murchú writes:

“The Kissane Gathering is commencing on Friday 7th August with a banquet in the Listowel Arms Hotel when up to three hundred people, from home and abroad, gather to celebrate their Kissane connection. The Gathering continues on theSaturday with the launch of the family tree by Eileen Walsh, from Ballybunion.  This will also take place in the Listowel Arms Hotel.  Later on the same day we will have the celebration of Mass for the Kissane descendants in Ballybunion.  The Gathering concludes on the Sunday  (9th)with the “scattering” in Coolahan’s bar in Tarbert.  Further information about the Gathering is available from Eileen Walsh, 087 981 7053.

It is my pleasure to hold a photographic exhibition to mark and celebrate the Gathering.  The exhibition will contain ninety photographs of the Kissane family – thirty from each of the three branches of the family, Kilcox, Kilgarvan and Lacca.  Some of these photographs date back to the 1800s and early 1900s, and is, a remarkable and valuable family archive that I have been collecting and editing for the past two years.

This exhibition will be on display before and after the Gathering.  It will be launched by Minister Jimmy Deenihan on Sunday, 2nd August at 19.30 in the Gallery of the Horse Shoe Bar in William Street, Listowel.”

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Listowel Post Office Then and Now


At the left in this photo are the remains of the two telephone boxes. These were later blocked up completely.

Today’s much smaller post office in the foyer of Garvey’s Super Valu

Christmas in Galway, Listowel and Ballyduff, Turfcutting and Listowel Post office on the move

Galway, December 2014

(Photo; Tourism Ireland)

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Listowel, Christmas 2014


The door of the Seanchaí looks suitably festive

I met Junior Griffin on his way home from Mass. He is top of my hit list for 2015 to raid his photo albums and pick his brains for old Listowel stories….A great Listowel man who has given much to the town.

Maguires

Jim Halpin has a lovely window dressed in tribute to the Christmas truce of 1914.

Words are inadequate to describe this shocking loss of young lives.


It’s the little things that tug at the heartstrings

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Ballyduff Church, Christmas 2014



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Turf Cutters in Good News Story


I read this story on Denis Carroll’s page on Facebook. Last summer Damien Stack and the gang at the Stack Clan Gathering thought up a great novel activity for the visiting clan members. The activity took place on Seamus Stack’s bog. Experienced turf cutters, ‘helped’ by some enthusiastic visitors, cut and footed the turf in the old fashioned way with sleáns and donkeys. The turf, when dried, was put up for sale and the money raised was donated to the Nano Nagle School.

 Seamus Stack on whose bog the turf was cut, Johnny Ryan who bought the turf and Damien Stack of the Stack Clan Gathering.             (Photo; Denis Carroll)

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On the Move

Listowel Post office is moving to a new location next week. It will now be housed in a premises in the Super Valu complex in Market Street.

Below is the Sluagh Hall which was sold this week. So that makes two William Street landmarks gone in a week.

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Listowel Railway Station is long gone from this corner of town

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A Different Kind of Christmas Photo



Another great Healyracing picture from Willie Mullins yard.

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