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: Lizzy’s Little Kitchen Page 1 of 3

Castlemagner

By

On May 27, 2022

In Listowel, Personal, Schools

Wild Garlic in 2017

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Now and Then

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Listowel Writers’ Week 2022

In 2019 we took a stroll around The Square with contributions from singers, readers and players. These are the kind people who helped me out then.

They are Paddy MacElligott, Clíona McKenna, Dave O’Sullivan and Éamon ÓMurchú, Mary Fagan, Mary Moylan and Mike Moriarty

This year we will have a slight change of personnel but we’re all looking forward to doing it all again.

Listowel Writers’ Week Morning Walk around Listowel Town Square is planned for Friday June 3 2022 starting at The Listowel Arms at 10.00 a.m.

No charge

A little taster here;

Paddy sings Isle of Hope

Friday promises to be a great day at Writers’ Week. Why not come to town early for the walk and stay for the day. Poets’ Corner in Christy’s with the wittiest of M.Cs, Sean Lyons, starts at 9.00p.m.

Some of the people in the 2019 audience have told me that they will be back again.

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Edel Quinn

I come from Kanturk in Co. Cork but my home was in the parish of Castlemagner. I was back there last weekend for my lovely grand niece’s First Holy Communion.

Jessica Ahern on her First Holy Communion Day, May 21 2022

Castlemagner is also the parish of Edel Quinn and they have erected a little grotto to her in the Church Grounds.

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From Pres. Yearbook 2006

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Laundry for the Elderly

The generous volunteers who work in this vital service attended their annual mass and get together recently.

Standing; Helen Kenny, Majella Stack, Margaret Leahy (hidden), Jenny Tarrant , Eileen Sheehy,  Anne Doran, Bridie ORourke,  Josephine Cronin, Mary Commerford,  Eleanor Cronin, Joan Kenny,  Olwen Keane Stack, Joan O’Donnell,  Bridie O’Connor, Joan Buckley,  Jean Quille, Anne O’Connor,  Margaret Murphy

Sitting; Nora Scanlon , Mary Walsh, Julie Gleeson, Helen Moylan, Fr.  Jack O’Donnell, Mary Hanlon, Norita Keane Killeen 

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A Song, a Story and a Few Shops

By

On July 16, 2021

In Duagh, History, Listowel, Schools

Photo; Chris Grayson somewhere in Cork

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From the Pres. Scrapbook

Winner of An Post writing competition

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Colourful Listowel

Some Listowel traders have chosen really strong bright colours for their recently painted shopfronts.

This is Betty McGrath’s Listowel Florist on Courthouse Road

Lizzy’s Little Kitchen on Church Street

Sheahan’s Grocery on Upper William Street

Daisy Boo Barista on Church Street

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One Hundred Years Ago

As it appears from Duagh School in the schools folklore collection:

The following is a version of a song composed by Timothy Mc Govern in the year 1922, lamenting our betrayal by Mulcahy, Griffith and Collins and also the murder of Jerry Leary and Johnny Linnane by the Black – and – Tans.

The Banks of the Feale

I.

Through the green hills of Kerry my ballads are ringing,

Sinn Féin is my motto and my land “Gránuaile”

The lads and fair lassies my songs will be singing

When I’m laid down to rest on the banks of the Feale.

II.

When I think of the tyrants

the landlords and grabbers

My heart it feels cold and my courage runs down.

Kerry stood first in the red gap of danger

While Murphy encamped on the banks of the Laune.

III

When Mulcahy and Griffith and Collins betrayed us 

And battered the four courts be 

sure ’twas no fun.

The sassenachs helped them with no one to aid us.

While sharp rang the crack of an Englishman’s gun.

IV

Brave Jerry Leary and Linnane 

from North Kerry

And Buckley, that hero of fame and renown,

With bombs and grenades they were killed in a hurry

While Murphy encamped on the banks of the Laune.

V

Sad was my heart at the death  of brave Rory

And Buckley and Traynor and Foley likewise

With bombs and grenades we invaded their stronghold,

Our boys were victorious in country and town.

 VI

Though we laid down our arms we did not surrender

We’re ready to die for old Ireland again

The gallant Republic has men to defend it

Regardless of prison torture and pain.

VII

Here’s to the man who stood first in the ambush

God bless those brave men whom

the traitors shot down

My curse to the traitors who fought for the strangers

While Murphy encamped on the banks of the Laune.

COLLECTOR

Éamonn Ó Corradáin

INFORMANT

Éamonn Ó Corradáin

Relation

parent

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Ploughing the Cows Lawn

The man on the right of this picture is the Thomas J. Murphy, victualler who arrived home to Listowel 100 years ago, having spent none months in Ballykinlar Internment Camp. Thomas was known locally as The Colonel.

The picture was sent to us by Tomas’ grandson, Paul Murphy. Paul would love to know who the other men are or what was the occasion of the photograph. Can you help him?

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In Lizzy’s, Ballybunion Community Market and New Coffee Shop on Church Street

By

On July 9, 2021

In Ballybunion, Listowel

In St. Anne’s Park, Raheny. Photo; Éamon ÓMurchú

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Kildare Staycationers

The Kildare branch of the family love Listowel. Here are Tony and Mary McKenna from Newbridge enjoying lunch in Lizzy’s. Mary was excited to be photographed with celebrity chef, Lizzy Lyons and to meet her in the flesh.

This lovely couple were celebrating 42 years since they first met when Mary joined Bord na Mona in Newbridge and Tony was the first person she met on her first day.

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Three Amigos

Not the three gentlemen of Verona but three gentlemen of Listowel.

Friends, Danny Hannon, Joe Murphy and Jed Chute enjoy a cup of coffee and a natter in Lynch’s, Main Street.

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Memories of a Pres. Operetta

How about this for a trip down memory lane?

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Ballybunion Community Market

This community market is just finding its feet with new stalls being added every week. It is a great way to spend a Saturday morning. It’s in the car park behind the community centre and it starts at 10.00a.m.

I only photographed a small few of the very diverse stalls.

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Daisy Boo Barista

The streetscape of Church Street is changing rapidly. Another welcome new colourful addition is this charming coffee shop with a few extra delights in stock as well

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Listowel Native Doing Well in the U.S.

Cora Creed/Universal Music Group

Cora Creed is the vice president of Digital Supply Chain Management at Universal Music Group in New York. Originally from Listowel, Co. Kerry, she came to the U.S. on a Donnelly Visa and “has never looked back.” She has almost 20 years experience and expertise in business transformation in the digital space, and has worked with leading brands like Napster, Sony, and EMI.

Cora believes that “Despite being one of the smallest nations on earth, [the Irish] have left an indelible mark,” as many aspects of Irish culture “have propagated to the four corners of the world.” She is also struck by the “incredible goodwill towards the Irish” that she finds on her travels abroad.

Cora is also a founding member and sits on the board of directors of Swazi Legacy, a nonprofit organization that assists marginalized and homeless young people in Swaziland. She will help lead a team from New York and Ireland to Swaziland in June to work with orphans at Manzini Youth Center.

Cora is married to Thomas Creed, also from Kerry and still very much considers Kerry home. Her mother Kathleen is from Kerry but now lives in London, and her father, Brendan, was from Dublin.

(From a website called Irish America 2016)

A Colorado Story, Saving the Turf and a Few Shops

By

On June 28, 2021

In Listowel

St. John’s, The Square, Listowel

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Turf Time

Photo: Noel Doyle

Mary and Paddy Tydings have their turf sorted in Dirha bog for this year.

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In Lizzy’s

Lizzy has been mega busy since she relocated to Church Street.

Rose O’Hanlon was one of the many customers who called to congratulate Lizzy and to see her new outdoor dining space. As you can see it’s very continental. The food is as good as ever.

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Colorado and the Cork Connection

“When we lose that chain of connection to our ancestors, through oral tradition, we’ve lost something so much more than information,” James Walsh.

James Walsh is an Irish American and he has made it his life’s work to research the Irish emigrants who made their way to Leadville, Colorado. Walsh discovered that the Irish Americans who descended from the Leadville emigrants knew little or nothing about their Irish connection.

People who have survived horrors often dont pass the the story on to their descendants. The memories are too painful. They just want to move on.

Walsh has spent 20 years researching these emigrants who ended up buried in a paupers’ graveyard thousands of miles away from their native Alihies on the beautiful Beara peninsula in West Cork.

Alihies is a small parish on the beautiful west Cork coast. It is a heavenly place to visit on a summer day in 2021 but in post Famine Ireland it was a poor and inhospitable place to live.

Alihies was the scene of wholesale emigration in the late 1800’s. Not only had the Famine ravaged the population but their one industry, copper mining had gone into decline. They fled to Colorado because it had a silver mining industry and they thought their skills would get them employment there.

“They arrived hungry and desperate and unskilled and uneducated and were ostracized,” Walsh said. “Many fled to places like Leadville because they knew there was a job here for them.” Walsh.

They were largely forgotten about until Walsh’s study of the Irish in Colorado brought him to the mining town of Leadville and to the Evergreen Cemetery.

Using Catholic church records, he discovered that 70% of the “paupers’ buried there in sunken unmarked graves were Irish. Of the Irish buried there the average age is 24 and over half are children.

10% of the population of Leadville in 1880 was Irish.

Leadville is now twinned with Alihies.

I learned this story on RTE radio by chance one morning when I heard Alan Groarke (Moyvane and Colorado) being interviewed about the memorial that the Irish Network in Colorado is planning to build in memory of these poor people who suffered so much. Alan is president of The Irish Network.

Mock up of the Irish memorial

In the centre of the Evergreen Cemetery will be a memorial. A spiral pathway will lead to the top of a mound where a sculpture will sit. It’s reminiscent of ancient Irish burial mounds. The names of each person in the plots will be carved into glass walls or onto plaques.  

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Then and Now on Church St.

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Vaping

This shop on William Street is one of this fairly new chain. CBD and vaping seem to be considered essential now. This shop was allowed to open during lockdown. We’ve come a long way from when this shop was ‘established” in 1853.

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End of the Handball story

By

On June 25, 2021

In handball, History, Listowel

Listowel Presbytery with two church spires in the background

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Artists

On Church Street I met Martin Chute who was planning his sign for Lizzy’s Little Kitchen and with him is Mr. O’Mahoney who is opening his tattoo shop soon. Martin is doing that sign too.

A few days later I observed that the sign was done. Cool!

Lizzy’s is a great addition to Church Street The paintwork and colours are perfect and the sign is everything a sign should be, artistic, clear, well proportioned, uncluttered and tasteful. Well done all.

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Dominican Church, Tralee

This is the corner stone on this magnificent edifice. Below is what it says about it on the Dominican website.

The builder is named as Mr Arthur Crosbie and the cost at about £6000. The cornerstone of the building was laid on 15th August 1866, the Feast of the Assumption, by Mrs Anne Jeffers, wife of the Benefactor.

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In Gurtinard Wood

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same….

Robert Frost

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End of an Era

Junior finishes his story for us;

By the 1970s a new generation of handball lovers had come on the scene. Some of these that Junior remembers are Denny O’Connor, Eddie and Mike Broderick, Charlie Nolan, Tony Stack, Jer Loughnane, Con Gorman, Tony O’Neill, Jimmy Canty. There were many more in this new cohort too. The building of the Community Centre in the mid 1980s drew away from the old alley and handball ceased to be played there.

The new centre had an enclosed 40ft. by 20 ft. court. This was used by handballers but with no club structure it never really took off. Then the community centre courts became squash and racketball courts before they were eventually utilised for other purposes.

By 2008 Junior Griffin was the only surviving trustee of the old handball club. No committee had been formed for years. Junior took advice from former members and from solicitors. He decided to sign over the alley ground, which was purchased by the handball committee in 1962 to the safe keeping of Listowel Town Council. One proviso in the deal was that if ever a handball club was formed in the future, the council would facilitate that club in building a new handball alley.

We are very grateful to Junior for preserving and sharing all of this valuable information about the story of handball in Listowel.

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Many handballers spoke to Caoimhe Coburn Gray for her Coiscéim project. If you are interested in handball at all, especially if, like Michael Enright, it was a big part of your life, you will love reading and hearing handball stories from around the country. You will be struck by the similarities, e.g. Sunday was the big day. Nobody taught you how to play handball. You observed and learned. Rivalries developed into life long friendships.

“Now we’ve two buildings in Ireland that are vernacular to Ireland you will not find them anywhere else – the round tower and the handball alley!”

Here is the link to the marvellous Coiscéim project

Handball Memories, in your own words

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