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: Lyreacrompane Page 4 of 6

Mrs Quinn’s, Moyvane Church Builders and Anew McMaster in Listowel

By

On March 2, 2018

In Uncategorized

 Photo: Chris Grayson

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We’re in lockdown

You’ve heard and seen all the jokes about the bread crisis and the overreaction of some people to a few snowflakes, So I’m just going to bring you a few photos I snapped from the internet. The March 2018 blizzard is the stuff of legends.

Barbara Walsh took this at the Conor Pass. Yes, the river is frozen.

Mario Perez posted this photo of stalactites in Ballybunion

Jason ODoherty took this photo of snow on the beach and the sea without a wave in Ballybunion.

Broadsheet.ie spotted this snowman in Inchicore, Co. Dublin.

Conor O’Sullivan just looked out his window in Co. Clare.

But the brave parishioners of Lyreacrompane braved the elements on Wednesday to attend Family Day at their parish retreat.


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A Mrs. Quinn’s Coffee Morning


These local ladies were holding a coffee morning in aid of the Mrs. Quin’s charity. They are Angela, Anne, Theresa and Lesley and the two ladies on the right I can’t name.

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I Love to do my Homework   (Anonymous)


I love to do my homework,

It makes me feel so good.

I love to do exactly

 As my teacher says I should.

I love to do my homework,

I never miss a day.

I even love the men in white

Who are taking me away.

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Moyvane church builders 1957


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From my kitchen table

I persevered with John Boyne’s book even though I hated the glib, almost Ross O’Carroll Kellyesque, style of narration for the first two thirds of the novel. Then I read the epilogue and everything made more sense. It gives an insight, only slightly exaggerated, into an Ireland some aspects of which are best forgotten.

I’ve loved my new mug from day one.

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Anew McMaster in Listowel


I consulted a few Listowel men of a certain age to enquire if they remembered Anew McMaster in the Plaza or The Carnegie Library. Here are three of the replies I got.


Billy McSweeney says:

On checking as much as I could, Anew McMaster toured Ireland between

1925 and 1959 and could have visited Listowel a number of times. Eamon

Keane was born in 1925 and would have been 15 in 1940, before my time.

The McMaster week I remember in the Plaza was during the 1951/52 tour

when Harold Pinter was a member of the troupe.

Jim McMahon says;  

Mary, I do recall some performances upstairs in the library..yes it may well have been the Church St performers. I think my brother Garry may have sang there as a young boy of maybe about 8 years   Also a youth called Will Regan from upper Church St.. I was about 6 or 7 then, probably in the late  1940s. Much more clearly I recall Anew Mc Master’s travelling actors doing Othello and other plays in the Plaza. There must be written records of these around.

Cyril Kelly says:

I too have an atmospheric image of Anew McMaster bestriding the stage of the Plaza like a colossus declaiming iambic pentameters, though about the words he speaketh, I have not the slightest memory. My image of him is something akin to the willowy W.B. Yeats caricature by Max Beerbohm.

And no, I was not among the superior script writers of the day but I do remember paying a precious ‘lop’, complete with copper hen and chicks, to gain admittance to similar back shed productions as Billy.

Graham Norton in Listowel and Lyre children named

By

On June 21, 2017

In Uncategorized

Graham Norton in Listowel


The Graham Norton Interview at Listowel Writers Week 2017 was the big ticket item. I took lots of photos of the local audience as they arrived. Some people I know, some I don’t know,  and some I should know and dont, so I’m giving them to you with no names. You’ll know yourselves and your friends anyway.

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Lyreacrompane schoolchildren




Kay O’Leary of  Lyreacrompane has been on to me about the above photo.

Here is what she wrote;

Hi Mary,

Just seen the photo on your page.  When we held the school reunion some years back we included this photo in the collection of photos we displayed on the day.  We did our best to source the names for each photo but this (below) was the best we could do for this photo.  Maybe some of your fans could provide the missing names.

We enjoy receiving and looking at ‘ Listowel connection’. Kay

Lyreacrompane National School 1950’s

Back Row:           Chris Lyons, Jo Hickey, unknown, unknown, Anne Quille, Mary Ahern, Mary Jo Ahern, unknown, Norrie O’Connell, Bridie Hickey, Unknown.

Middle Row:      unknown, Maureen Murphy, unknown, Mary Rose Doran, Bridie Dillon Angela Sommers, Catherine Canty, Eileen Keane, Margaret Archer, 

                             unknown, Joan O’Donoghue, unknown, unknown, unknown, unknown.

Front Row:          Eileen Murphy, Sheila Hickey, Esther Ahern, Kate Nolan, Mary Anne Joyce, unknown, unknown, unknown, unknown, Marie Doran,  unknown, Kay Doran, unknown, unknown, Breda Nolan, Mary O’Sullivan, Mary Quille, unknown, Mary Murphy, unknown,

                               Helen Joyce, unknown, unknown, unknown, unknown, Martina Cotter, unknown.

Family Communion and Some More people I met at Writers’ Week

By

On June 13, 2017

In Uncategorized

This is a photo from a Lyreacrompane website of children in Lyre school fadó fadó. I thought people might like to be identifying themselves or others.

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Róisín’s Communion


Communions are not what they used to be. My lovely granddaughter made her First Holy Communion in Ballincollig, Co. Cork on Saturday May 27 2017.

She was chosen to sing the responsorial psalm with a tall boy.



She looked sweet and demure and took the whole sacrament part very seriously….and then

Siobhán of Siobhán’s Designer Cakes in Iremore made her unconventional cake featuring her favourite comic character.


The communion loot included fidget spinners, book tokens, Monster High dolls and a Rubix cube


And, of course, some dosh.

We had a communion penata. If you’re not familiar with this communion tradition, it is a hoot. Everyone was on a sugar high after it released it’s bounty of sweets. Then it was time for some Communion Day trampolining with her best friend, Orla.

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More People I met in The Listowel Arms at Writers’ Week 2017


Anne and Liam Dillon and visitors

These men were debriefing after the mornings walk.

Eileen Greaney was having a cuppa and a chat.

Some Listowel and Moyvane people were meeting up with old friends.



These lovely folk were starting a singing session and it was only 12.00 noon.


Christmas memories and more

By

On December 22, 2016

In Uncategorized

1909 Christmas Card  



(From the National Library’s Collection)


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Great Craic at Lyreacrompane Christmas Party

Fr. Seán enjoying the banter in Lyre at Christmas 2016



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Memories of Christmas in Ireland in the 40 and early
50

By Marie (Canty) Sham


Maria grew up in O’Connell’s Avenue Listowel. Here she looks back on a very happy Christmas time

  

I remember

Going to the wood
to cut the holly which grew wild, and the moss to put on the crib.

Christmas Eve
cleaning the house, the excitement of setting up the crib filling jam jars with
sand and putting the candles in them, decorating them with crepe paper, putting
up paper chains, my mother would have made a large Christmas pudding in a
gallon and put it aside

The turkey or
goose was bought at the local market and plucked by our neighbour Bill Boyle. He
must have done it for everyone because the road would be covered in feathers.
The innards were still warm when it was cleaned out, that was all on Christmas Eve
so it was fresh.

We were not well
off but we were lucky as my father was always working, we were not short of anything.
At that time in Kerry there was a lot of unemployment.

The shops mam
shopped in during the year gave a Christmas box. One shop would give tea, sugar
and maybe a pot of jam. That shop was called Jet Stacks and it is not there now.
The butcher Murphy’s would send Danny to deliver us maybe a large piece of lamb,
of course it would be delivered by him on his bicycle with a basket in front

I can also remember
a donkey and cart outside the shops with a tea chest and all the shopping would
be put into it. These people would be from the country and would not come to
town again until after Christmas.

There was a shop
called Fitzgibbons and we would pay in whatever we could afford for toys or
anything else. I paid in sixpence a week for a sewing box and I still had it
when I got married. Mam paid every week for the Nativity figures for the crib I
have never seen anything so beautiful since.

The ham would be
on the boil and with the crib set up. The candles would be lit by the youngest
member of the house, I think at 7o clock

Our clean clothes
would be kept warm over the range ready for midnight mass.

Going out on the
frosty night and seeing all the windows with lighted candles was wonderful.

Home after mass a
warm fire in the range a slice of the ham or maybe a fry! Our stockings would
be hanging at the end of the bed. We did not get much; my dad was very good
with his hands and would make things for us. He made a scooter once and a
rocking horse.

My brother Neil
wanted a mouth organ and it was like the song scarlet ribbons, dad went to so
many shops until he got one for him. I was too young to remember that but mam
told that story.

Christmas morning
I will never forget waking up to the smell of the turkey roasting.

Up quickly and
look if Santa had come, our stockings might have an orange, we always got
something. I remember getting roller skates; I also remember getting a fairisle
jumper from Santa. The problem was I had seen my aunt knitting it. All the
children would be out in the Avenue with their new toys to show off.

Before dinner our
neighbour Paddy Galvin would come in to wish a Happy Christmas and mam would
give him a bottle of stout. I think that was the only time he ever called in.
We would have lemonade and stout in for Christmas.

Dinner was
wonderful, our Mam was a great cook. There was Mam Dad, Nelie, Paddy, Doreen
and myself. My brother Junie came along later, and after we would wrap up warm
and visit the cribs; one in each church, hospital, convent and St Marys and
bring home a bit of straw for our crib which I think was blessed.

More food when we
got home

Bed and looking
forward to St Stephens day and the Wren Boys, no cooking on that day we finished
up the leftovers.

What wonderful
times!

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Giving Back at Christmas




The man on the left is Michael McEnery. He comes from Causeway and now lives in Dublin where he is president of his local Fingal Rotary Club.

This Christmas he is putting his passion for running to use to help others. He is currently undertaking

Kerry Crusaders 200 miles to Freedom

running from Dublin to Kerry to raise funds for Cystic Fibrosis and Cancer charities.

The Ball Alley, christmas is coming and a Lyre path is relaid

By

On October 21, 2015

In Uncategorized

The Ball Alley

This is the old ball alley today. Listowel people, particularly men of a certain age, remember this place with great warmth. I have gleaned Junior Griffin’s memories of the place already and you can read them if you put Ball Alley into the search box on the blog. John Fitzgerald’s poem about the great handballers he watched in this spot is worth a revisit.

The Alley

Standing on the dead line
I

Face the pockmarked wall,


it hides the bridge above me


fond memories I recall,.

The side walls mark the theatre,

the concrete floor the stage,


four players take their places


the finest of their age.


The cocker’s hopped and
hardened,


Junior’s feet fix solidly

he contemplates the angle 
of the
first trajectory.


His swinging arm begins the game


the ball’s hit low and fast,


a signal to John Joe and Tom


this will be no soft match.


Dermot standing by his side


sees his neighbour win first
toss,


a simple game to twenty one


no
ace is easily lost.


I watch them from the grassy
mound


behind the dead ball line


hear the cries of older boys


cheer each one at a time


and in the space of half an hour


the ball has weaved its way


through every nook and cranny


in this battlefield of play.


The long ball to the back line


the close one to the wall


the deadly butted killer 


seemed
to hit no wall at all


and in end the four of them


take leave just as they came


and beckon us to take our place


and learn more of their game,


the game that gave such
pleasure


the game I got to know.


when I was young and full of fun


in the Alley years ago.

The foursome mentioned in the
poem are Junior Griffin, Tom Enright and Dermot Buckley from the Bridge Road
and John Joe Kenny from Patrick Street.


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Listowel Garden Centre is the Place to Come to for Christmas Decorations this Christmas

Sections of the shop are divided according to colour. These are some of the white  decorations. They look really impressive.

These two photos are of the same tree.

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Healyracing Get to Work in some beautiful places




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Lyreacrompane, a Living Community



A meitheal of local men came together to relay the path which was damaged in last month’s storm.







Photos Lyreacrompane Community Development

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