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
Aoife in St. John’s for her first ever experience of a live performance
Mr. Bubbles was brilliant and held his young audience enthralled.
We met Sinead Bunyan and family in The Square
David Browne and Jimmy Hickey
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From the Schools Folklore Collection
School: Cnoc an Iubhair (C.)
Location: Kealid, Co. Kerry Teacher: Máire Ní Cheallacháin
A True Story
There lived in Carrueragh at one time a man by the name of Costello with his two children.
He lived in a farm out of which another family had been evicted by the Landlord Blacker Douglas.
The White Boys had determined to murder everybody that had anything to do with the Landlord and so they came to the house of the poor man who was a widower. They took him a little distance from the house and killed him.
The two children cried until they were hoarse and the hoarseness never left them.
As the man was dying his blood spattered on a stone beside him, and the stone is still there bearing the name of “The blood stained stone”.
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A Few Friday Racegoers
These three ladies should have been in the final shake up for Best dressed. Imelda Murphy, Faith Almond and Maria Stack all know a thing or two about styling, tailoring and millinery.
Niamh Kenny was accompanied by her lovely daughter. Niamh wore a hat in the shape of a quill as a nod to Listowel’s literary heritage.
This hat was chosen by the judges as the most creative headgear. It was created by Cathríona King of Galway.
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Legendary Football Teams
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Launch of Moments of Reflection
Me with Mary Fagan who was the special guest on the night
Me with my good friend, Margo Anglim
Miriam, who loves Listowel and comes back as often as she can. Dulce, who loves Listowel and has come to Listowel to live.
Robert and Eileen Bunyan
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Promoting my Book
I was in Abbeyfeale on a wet afternoon last week.
An Siopa Milseán is like taking a step back in time….lovely shop, lovely stuff, lovely people
If you live in Abbeyfeale and you’d like to buy a copy of Moments of Reflection, this is the shop for you.
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A Fact
Coffee consumed in large doses can be lethal. 10 grams or 100 cups in four hours can kill the average human being.
Health Warning; This fact was sourced in a book of trivia. Under no circumstances should anyone put this “fact” to the test.
In the wildflower meadow in Childers’ Park in August 2024
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In the Playground
Aoife brought a towel to the playground on Saturday, August 24 2024.In summer 2024 a girl has to be prepared for wet conditions.
Maybe it’s a combination of Kildare and Listowel influences but she loves a ride on anything resembling a horse.
She dried the slide before having a go.
She did her best with the swing but, by now, the towel was saturated.
She loved this musical instrument. Wet or dry this functioned.
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Best Dressed Lady
Maria Stack of Listowel took the title of Best Dressed at Limerick show at the weekend. Maria made her own hat.
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In the Paper
In Saturday’s Irish Examiner there is a section for readers’ photographs. In that section on last Saturday was a reader’s photograph of our own Matt Mooney whistling away, oblivious of the camera, at the recent fleadh in Wexford.
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Drunk
Last week I brought you 20 of the 30 words for drunk. When he read this, Mick O’Callaghan was inspired to write the following.
The Demon Drink
I was having a drink many moons ago in the IFI social club in Lamberton, Arklow and a man came in enquiring if his friend was on the premises. The barman told him that he was gone, and our man asked if was long gone. The barman’s response is still stored in my memory bank. Well, he said Johnny was nearly gone when he came in, but he went home before he was fully gone. That was his way of saying that Johnny was fairly drunk or ar meisce when he arrived but left before he was fully polluted.
Isn’t it absolutely amazing how many ways you can say that a person was drunk like maith go leor or he was stocious or legless or footless, langers, out of his/her skull, fluthered or just locked. In answer to questions about what state people were in after a few bevvies people could say s/he was three sheets in the wind, twisted, staggering, in the staggers, all over the place or legless.
These were moderate terms for peoples whose alcohol infused brains had upset their equilibrium a bit but then you can go up the scale and describe people as twisted, jarred, pissed, half cut, polluted, scuttered, ossified
Then you can go into the upper stratosphere of drink and drunk terminology when you say a person was paralytic, shit faced, rat arsed, bollixed.
I think I heard a lot of terms as I grew from boy to man. There was a certain bravado in saying you were drunk, buckled, locked, plastered, or whatever other endearing term was used for being maith go leor and that you didn’t remember anything from the night before. Little did we know what damage we were doing to our brains and general body health. There wasn’t the same awareness of health and the damaging relationship with alcohol. It was the rite of passage to go out for a night and get polluted.
Nowadays there is a much greater awareness of fitness and health and healthy living which are improving the quality of lives and living standards. Younger people are more attracted to gyms, sports arenas and the café culture preferring the skinny latte to the pint of beer.
The pub culture is no longer as popular as it was. I was listening to the radio today and they were speaking about the staggering fact that nearly 2000 pubs had closed in the past 20 years. They also referred to the statistic that alcohol consumption was at its lowest level in Ireland for 35 years and that we have turned into a wine consuming nation. There is also a far greater acceptance of zero alcohol drinks and drink driving is frowned upon. Worryingly there is an increase in the use of social drugs.
We are known all over the world for our love of the jar, and our pub culture but it sure seems to be changing. The takeaway is cheaper than the pub. Everything is getting more expensive from groceries, cars, fuel and housing. All these are putting pressure on people’s wallets and an increasing number of people are putting the demon drink well down the priorities on the shopping list. We will be a better off, healthier people because of this change in culture and lifestyle. Let’s hope it continues.
Mick O Callaghan
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A Fact
Between 1880 and 1916, the legal time in Dublin was set at Dunsink Observatory and called Dublin Mean Time. This time was 25 minutes 21 seconds behind Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).
Recycling Centre, Nolan’s Carpark in February 2024
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My St. Brigid’s Weekend
I spent St. Brigid’s weekend with a Brigid, known as Breeda.
Here I am in The Vintage with some of my Kanturk friends, Breeda, Lil and Margaret.
The Vintage is a lovely bar and restaurant beloved by Kerry people passing through Kanturk on their way to or from the Munster capital.
Our next stop was The Glen Theatre in Banteer. Breeda had given me a ticket to Seán Keane for Christmas.
He sang all the old favourites. He was suffering from some lurgy but he was determined to power through. We helped him out. It was a great night in a lovely intimate venue among my own people.
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An Spideog
David Kissane’s story of running and musing continued…
Cork poet Seán Ó Ríordáin declared in on of his inimitable works “Ba mhaith liom breith ar eirbeall spideoige”…that he wanted to catch a robin’s tail, a metaphor for attaining spiritual insight.
The robin worked for me today and before long, somebody was putting a medal around my neck and a small bottle of milk was in my hand in the district of Lios an Phúca (the fort of the ghost) which is the Irish for Beaufort.
But that’s another story!
Leaving Torun
Which brings me back to the day I was leaving Poland last March after the World Masters Indoor Championships.
On the taxi across the Wisla (the river I had crossed many times during the days in Torun) we passed the statue of Pope John Paul 2nd. For some strange reason, as I looked more closely at the statue, the peace and knowingness captured by the sculptor on the face of the last most popular pope reminded me of a painting we have on our hall wall in Ardfert. Bought in Blackrock Market in Dublin some twenty years ago. It is an oil painting by an unknown artist called Gunney.
It depicts an apparently retired man, painted from behind him, sitting in a wicker chair with legs crossed in a neatly kept garden. He is well dressed in a pale blue suit and wearing a straw hat in the heat of a summer day. He is calmly reading a book and his body-language suggests a life well-lived and all battles won. His garden gate is open, suggesting a freedom to come and go as you please. In the near distance there is a blue lake with a green island rising into a azure sky.
When I first saw the painting in the art and crafts section of Blackrock market coming up to my own retirement as a teacher in Tarbert Comprehensive, I wished that man could be myself a few years after retiring. Reading a book in the afternoon sun. Beside a blue sea. Spirit-free. But here I was thirteen years after retiring, and well, yes I have a reasonable garden and I do live reasonably near the sea, and yes, I see islands under a blue sky not far away, and I do have loads of books to read…but I cannot recall too many days sitting down on a wicker chair or any other type of chair reading a book in the heat of the afternoon. I’d prefer to go for a run! In fact, as my friendly Polish taxi driver pulled up beside the stadium, there was no place on earth I’d rather be on the anything-but-mundane-Monday in March 2023 than where I was. Ready to compete in the world masters indoor championships.
In fact, I had a crazy imagino-insight on the way into the stadium: that after the man in the painting had sat for the artist for a few hours, and the painting was complete, that he whipped off his pale blue suit and threw his straw hat into the blue water and slung his book and let out a barbarous roar and ran naked through the garden, jumped the well-kept hedge and headed off to the island and wasn’t seen till supper.
Way to go, man. Motion is lotion. Rest is rust.
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Another Gem from the old Yearbook
Aine Dillon on Paddy Drury
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+Mary O’Halloran R.I.P. +
Lovely, elegant, sylish, gentle, energetic Mary O’Halloran passed away peacefully on February 3 2024.
When Mary set up her Facebook page she called it Mary’s Classic Style. That was Mary, clasically stylish yet down-to earth and practical.
I got to know Mary through meeting her with my old neighbour Anne Leneghan and her Listowel friends every year on The Island. I photographed her many times, the last time with her beautiful daughter, Louise.
Mary had all the style and confidence of a successful city businesswoman but she never forgot her Kerry roots.
She loved every racecourse she visited and she loved all their Ladies Days but I think Listowel held a special place in her heart.
Mary’s warm nature won her many friends among the ladies of the Best Dressed circuit. She stayed apart from any of the cattiness that inevitably ensues when you put people in competitiion with one another. She was supportive of her fellow contestants and, in the true spirit of competition, she loved taking part.
Mary was dealt the cruellest of blows with the diagnosis of MND. She was the epitome of resilience as she got up, dressed up and showed up for as long as humanly possible. Mary had just retired and had launched into a great third age doing the things she loved with the people she loved when the dreadful news broke. I’m glad she got to travel and enjoy a few items on her bucket list.
In the courageous way she dealt with her illness, Mary evoked admiration in everyone who knew her.
Mary will be missed by her grieving family, by her many many friends and by all of us who came within her stylish orbit on the racecourses of Ireland.
Guím leaba i measc na naomh is na naingeal duit, a Mhary dhíl.
Martin Chute’s mural is on my way to town so I stopped by often to document progress. One day as I observed Martin putting the finishing touches to his masterpiece, the lovely Anne Marie ORiordan passed by. She stopped to admire the artwork and she kindly posed for a photo with Martin. Anne Marie had fond memories of that back lane in the days before Listowel murals when she and her friends were caffling and having fun. She remembers the odd stolen kiss in the nearby carpark too.
Martin’s work will evoke memories for many.
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Mystery Solved
Joe Cahill did the research for us;
M.J. Reidy was a writer known as Mossien Tommy Reidy from Cordal. He passed away on 1988.
Joe found him on a site called Find a Grave where people are invited to share memories of the dead loved one.
Here is what a relative wrote about our poet.
From “The Claddagh” a family newsletter for the O’Flaherty Reunion in Fort Valley, VA, in May 2000. Maurice J. Reidy, Poet and non-fiction storywriter. Known as “Mossien Tommie” Reidy, this was a term of endearment to those around Castleisland, Co. Kerry, Ireland, where he grew up. He was a local sports hero while in the secondary school system and later his work was used in the school curriculum. He grew up near Cordal where both sets of his grandparents had lived. He was the son of Helen Flaherty Reidy and the grandson of Maurice Flaherty, the youngest brother of my great-grandfather, Daniel. Declan Horgan, a retired school teacher from Tralee, some 25 miles away to the west, said that his writings were very good but his antics were just as meaningful to locals. He related two stories about “Moss” that we would find of interest. It seems when Mossien developed an interest in horse racing and began to trade and build his stables he had no “colours” for his jockey. Since this was more or less a “Landed Gentry” sport he was probably ridiculed. Since our cousin was a great athlete in his own right he had a friend on the All-Kerry Football (soccer) team. This friend loaned him the green and gold jersey and this allowed him to meet the “Rules of the sport”. Don’t believe Mr. Horgan said whether he won or lost that day but he won over 200 races in his shortened life. Another story was: It seems in the medical system in Ireland, like England and Canada, one has to wait their turn for care, unless it is life threatening. It happened our cousin needed a hernia operation and while on a trip to Dublin, feigned a collapse on a downtown street where he was taken to the local hospital and they fixed his problem on the spot. Doesn’t that sound a great deal like Uncle D.C.? Later I ask his brother John if this was all true and he said, “It tis.”, as a big smile spread across his face. M. J. Reidy was the author of the followingworks: Borders of Hope (1978), Borders of Joy (1975), First collection of stories (1978), Mirror of Truth (1980), Rays of Cheer (1978), (1979), Pleasant Holidays (1983), Shades of Fancy, with Jacinta O’Manoney, (1981), The Kerry Piper (1974).
From Mirror of Truth we include a small sample: Ode to Poetry
Oh, you, the one true art from high To mortal ever given, Such sweet fond music from the sky With jewelry of Heaven. Your sacred light, Keep blazing true, When injured here below. You tended, this life’s hospital, With care, for pain and woe, Your oil and wine will polish mind, And brightly cheer alway. And only refuge each one find, To help all night and day. Thy blush, one fond, true friend can find, To speak the color of your mind.
I was fortunate to have read most of his work at the Trinity College Library while my wife, sister and niece were out shopping all day. It left me feeling a small portion of the loss his family must have felt in his passing. His sisters, Julia and Kitty, along with a brother, John, still live in the old Reidy homestead at “High Trees”, Glenlaran, Cordal, Castleisland, Co. Kerry. He left a son, Dan, and a daughter, Helen, as well as, six grandchildren. May he have eternal peace with our Lord and Savior.
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Last few Races photos
Clíona met up with Mary Ellen and Aisling
Anne met Bridget and Carmel
In John Kelliher’s photo are Imelda, Joan, Julie, Helena and liz, just some of the local Tidy Town people who organise what was always my favourite event of Race Week. These people have no part in the judging. That is done by fashion experts and a representative from An Taisce.
I didn’t go on Saturday this year because the weather forecast was for very bad weather. I stayed home, child minding. I depended on Clíona, Breda and of course, John Kelliher, for news of the day.
Playing This little Piggy with Aoife
This event is all about reusing, up cycling and making fashion sustainable. Vintage has now become mainstream so it was no surprise to me that a professional upcycler took the prize.
These are some of the finalists. Cathy Troth, second from right, came first.
The very stylish John and Viveca both won prizes, John was the best dressed man and Viveca came second in the ladies’ section.
Here I must give a shout out to local girl, Maria Stack. Maria is a dedicated upcycler and reuser. She is a great supporter of this competiion. She has entered it every year since it first began. She not only wears the vintage outfit but she sources gloves, bag and other accessories. This year she wore a beautiful tara brooch which was a prize won by her mother. She always has the provenance of her attire and she has the best stories. Every year she makes the final but she just can’t win.
Another stylish lady who just can’t win is my friend, Anne Leneghan. This year she was too late to be considered.
The Small Square looking towards the Square in August 2023
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A Beautiful Shopfront in Main Street
The colourful corner pieces at either side of the nameplate are unique to here. Notice how Martin Chute signed his name in tiny writing. He should be announcing it loud and proud. Beautiful paintwork!
The sign writing is superb.
Wow!
My photographs don’t so it justice.
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The Carnival
In 1940s rural Ireland the annual village carnival was often the social highlight of the year. My interest in revisiting this phenomenon came about because of this photo.
To recap, this is Maria Stack wearing a vintage dress first worn at a carnival queen dance in 1948.
I enlisted help and went on a search for the back story. Thank you Margaret, Lisa and Anna for the hard work and the enjoyment.
The information about this carnival came from this invaluable local journal published in 1990, full of great local lore. The book is, of course, no longer available, but Anna in Kanturk library sourced the article in the local studies archive.
The carnival in question was held in Kilcorney, Co Cork in 1948. This was the second year of the holding of this three-day event. The selection of the carnival queen and her ladies -in- waiting was made at a dance in early June. The 1948 Kilcorney Carnival Queen was the lovely Mary Ring of Horsemount. Margaret, her daughter, took this photo out of its frame to photograph it for us.
The photograph was black and white but had some colour added later. Behind the photo in the frame was this.
A precious souvenir of one of the highlights of a young girl’s life.
The queen and her ladies were dressed in regal costumes with crown and sceptre for the festival as they presided over events like horse trotting, climbing the greasy pole, football matches and in 1948 a huge attraction was the mysterious Madam Know all, who, with the covert aid of a local assistant, could read very accurate fortunes in her crystal ball.
The Queen for the duration of the festival travelled on horseback or was carried with her royal entourage in “a four wheel car pulled by two beautiful steel grey horses”. The car was usually used for carting milk to Rathcoole railway station.
I loved reading the journal’s detailed account of the carnival and its picture of rural life in the days before mechanisation and technology.
There were carnivals and carnival queens in the areas around Listowel. Id love to hear the stories or see the photos.
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There’s No Place Like Home
John McElligott welcomes home his niece, Helen (Gore) Mitchell.
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They Did It!
Photo from the official announcement on Aug 26 2023
This extraordinary bunch of people organised a day Listowel will never forget. They assembled a record breaking number of people dressed as Dolly Parton in Páirc Mhic Shithigh, Listowel on June 25 2023. In the process they raised €74,670 for two great local charities, Kerry Hospice and Comfort for Chemo. 1,137 people took part in the fun challenge and many more made donations.
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A Fact
This “fact” was sourced in a book called “Strong Absorbent Trivia for the Toilet” so don’t blame me.
On average a woman utters about 7000 words in a day while a man uses just over 2,000.
