Tag: Mary Sobieralski

A Book Launch and a Schmozzle

By listowelconnection

On October 1, 2024

In Athea, Poem, Schools' Folklore

Finches at a feeder in Kanturk

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People at a Book Launch

Five of my six grandchildren

Robert and Eileen Bunyan with Paddy MacElligott and Helen Moylan

Clíona with Margo Spillane. Margo came all the way from Castlelyons in Co. Cork to support me on the big night. Such loyalty is much appreciated.

Anne Brosnan, Mary O’Connor, Marie Lucid and Pam Browne

John Kinsella shares a laugh with Mary McGrath and Mary Sobieralski

Cliona Cogan, Breeda Ahern, Carine Schweitzer, Bobby and Sean Cogan, Catherine Moylan and Dulce Lopez

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The Trials of the Golf Lesson

Talk about 100 things going through your head… I love John McAuliffe’s description of all the things he has to remember and all the things he is trying to ignore in this marvellous poem about a golf lesson on the links course in Ballybunion.

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Roly Chute, Legendary Coach and Painter

I met Roly out for the second of his daily walks. He is always willing to stop and chat.

Roly taught all of my children to play badminton and tennis. He gave selfless years and years to training the youngsters in the badminton club the skills of the game. Listowel owes him a lot.

A little known fact about Roly is that he is quite a skilled artist.

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Tupperware

Once upon a time every house had stacks of these plastic containers. We once learned that Queen Elizabeth kept her Corn Flakes in a Tupperware box.

Now the brand has fallen victim to its own success. Since its product is practically indestructible, sales have fallen off and the company is in trouble.

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Knockanure (from the Schools’ Folklore Collection)

Knockanure Church

The old cloisters at Knockanure Church were built in 1649. The chief man at the building of it was Father Moriarty of Castleisland.

There were five friars in it for years, the head brother was Brother James Keane.

There are two beautiful violin players buried in the old Abbey. They were drowned in the Gale on Saturday 11th June 1752. The place where they were drowned is called the Fiddlers’ Hole at a place called Tubber.

The friars lived about three quarters of a mile west of the Church at a place called Carrueragh. Father Mortimer OConner is also buried in this Church. He was born in the field that the church is built on. He died in Arda in 1781. The meaning of Knockanure is the hill of the Yew-Tree. Knockanure chapel was built in Father Sheehy’s time in 1865. The youngest Friar in Ireland at that time was Friar Toban.

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A Fact

A schnozzle is an event in a game of football or hurling. It falls somewhere on the spectrum between a few friendly thumps between friends and second degree assault.

A schnozzle can arise for a number of reasons that range from being 3 goals and 12 points down and 5 minutes left on the clock to someone enquiring into the marital status of your mother at the time of your birth.

A schmozzle must never be allowed to develop into an almighty schmozzle. This would include the subs bench, managing staff, an Maor Uisce, several members of the crowd and, if it is a Junior B hurling match, a collie cross barking.

(information for this fact from Ronan Moore’s book of Irishology.)

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Listowel People

By listowelconnection

On July 31, 2024

In Listowel

A Corner of The Square

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After the Greenway Cycle

Marlene and Liz met up with their friends, Mary and Miriam for a bit of well earned rest and recovery. Miriam sent the pictures.

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Eileen Moylan, Designer in Gold and Silver and Precious Stones

Photo credit; Ger Holland

For a few years Eileen Moylan was the designer commissioned to design and make the presentation piece, named for John B. Keane and sponsored by Mercier Press which was presented by Listowel Writers’ Week to the person chosen to receive recognition for their lifetime contribution to the Arts.

These pieces are one-off treasures, researched, designed, customised and lovingly made at Eileen’s studio in Macroom. Eileen’s attention to detail in all her work is legendary.

If you win an Oscar you just get a statuette, the same as everybody else’s. If you won a Lifetime Achievement award at Listowel Writers’ Week you got something unique, an absolutely beautiful hand made bespoke piece from a silversmith at the top of her game.

Fr. Antony Gaughan was the recipient of one such piece. He absolutely loved it, as did everyone who was lucky enough to get one. Fr. Tony has donated his piece to Kerry Writers’ Museum where it is on display for us all to see and admire. It is even more special for Listowel people than the beautiful Edna O’Brien piece because Eileen’s design incorporates so many lovely Listowel landmarks.

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A Poem for Our Time

Still I Rise

BY MAYA ANGELOU

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don’t you take it awful hard

’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines

Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I’ve got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame

I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

I rise

I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I’m including this great poem today as a tribute to Kamala Harris who has risen to top rung of the ladder.

Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak is the genealogist who traced Barack Obama to Moneygall. She has spoken out on the subject of Harris’s family tree. Detractors have pointed to slave owners in her pedigree as well as slaves. But it is a horrid fact of slavery that owners regarded female slaves as their property to rape at will. Rape was a fact of life for female slaves. Not only their owners, but sons of owners, foremen, friends of owners and other random white men saw it as their right to rape slave girls. So the fact that she has slave owners in her ancestry is no surprise to genealogists.

It’s simply a fact of life.

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A Postbox in Kildare Train Station

Victorian, I presume. Still in use.

Does anyone know why they used to put postboxes in train stations?

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A Fact

A greeting card that can play Happy Birthday has more computer power than existed in the whole world in 1950.

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All Souls Day. Kefir, Dublin Footballers and some Australian tourists

By Listowel Connection

On November 1, 2017

In Uncategorized

Today is All Souls Day. Traditionally it is the day for visiting the resting places of our dead loved ones. It is a day for remembering those who have gone before us.

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The Square, Listowel in Autumn 2017

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New Local Health Product in Town

Elaine of Halo Health introduces customer, Carine Schweitzer of Cork to a new Moyvane product, Kefir Milk.

“What is Kefir ?” you ask

Wikipedia has the answer;

Kefir or kephir (/kəˈfir/ kə-FEER),^[1]^[2] alternatively milk kefir, or búlgaros, is a fermented milk drink that originated in the Caucasus Mountains made with kefir “grains”, a yeast/bacterial fermentation starter.^[3] It is prepared by inoculating cow, goat, or sheep milk with kefir grains.^[4] Traditional kefir was made in goatskin bags that were hung near a doorway; the bag would be knocked by anyone passing through to help keep the milk and kefir grains well mixed.^[5]

Its health benefits are numerous and if even half of the claims are true we should all be drinking it.

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Something to Look Forward To

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Australian People with a Listowel Connection

This is what Fáilte Ireland refers to as “the shoulder season” between summer and Christmas. This time of year is a popular time for our friends from down under to visit us. Last week I met two families who have grown to love Listowel and Ireland because of some lovely welcoming local people.

Berenice and Lionel came to Ireland first to trace family and to meet Jack McKenna who is a cousin. They stayed with Kathy Walsh at Gurtinard House. They had a great time. It was Race Week but Billy Keane found them a seat in his packed pub, John McKenna took time out to show them the family connected locations his mother Sue had told them all about in a long and productive visit. They fell in love with Listowel and resolved to return.

Gurtinard House on their first visit was a work in progress so they were anxious to see what progress Kathy had made. They were well impressed with the changes to the house and garden. They came this time during Storm Ophelia. Kathy lit a fire and they sat around like old friends and reminisced. Their trip to Ireland took them to locations all over the country, including a visit to prospective in-laws in Mayo.

These Australian visitors whom I met with their friend and mine, Mary Sobieralski, in Scribes had also explored Ireland, North and South. They are Trish and her granddaughter, Sarah Jane. Sarah Jane is on her grand tour. She has been all over Europe (a spell in Turkey was her favourite) and then her Gran joined her for the last leg in Ireland.

Why Ireland?

They came to visit Trish’s friend, Mary . Mary and Trish met over twenty years ago when Mary and her late husband, Wulf, toured Australia. They have stayed in touch ever since and Mary visited Trish in Australia when she went there on a holiday with her son a few years ago.

These two stories are proof, if proof were needed, that lovely welcoming people like Kathy and Mary are our unsung tourism ambassadors.

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Brogans Boys Before they were Famous

Well, maybe one of them was already famous .

Photo: Kieran Cunningham on the internet

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KDYS Halloween Parade 2017

There was a greta turnout for this year’s Halloween parade on October 31 2017. The weather was perfect for it.

Preparing for Christmas 2017, Marie Shaw and a Wedding in Germany and Painted Ladies in John B.s

By Listowel Connection

On October 31, 2017

In Uncategorized

Two St. Johns’

St. John’s Tralee

St. John’s Listowel

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Looking Forward to Christmas 2017

Great things are planned for Listowel at Christmas 2017

Local elves have been at work preparing a surprise for us all. The polar express will bring Santa into town this year and he and Mrs. Claus will meet North Kerry Children at the Lartigue Museum.

Keep an eye out for updates on this page; North Pole Express

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Marie Shaw remembers her Christmas in Listowel in the 1950s

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A Wedding in Germany with a Listowel Connection

This is Mary Sobieralski of Listowel pictured with her son Mark on the morning of his wedding.

Mary loves Listowel where she spent her youth and happy years of retirement with her late husband, Wolf. But Mary’s smile is broadest when she is in the company of her lovely sons and their families in Germany. This photo of Mary’s family was taken later on on the day of Mark’s wedding.

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A Most unusual fundraiser in John B.s (text and photos by Mattie Lennon)

Mattie Lennon sends us this account of a great night in John B. Keane’s Bar, Listowel.

Billy Keane and Mattie Lennon in John B.s

BILLY KEANE AND THE (BRAVE) PAINTED LADIES.

By Mattie Lennon.

Good painters imitate nature. (Cervantes.)

Hard to argue with that but some painters tell the story of the most poignant aspects of nature.

John B. Keane’s pub in Listowel has been home to ventures various and unusual in the past half century but on Thursday 12^th October there was a new departure. There are two body-painting events organised (for Dublin and Cork) during November, by Bare-to-Care, to raise awareness of breast cancer. Ken Hughes and Eimear Tierney came to Billy Keane with an idea for a publicity event; breast painting! Three brave women volunteered to bare all. Ann-Marie Quigley who travelled from Portrush, Bex Tolan originally from Donegal and Siobhan Heapes from Cork all had had serious health issues. All three women spoke honestly and openly about their terrible experiences. Anna had a double mastectomy and her partner, Jade, died from ovarian cancer in 2008. Bex won’t ever be able to have children because of previous painful medical conditions and Siobhan Heapes had breast and ovarian cancer.

Billy Keane is an established author and one of our great Irish journalists. His writing, about his own life, has, in my opinion, saved lives. With Billy the devilment is always close to the surface and while Ken Hughes was the event organiser Billy opened proceedings on the night with, “I want to make a clean breast of this.”

Three artists, Stephanie Power, Ruth McMorrow and Ciara Patricia Langan, in the words of Billy Keane,”Formed a bond with the human canvasses.”

Tennyson wrote of how,” . . .blind and naked ignorance delivers crawling judgements unashamed . . ”

“Naked” and “ignorance” were side by side in John B’s on 12^th October; One couple got up and left. The female said to Billy, “What would your mother and father think of this? They are turning in their graves. “ I know what Billy’s parents, who both died of cancer, would think. They would think that thank God they had reared a son who is doing something to highlight that dreadful disease. There was certainly no whirring sound in Listowel cemetery that night . John B. and Mary were not spinning in their graves. And Billy Keane was too well reared to reply to such an ignorant comment.

Bare to Care Dare will take place in Cork on Saturday November 11th and in Dublin on Saturday November 18th. Hundreds of women will come together to celebrate their bodies, their breasts and above all to support each other. To tell their own cancer survival stories. To be proud and celebrate their new post mastectomy or reconstructed breasts. To lighten their spirits while going through treatment right now. To tick something off their bucket list. To laugh and have fun, to share and to support. Those that have lost loved ones to cancer will bare all in memory, to show their thanks to the support the Irish Cancer Society give every day to thousands of women all over the country.

Eimear Tierney, Spokesperson told me, “From our perspective, we were thrilled that Billy agreed to get on board with the charity and publicize our campaign. We were elated when he suggested a promotional event in John B’s. It’s hard to describe the atmosphere and spirit of giving and camaraderie that Billy created that night. Not only did he manage to raise awareness and promote the campaign, he and the guest performers captured the whole ethos of Bare to Care. The volunteer canvasses were made to feel brave, beautiful and vital by every person that attended the event. He promoted our Bare to Care events as planned but he also provided a safe space for the girls to share their stories and celebrate their womanhood and survival. We are in awe of Bill’s talent and generosity and we couldn’t possibly have found a more worthy and appropriate advocate for what we are trying to achieve with these events. We hope that it has inspired women to be brave and register for one of our two events.” (Eimear may be contacted at; hello@baretocare.info)

Anna-Marie had an eagle painted on her front but not everyone knew. One woman asked, “Where did she get that beautiful top with the eagle on it?” Of course she was in Kerry so the answer came like a shot, “Penney’s.” Where would you get it.

I’ll leave the last word to Billy Keane, “ I learned a lot over the last few weeks. There is so much going on in women’s bodies. We need a national conversation, education and more bare, brave ladies.”

Billy insists that the pole in the centre of the bar is there to support the roof and there will be no pole-dancing in the future!