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: Maura Laverty

Remembering Tolka Row

Market Street, February 2025

A Charity Shop Find

One of the great joys of shopping in charity shops is finding treasures like this.

There are thousands of Irish books published each year. They are often short print runs and when they are gone they’re gone. Every now and again a great one turns up in a charity shop. This is one such.

Cora, My Little Footballer

This is Cora Darby, my granddaughter. She loves football, both Gaelic and Soccer.

When her team, Lakewood Under 14s, played Ballyouster of Kildare in the National Cup, Cora was captain for the game.

Lakewood girls Under 14

They won. Now their next game is against a Drogheda club and they have home advantage. I’ll keep you posted.

Meanwhile in Dublin…

Sean is in tennis action with his intervarsity team.

Tolka Row

These two pictures were published in Ireland’s Own. The late Maura Laverty is also the same Maura who wrote Full and Plenty.

This scene from the soap depicts the the Nolans and their neighbours in the sitting room of the Nolan house. The Nolans and their neighbours, the Feeneys, were working- class Dublin families living in the North side of the city.

It was a very regrettable practice in the early days of Telefís Eireann, to wipe the videotape after an episode was broadcast and reuse the tape. So, only the final episode of the four year series is extant.

I loved the show and like me many others loved the glimpse inside a part of Ireland we never saw in real life. Before television, there was huge urban rural disconnect. Tolka Row and its successor, The Riordans, introduced city folk and country folk to one another. It was a great learning experience.

If you have Money Problems

Exciting Opportunity for “Mid- Career Artists’

St. John’s in February 2025

St. John’s Theatre, Listowel, Co. Kerry, and the Irish Arts Center, New York, are inviting applications for the County Exchange international residency for mid-career artists. 

Supported by the Arts Council of Ireland and Kerry County Arts Office, the County Exchange residency aims to connect artists from the experimental theatre, dance, and performance sectors in Ireland and New York. 

Seven selected artists (four from Ireland, three from New York) will spend two weeks in Listowel (19 May–2 June 2025) and one week in New York (January 2026, dates TBC). The residency provides accommodation, travel, a daily subsistence allowance, and a €1,000 fee. 

Interested applicants should submit a 100-word statement of purpose, contact details, a brief bio, and links to previous work by email to newyorklistowel@gmail.com by Monday, February 24th, 2025, at midnight.

A Fact

The first Winter Olympic Games were held at Chamonix in 1924.

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Christmas cooking, decorating and card writing

Mags Deli at Christmas 2024

Fairytale of New York

The people at Mags’ Deli loved this year’s Christmas windows theme. They did a great job on their Fairytale of New York installation.

Maura Laverty’s Cookery Bible

Talk of Maura Laverty and her recipes brought back memories for Judy MacMahon, who still refers to her mother’s copy of the book. Full and Plenty is a classic, no colour, few pictures, just recipes and instructions.

The Proof is in….

Michael O’Callaghan sent us this recipe from Carmel Ní Ghairbhín…her grandmother’s recipe. This one sounds nice and spicy.

A Little Rail Trip

Free travel is brilliant. What a pity we don’t still have a railway station in Listowel. I took my journey to Kildare from Kent Station in Cork.

Look at the gap I was asked to “mind”. The word mind in this case always fascinates me. In the case of Kent station I mind dreadfully for it is an understatement to call it a gap. It’s a chasm.

A Poem

Christmas Cards

A letter to The Irish Times…..

I’m posting this today because I agree with John.

This year’s Kerry Hospice cards are as beautiful as usual.

Kerry Hospice Christmas cards 2024

A Fact

A 32p Irish stamp featuring a robin was issued by An Post in 1997.

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The Good the Bad and the Ugly

Lower William Street

Some Stories from floods of November 24

The story of the floods in Listowel is a heartening story of neighbourliness, community solidarity and goodness.

An older lady was pulled through her window by her neighbours because opening the front door would have let in a deluge.

A quick thinking man knocked a few bricks out of the lower part of a perimeter wall. This allowed the water to run right through and saved some homes from flooding.

Teenage boys formed a meitheal to deliver sand bags and to help people to move their property to higher ground.

Then there was the group who came together to collect replacement clothes and toys for people who had lost theirs in the flood.

A local firm worked late into the night to pump water away from houses under threat.

Businesses gave soup and food to the emergency service workers and volunteers. Others offered accommodation.

The GAA put a call out for volunteers to redirect traffic away from Bridge Road

A local businessman organised a supply of industrial dehumidifiers and another local businessman delivered them to the flooded houses.

A restaurant offered lunch to families who are out of their homes.

A supermarket held a bucket cash collection.

These are only some of the many many stories of people helping people. I feel so blessed to live in Listowel.

Brenda OHalloran took this photo of myself and Jed Chute as we watched the story unfold.

Larry Guiney turning back traffic at the Custom Gap.

Traffic cop for a day on Church Street

Hurdles standing clear of the flooded racecourse

Listowel Town Park

Not such a green way today

A Christmas Window

Fairytale of New York is the theme for 2024.

This is Finesse window

From the ESB Christmas Cookbook

A few more from Maura Laverty

I love her use of household items like a bread grater, a jam jar or milk bottle.

A Fact

On December 24 1929, during a party hosted by First Lady Lou Hoover for children of staff of The White House, a fire broke out in the West Wing. The press room was completely destroyed and some damage was done to the Oval Office.

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The First of the Christmas Stuff

Courthouse Road in November 2024

The Only Upside of a Funeral

Meeting relatives whom you rarely meet is one of the lighter sides of the very sad occasion that is a family funeral.

The four older people in this photo have all descended from Benjamin Brosnan of Ballybahallow, Freemount.

L to R. Sheila (O’Callaghan) Healy, her grandmother was a daughter of Benjamin’s, Mary (Ahern) Cogan, her grandfather a son of Ben’s and Norah (Ahern) ORahilly and Morgan Ahern, their grandmother was a daughter of Ben the weaver.

This is an excerpt from the school folklore collection of 1937…

“Weaving was carried on by Ben Brosnahan and his son Johnny. They lived in the townland of Ballybahallow at the eastern side of Tim Mullane’s haybarn. They worked at two looms and made “bundle-cloth” from linen thread, and blanket and frieze from woolen thread. When the woolen stuffs were woven they were taken to the “tucking mill in Coolbane owned by O’Shaughnessy’s in order to be properly shrunken before wear. “

Isn’t family history fascinating?

Last stop on the Food Trail 2024

Jumbo’s family restaurant has been feeding North Kerry people since 1983. Jumbo’s snack box, curried chips and more are the stuff of legend.

For Listowel Food Fair, Jumbos offers a specially curated and assembled burger.

All the ingredients are local and even the serving board is from Ríocht.

One of the ingredients in this special burger is John Relihan’s prizewinning Proper Meat Sauce.

Damien is the very genial proprietor and always treats his customers to an excellent dining in or take away experience.

The place was packed on Saturday as well.

A Christmas Treasure

This little booklet was once given away free. Mary Sobieralski of the Vincent de Paul shop gave it to me free as well with my haul last week.

It is actually priceless.

This is the back cover of the booklet and the language suggests to me that it was printed and distributed sometime close to rural electrification when electric cookers were only just making an impact. Rural electrification began in 1946.

The writer of the booklet was Maura Laverty. Maura died in 1966. She was a prolific writer, journalist, food writer and script writer. She is famous for writing the script for Ireland’s first soap opera, Tolka Row.

I’ll share more from this little treasure tomorrow.

Listowel Tidy Towns Local Awards

The local committee of the Tidy Towns organised a great award event on Friday November 15 2024 in the Family Resource Centre. John Kelliher took the photos.

These are some of the Tidy Town team who were there on the night.

I was honoured to be invited to be the guest speaker.

All the category winners are on Listowel Tidy Town Facebook page

A Fact

Bears have an excellent sense of smell, better even than dogs.

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