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: Mermaids

Joy and Sorrow

William Street at evening…photo Elizabeth Brosnan

The sun has not set on the celebrations just yet.

Photo ; Breda Ferris

The Kerry ladies put up a gallant fight against a superb Meath team.

Beidh lá eile ag an bPaorach.

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Some of the Kerry Team Support in Listowel

Danny’s Hair and Beauty
Blossom in Market St.
Mermaids

When neighbouring counties win both the hurling and football, there are bound to be some very happy Listowel households.

Bailey and Co.

Ballybunion showing its support in typical Ballybunion fashion.

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Ballybunion 2022

Tommy Martin of The Irish Examiner holidayed in Ballybunion this year.

Here is how he opened his article on his experience.

For Sean O’Shea’s moment of square-jawed heroism NOT to be the prelude to Kerry’s ultimate deliverance just doesn’t seem to make any narrative sense. It would be stupidly anti-climactic. To north Kerry, in the space between two All-Ireland finals.

Your correspondent finds himself on his annual pilgrimage to Ballybunion this week, the seaside resort town which remains oblivious to global meltdown. While Europe burns, Ballybunion warily slips off its kagoule, not liking the look of those clouds one bit. “Some heatwave!” is the sardonic comment of choice, as two days of hazy pleasantness gave way to temperatures soaring into the mid-teens.

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A Meadow Walk

When the gardeners of the local council mow the grass in the town park they leave it tall for the birds, insects and bees and they cut paths through the grass for us to walk and enjoy. A great Idea!

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Lest we Forget

This award winning front page will forever be the image of the worst of Covid 19 restrictions. Now that we are at the other side of that awfulness we should spare a thought and a prayer for people scarred forever.

This poem is for them.

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Firemen

The Mermaids, William Street, Listowel

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John Kelliher posted this old dance ticket on Facebook.

I remembered that Violet Dalton Puttock had shared a photo of a Fireman’s ball with The Advertiser. Violet’s photo is from the ball a year or two earlier.

The men in the photo are;

Fireman’s Dance 1963-64.

 Back L-R: Buddy Dalton, Tommy Dalton, Benny O’Connell, Bunny Dalton, Jim Doyle, Michael Brennan, John Mahony and Joe Keogh. 

Front L-R: Pat Dowling, Roly Godfrey, Patsy Leahy, Ned Broderick, Tommy Lyons and Sean Curtin. 

Music on the night was by the late Bunny Dalton Showband, Listowel. 

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Corpus Christi Procession 2011

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St Senan’s Well

(Today, March 8 is the feast of St. Senan. Here is an account from the Schools’ Folklore Collection of the saint’s well near Listowel.)

There is a holy well, and close by a burial ground, in the townland of Kilsheanane or Kilsenan about 5 miles west of Listowel on the road to Tralee. Both are called after St. Senan who was Bishop and Abbot of Scattery Island on the Shannon in Co. Clare, in the VI Century. He built many churches and had a monastery on the Island. His feast day falls on the 8th March.

On that date in former times, people came long distances, even outside of Kerry, to pay rounds at the Blessed Well. It is said to be powerful in many complaints but especially in eye trouble, and running sores. At the present day people, principally locals within a five mile radius, come to pay rounds on St Senan’s Day 8th March. The path of the “round” follows a well beaten track around the well. The “Round” itself consists of 3 Rosaries, one to be said while walking round the well 3 times, therefore it takes 9 rounds of the well to complete the 3 Rosaries. The round is started by kneeling in front of the well and beginning the Rosary there and after some time stand up and walk round the orbit 3 times completing the round of the Beads in front of the well. Then start the second Rosary and walk round orbit 3 times and complete Beads at front of well. Do this the third time and your round at St Senan’s well is completed. You then take a drink of the well water from the well itself (a small mug is always there for the purpose).
Next you wash the afflicted part in the stream running out of the well. Also people usually take home with them a bottle of the well water for that purpose. Many white and black thorn trees grow adjacent to the well and strings of all kinds, tassels of shawls etc are left tied to the branches in token that the particular complaint is also to be got rid of. 

Sometimes Coppers and hairpins etc are left.

Within the last dozen or more years an elderly lady teacher Miss M O’Connell now deceased, got a cement slab altar-like construction built at the back of the well. In this there are three niches, one holding a statue of our Blessed Lady, another a statue of the Sacred Heart and the third a statue of St Bridget, each enclosed in a glass shade.
Miss Glavin a retired teacher of 66 years of age told me that she often heard her mother (R.I.P.) who lived about 4 miles from the townland of Kilsenane, tell a story of how a Protestant family residing near the well, took some water from the well home to their own house and put it in a pot or kettle to boil, but if it were left over the fire for ever it would not boil. The ancestors of this family were Roman Catholics but in the bad times they turned ‘Soupers.’
Those who came to pay rounds at the well, usually enter the burial ground by the stile and pray for the dead in general and their own deceased relations in particular. This is done on the way and from the well.

COLLECTOR

M. Shanahan

INFORMANT

Miss Glavin

School:  Clandouglas, Lixnaw

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Looking Forward to The Races

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Just a Thought

Here is the link to my last week’s reflections on Radio Kerry;

Just a Thought

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Artisan Food, A Poem of Exile and more Christmas Windows

Happy dog following his owner in Listowel Town Park recently

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Artisan Food at Listowel Food Fair


On the Sunday of Listowel Food Fair there was a great market of artisan food in The Listowel Arms. It was the Sunday of November prayers for our dead in John Paul Cemetery so I was late getting to the fair. It was well worth the visit. Here are some of the goods for sale and to sample. Some people were already sold out by the time I got there.

 These chutneys and relishes are by Chicco. They are delicious. I bought some for the Christmas cold meats

This Kerry cheese is completely organic. I stayed clear of this out of respect for my heart but people who tried it said it super.

This Charleville man had cheese products as well and was proudly displaying the prize he won at the fair.

I didn’t even go close to this charming lady to photograph her. She makes the most delicious ice cream you will ever taste and its all handmade in Kenmare.

This happy crew from Killocrim school were promoting their unique cookery book. It is a collection of recipes that the children made with their families and the book has lovely photos  as well. It will be a treasure for years to come and a cause well worth supporting.

I ran into my friend Billy Keane and his family. They were very proud to have their recipe included in the book.

Norma Leahy and her family were there with their Carralea Kefir. This dairy product is really good for your gut health. I’m trying it at the moment.

This is the lovely family behind Brona chocolate products. Jimmy is just a friend. He had no part in making the chocolates.

Orla Walshe runs a cookery school at Ballydonoghue. Her chocolate biscuit cake is to die for.

Completely sold out. The picture tells its own story.

Wellness bread products are a Listowel success story.

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This poem is especially for Maria Sham, who loves it.

The Exile’s Return

(John Locke, 1847-1889)

T’anam chun Dia! but
there it is –

The dawn on the hills of Ireland,

God’s angels lifting the night’s black veil

From the fair sweet face of my sireland.

Oh! Ireland isn’t it grand you look,

Like a bride in her fresh adorning,

And with all the pent-up love of my heart

I bid you the top of the morning.

This one brief hour
pays lavishly back,

For many a year of mourning,

I’d almost venture another flight,

There is so much joy in returning,

Watching out for the hallowed shore,

All other attraction scorning,

Oh: Ireland don’t you hear me shout,

I bid you the top of the morning.

Ho, Ho, upon Glen’s
shelving strand,

The surges are wildly beating,

And Kerry is pushing her headlands out,

To give us a kindly greeting,

Now to the shore the sea birds fly,

On pinons that know no drooping,

Now out from the shore with welcome gaze,

A million of eaves come trooping.

Oh! Fairly, generous
Irish land,

So Loyal, so fair, so loving,

No wonder the wandering Celt should think,

And dream of you in his roving,

The Alien shore may have gems and gold,

And sorrow may ne’er have gloomed it.

But the heart will sigh for its native shore,

Where the love-light first illumed it.

And doesn’t old Cobh
look charming there,

Watching the wild waves motion,

Resting her back against the hill.

And the tips of her toes to the ocean,

I wonder I don’t hear the Shandon bells,

But maybe their chiming is over,

For it’s a year since I began,

The life of a western rover.

For thirty years “A
chuisle mo chroi”,

Those hills I now feast my eyes on,

Ne’er met my vision save at night,

In memory’s dim horizon,

Even so, ’twas grand and fair they seemed,

In the landscape spread before me,

But dreams are dreams, and I would awake

To find American skies still o’er me.

And often in Texan
plain,

When the day and the chase was over,

My heart would fly o’er the weary ways,

And around the coastline hover,

And my prayers would arise that some future date,

All danger, doubting and scorning,

I might help to win for my native land

The light of young liberty’s morning.

Now fuller and turner
the coastline shows

Was there ever a scene more splendid!

I feel the breath of the Munster breeze,

Oh! Thank God my exile is ended,

Old scenes, old songs, old friends again

There’s the vale, there’s the cot I was born in

Oh! Ireland from my heart of hearts

I bid you the “top o’ the morning”


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Slavery and the Hiring Fair

This is a photo from the Library of Congress. It dates from the days of slave auctions in Illinois. I don’t think there was ever any official slavery in Ireland. Women who were forced by circumstances to work in the Magdalen Laundries might disagree. There were, however, hiring fairs.

These fairs were often held on the same day as a cattle fair when farmers were in town. Labourers weren’t auctioned as slaves were. Labourers agreed to work for a farmer, usually for a year, at an agreed wage. They earned little more than their bed and board. This system was in place in most European countries. In fact hiring out your labour goes back to biblical times.

In between the fairs if a spailpín or casual labourer was unemployed he would often walk from one farm to another in search of a few hours work.  Paddy Drury was one of these wandering workmen. Jim Sheahan remembers him coming to their house in Athea. Even if they didn’t have work for him, they fed him and he was content to sleep on a chair until he headed off again.

Fear of a lash of his tongue meant that Paddy usually could be sure of a chair to sleep in in most houses he visited.

Paddy was like the bards of old who could rhyme off a blessing or a curse on the spot.

Once when he and the other workers in a house where he was employed were served up bacon so tough that none of them could chew it, he extemporised;

Oh Lord on high

Who rules the sky

Look down upon us four

Please give us mate

That we can ate

And take away the boar.

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More Christmas widows


Listowel shop windows this year have a train travel theme. Utopia’s window is really stylish and minimalistic.

The IWA window is gorgeous.



The Mermaids features old photos of the real Lartigue.

Stack’s Arcade is gorgeous.

Betty McGrath’s Listowel Florist’s

The Gentleman’s Barbers

Kay’s Children’s Shop has an excellent replica of the Lartigue on its snowy scene in the window.

Breaking news!

Posters seen in a shop window in Listowel Co. Kerry today


Haven’t we come a long way since the days John B. recounted of the parish priest in the dancehall prodding his umbrella between couples he thought were dancing too close.

Bunnies in Listowel, what next?

Remember where you heard it first!!!

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