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: Millenium Arch Page 2 of 3

Bridge Road, Listowel children, A Christmas Stccking in the 1940s and a Fire at The Races in 1959

Millenium Arch and Bridge Road

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The Good Old Days?


From Patrick O’Sullivan’s A Year in Kerry

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Listowel Children


These are children  (and a few adults including Michael Dowling R.I.P. )  photographed by John Lynch at parades in 2003 and years after to 2007

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Christmas Lights in Dublin


 When I was in the Big Smoke to see the Haunting Soldier they already had their Christmas lights up even though it was only mid November.

And in Listowel

On Saturday Dec 1 2018, Listowel Tidy Town Committee switched on the very colourful lights on Listowel’s Christmas tree.  (Photo; North Pole Express 2018)

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Fire in the Stands



Do you remember this from 1959?

Photo from The Kerryman

Sign at Millenium Arch, MBC, Community Orchard and Tom Doodle men named

A lovely spot in Listowel Town Square

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Promoting their Business


As I was photographing the Tidy Towns seat, I spotted my friends, Briain and Deirdre and staff of MBC taking their own photograph outside their town centre premises.

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Newly repainted sign

The sign at the Millenium Arch now looks all spruced up.

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Community Fruit and Herb Garden

Our trees have beautiful apples ripening.

These are the herbs and wildflowers for humans and insects.

Herbs for all

They are not ripe yet but these apples look good enough to eat.

I think these might be the nut trees.

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The 1965 Guide to Listowel


Aileen Skimson sent us this guide. Here are a few more extracts

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Names from John Keane






L to R: Derry Tatten, Joe Walsh, an other, one of the Healys from Greenville, Gulliver Stack, Jimmy Moore, Tommy Murphy, Willie O’Connor and John B. Keane

Lartigue Theatre, Jim Dunn’s Mural in The Square and an old play

Listowel Town Square, June 21 2018

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Many Hands Make Light Work

Jim and Liz Dunn work well as a team. But I don’t think Liz would really claim to be an artist. To illustrate that this was a project in which anyone can have a go Liz took up a brush and coloured in a bit.

From the wife of an artist to the mother of an artist, Helen Moylan chanced her arm at painting in a section. She did a good job too.

In between interruptions/assistance, Jim took the opportunity to advance his project a bit.

 Next up was Seán Comerford. Seán displayed an amazing (to me anyone) aptitude for this kind of thing. He is actually a quite good artist.

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Listowel’s Millennium Arch in 2018

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Friends’ Meeting

Summer in Kerry is a great time for meeting up with old friends

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From the John Hannon Archive

The late Eleanor Moore and Mark Walsh

Seán Moriarty

The play was in The Lartigue. Seán told me that he remembers a matinee dress rehearsal for children to iron out any glitches in the production. At one stage Seán’s character tells Getta Grogan’s character that he would like a brandy. As she is pouring the drink, he overhears one child saying to another, “She is giving him whiskey and he asked for brandy.”

Seán also remembers Mark Walsh’s character is shot. In rehearsal they just made a gunshot noise but in this final dress rehearsal, they had a genuine sound effect and Sean says he saw the fear in Mark’s eyes as he feared that the very real looking gun was an actual loaded firearm.

Happy days in the old Lartigue.

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Opening Soon

At 53 Church Street

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His Dream Job for a Genial Listowel Young Man



Story and picture from Mark Boylan of Racing Post

A familiar voice will greet racegoers in the post-Dessie Scahill commentary era with Jerry Hannon set to become Ireland’s primary racecourse commentator.

Scahill will depart from the commentary box on July 26 following an end to his contract with the Association of Irish Racecourses (Air).

Hannon said: “My dream has become a reality. I’m very grateful to the association for recognising the hard yards and sacrifices made over an 18-year period to get to this point.

“It’s on days like these that my late dad and the late Liam Healy are very much in my thoughts.”

The 37-year-old, who began his commentary career in pony racing in 1999, said of Scahill’s influence: “He’s been an inspiration of mine and I wish him all the best for his retirement.”

Paddy Walsh, chief executive of Air, said of the decision: “The model we have operated off in the past has been with one full-time worker for the association who looks after most of the commentaries and that has historically been Dessie. Jerry has been absorbing that role over the past number of years and he will now take over that function.”

Scahill’s retirement and Hannon’s increased role will lead to opportunities for new faces to join the commentary roster, according to Walsh, with Gary O’Brien expected to feature on the schedule, although plans have yet to be finalised.

Walsh added: “We have a panel of commentators to choose from when we have double meetings, holidays and other events. Peter O’Hehir and Richard Pugh have been members of the panel for a long number of years and they will continue to fulfil roles with us. We hope to be adding another couple of names to that group.

Saturday will mark Scahill’s final commentary of the Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby and the 69-year-old said that although he felt he could have continued on a reduced schedule he had no complaints about the decision.

Walsh said: “I can’t get into the details of arrangements we have with Dessie or any of our other employees but all I can tell you is that arrangements for Dessie’s retirement were all done in full consultation – and agreement – with himself.

“I’d like to wish him all the best on his future as he’s been a great contributor to us for a long time, giving us great service.”

Arch, National Treasures, an Alice Taylor poem and Chutes’ Stores

Bridge Road through the arch, October 2017

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I Remember, I Remember


From Facebook

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National Treasures



If you have kept something as a souvenir of a different time in Ireland, now is the time to share it with the nation. RTE have initiated this great project to collect images of stuff that tell us something about who we are and what life was like in Ireland in the twentieth century. Mostly what they want is stuff that was valued or treasured in our lifetime but mostly now has no value whatsoever except as a reminder of something that defined us. Here are few examples;

John F. Kennedy and his wife Jackie were our golden couple in the 1960s. They were our very own Charles and Diana and the Kardashians all rolled into one. Many homes had their image somewhere on show. This wall plate was typical. Note the closeness of the couple, man slightly overshadowing his good looking young wife, all square jawed and squeaky clean. The  Irishness of his lineage is emphasised in the shamrock shaped cut outs in the ribbon plate.

This was a milk formula that was very popular in the Ireland of my youth. Every home had one of these tins for keeping odds and ends in. We had one for saved bits of twine. Mothers would run a mile now if they saw Full Cream baby food. As for the image of the baby in the oversized crown….words fail me.

Remember saving stamps? They featured an acorn and the selling point was, Be a squirrel and save up your pennies as the squirrel saves nuts for a time of want.

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Poem by Alice Taylor




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Refurbishment underway here


My Absence Explained

Let me tell you about the
time I went to Cork for a weekend and didn’t come home for six weeks. This is
not one of those “I fell in love with the place and couldn’t tear myself away’
stories. It is a horror story of illness, a spell in hospital and another even
longer spell in a  convalescent home and
a slow return to full health.

The story begins back in
early June on a visit to  the real
capital, Cork. One day the  muscles in my
legs felt sore and achy. I took some pain killers and reasoned that I must have
overdone the walking. Over the next day or two the achiness in my legs turned
to weakness and soon it was difficult to walk any distance and climbing stairs
was almost impossible. Time to seek medical advice.

Things escalated pretty
rapidly; doctors, blood tests, hospital and consultants and more tests. I was
also deteriorating rapidly as more muscle groups came under attack. You need
muscles to do everything so even the basic tasks of daily living were becoming
difficult or impossible to do for myself. It was the most frightening
experience of my life.

The diagnosis: I had a 1 in
100,000 adverse reaction to the statin drug I was taking to lower my
cholesterol. Because I had been taking this drug for a number of years without
any side effects, the conclusion is that it combined with some, as yet unknown,
virus to turn rogue and damage my muscles so catastrophically.

 I stopped taking the statin. The effect was
not  as dramatic as the collapse. Muscle
power can be taken away from you very quickly but not anywhere near as quickly
restored. Physiotherapy, rest and time 
have healed me and I am nearly fully recovered at this stage.

I learned a lot from my
ordeal. Everything is a gift; health, happiness, friends, caring
professionals…everything. I am grateful to everyone who played a part in my
recovery. Illness, especially serious illness brings out the best in everyone.
I have rarely in my life felt so loved.

So, blog people, I have
missed births, marriages and deaths, a fleadh and umpteen hooleys. I will
return to blogging very soon, maybe not as frequently as before but, I promise,
I’ll be back. It’s all part of my recovery.

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The Millennium Arch 2016

 One of the first changes I noticed on my return was the restored arch. It looks very new and shiny but it will darken over time and fit in better with the nearby walls.

Above is the original arch pictured in 2005.

I took the above photo of the remains of the original arch after it was damaged by a storm. You will notice that the arch rested on what appeared to this ignorant eye to be huge ballbearings. The newly restored arch does not have this feature. The arch rests squarely on the supporting pillars. It looks more solid to me so maybe it will withstand the weather better.

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