Listowel Connection

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: Miriam Kiely

Listowel People

By

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 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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Schoolgirls Rathkeale lecture on horse drawn Traffic and Friends Reunited

By

On October 24, 2016

In Uncategorized

Respect


“Life is mostly froth and bubble,
Two things stand like stone.
Kindness in another’s trouble,
Courage in your own.”

A MacMonagle photographer captured the moment when Dr Crokes captain, Johnny Buckley ( who has a Listowel mother) commisserates with Kenmare’s Patrick Clifford who was taken off injured in the County Final on Sunday Oct 16 2016.





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Down Memory Lane on Facebook




I see a few faces I know here so maybe we’ll have a bit of luck with the names and the year.


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The Road from Abbeyfeale


THE ROAD FROM ABBEYFEALE:  Abbeyfeale was a vital hub in the early

part of the nineteenth century in the national network of horse drawn

transport.  On November 4, 1836 Mr. Daniel O’Connell, the Liberator,

had the services of a driver and four horses on a journey from

Abbeyfeale to Newcastle West.  The four horses were named Jack, Major,

Nancy and Grey.  O’Connell paid one pound and eight shillings for this

service.  His driver was paid seven shillings.  This information is

gleaned from the books of accounts of Leahy’s Inn and Livery Station

located at the Square in Abbeyfeale at that time.  An original copy of

the accounts for the years 1834 to 1842 is the source material which

Dr. Pat Wallace will draw on for his lecture entitled “The Road from

Abbeyfeale” which he will deliver to Rathkeale & District Historical

Society this Friday evening October 21.  The lecture will examine all

the horse drawn traffic through Abbeyfeale in the years 1834 to 1842.

It will also tell of the guests, carriages, drivers and horses as well

as details of the cost of stay and other matters.   Dr. Wallace is the

former Director of the National Museum of Ireland and was the chief

archaeologist with overall responsibility for the Viking Dublin

excavations at Wood Quay and Fishamble Street in 1974.  You, your

family and friends are welcome to attend this free lecture in the Arts

Centre at the Carnegie Library in the Rathkeale area offices of

Limerick City and County Council. Starting time is 8.30pm.  The Arts

Centre can be reached by lift and by stairs.

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Nana’s and Aisling’s First Camogie Match



(Aisling playing, Nana supporting)

On a misty moist Saturday morning I gathered with all the other parents and grandparents to watch my first game of camogie.

There is a lovely little ritual at the end of the game where they all line up and everyone shakes hands with everyone, your teammates as well as the opposition.



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Humans of Listowel


I met former classmates, Betty Heathy and Miriam Kiely last week.

Listowel shops then and now and Congo 1962

By

On August 4, 2014

In Uncategorized

 Quiet Streets


Once upon a time I used to find it hard to take pictures of shops because there were always cars or pedestrians in the way. Not so any more. In my above photo of the top of William St., all those shops have  now ceased trading.

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Streets not completely deserted

It was great to run into Miriam out for a stroll on a lovely July evening. Her friend was a bit camera shy.

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What will they think of next?


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That was then; This is now


…………





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Rebranding




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Nearing the century



This lovely lady is Eliza Mulvihill of Glin. She was born on born on 19 August 1915 to Mary Ann Kiely and Paddy Mulvihill of Moyvane,the  5th of 10 children in her family. Eliza is now living in happy retirement in Newcastlewest. 

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Street Train in Killarney


Killarney’s street train is proving popular with the tourists. The people on it here were on a school tour.


Have you noticed how neat and tidy all our towns are nowadays? It’s thanks to all of the hardworking Tidy Town volunteers who work so hard. This litter picking crew were out in Killarney.

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 Congo 1962








I don’t know who took the photos or who the members of our armed forces are.





More here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8tn2QsGtIE&feature=youtu.be

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Remarkable Achievement


Weeshie’s Week

The O Se brothers make history

July 29th, 2014
by Sylvester Hennessy
When Marc O’Sé runs out onto the pitch in Croke Park on Sunday next he will complete one of the most remarkable records in the history of the GAA. This will be Marc’s 77th senior championship appearance for Kerry in a glittering career that has spanned 13 seasons. In doing so he joins his brothers Darragh and Tomás at the top of the all time list of championship appearances for Kerry. It’s almost impossible to comprehend how this proud trio of siblings have risen to the top of the rankings after more than 125 years of Kerry competing in senior championship football. In that period of time thousands of proud men have worn the green and gold with great distinction but none have done so on more occasions that the three modern day Laochs, the O’Sé brothers from Ard an Bhothair, Ceann Trá. While the GAA has no internal record of championship appearances it also appears that this is National record. We have trawled the country looking at the top appearances in each county and it appears that three O’Sé brothers also top the all time list of appearances in the history of the GAA. We pose the question to all of the other 31 counties in Ireland – Has any other player in the history of the All Ireland Senior Football Championship made more appearances than the three O’Sé brothers. We suspect the answer is no. John O’Leary, the former Dublin keeper made 70 championship appearances, but as of now we know of no other player who has broken the 70 championship appearances barrier bar 5 Kerry men, the three O’Sé’s, Tom O’Sullivan and Colm Cooper.



( from Weeshie Fogarthy’s Terrace Talk blog)

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