Tag: Moyvane Page 1 of 5

Easter 2023

By listowelconnection

On April 7, 2023

In Listowel

The Big Bridge on an April Sunday in 2023

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Then and Now

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My Easter Visitors

Grandchildren grow into teenagers and have their one interests and commitments so finding time for Nana is now a bit more difficult. Cora and her Mammy brought Molly for a welcome visit.

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Easter

First I must tee this up with a story.

A. C. Bradley is probably the most renowned Shakespeare scholar ever. He was required reading when I was in college and he was the absolute authority on Shakespeare’s tragedies. An anonymous student wrote the following;

I dreamt last night that Shakespeare’s ghost

Sat for a civil service post.

The English paper for that year

Had several questions on King Lear

Which Shakespeare answered very badly

Because he hadn’t read his Bradley.

Now I’m going to do a bit of Bradleying myself as I interpret for an artist I never met and read something into a work that the creator may not have intended.

This simple artistic installation on Olive Stack’s window says Easter to me. The stone is rolled back and the tomb is empty. Jesus is risen.

Thank you.

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Winner alright

Remember this:

Dave O’Sullivan, our super newspaper researcher found this;

Are any of them still with us and do they remember their win?

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A Fact

China has a population of over a billion. It has only 200 family names.

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Elephants in Town, Abbeyfeale Altar, Duffy’s Circus and Moyvane

By Listowel Connection

On April 23, 2020

In Uncategorized

Photo; Bridget O’Connor

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Altar in Abbeyfeale Church on April 20 2020

A parishioner grabbed this photo of his local church from the church’s webcam. It looks to me like they have tried to get as much a they can into the webcam shot. It means a lot to people who never missed Holy Week or Easter ceremonies.

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Circus Elephants in Market Street

Photo; John Hannon

I found this old photo to accompany this great poem from John Fitzgerald. Here is his email

Hi Mary,

It’s a long while since I made a submission, so I’m not sure if this is the way to reconnect.

Although I’ve lived in Dublin for the last 55 years, the circus lives forever in my mind.

Our house in William Street backed onto the market and my dad used provide hay and water for the animals so as well as the performance I got to spend time watching the big top go up and be taken down.

Kind regards,

John Fitzgerald.

John Duffy, the Circus

Out from the pastures in early Spring
On trucks and on trailers, the loading begins

The tents and the tigers, the bright colored ring

John Duffy, the circus is callin’

Travellin’ the highways and tourin’ the towns

Ringmaster, jugglers, the cats and the clowns

The posters are printed so word gets around

John Duffy, the circus is callin’

They drive the long nights without any sleep

Wire walkers, tight ropers, all hands to the wheel

Each dawn a’peggin’ the circle of steel
John Duffy, the circus is callin’

They ring round our market, wagons galore

Tractors and trailers, the canvas and more

With riggin’ and cages, ropes by the score

John Duffy, the circus is callin’

Four beats to a bar, the sledges ring
Four men of iron their music to sing
The canvas is spread,” the heave-ho” begins

John Duffy, the circus is callin’

Its haul down the ropes, and let the tent rise

Like clockwork they know, each cog to prise

They heave and they haul ‘til the tent is full size

John Duffy, the circus is callin’

The brass band of old is pipe music new

Monkeys are scarce and the elephants few
The trapeze has nets and the safe rope has too

John Duffy, the circus is callin’

The circus, alas, is not that of old
The magic, the music, the laughs and the roars

See a child’s face when the sparkle’s gone cold

John Duffy will soon not be callin’

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Murhur, Newtownsandes, Moyvane

The parish was originally called Murhur. The name Moyvane was adopted by the village when a plebiscite was held by the Parish Priest, Father Dan O’Sullivan. Moyvane is the name of a townland about two miles south-west of the village, and the official name of the place is still Newtownsandes. The Roman Catholic Parish was formed in 1829, in the immediate aftermath of the Catholic Emancipation. The first parish church was built in 1837, and a date stone built into a wall in the village near the original entrance to the church and the school marks this date.

A new parish church, the Church of the Assumption, was built when Father O’Sullivan was still the parish priest. It replaced an older parish church built around 1833, and the new church was dedicated on 25 August 1956.

*old church and presbytery newtownsandes*

(info fromCathleen Mulvihill on Glin historical Society ‘s Facebook page)

Moyvane Concert, Woman’s Way Cover 1969 and a Poem from Australia

By Listowel Connection

On March 16, 2020

In Uncategorized

Photo: Christopher Bourke, Malow Camera Club

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Dioscesan News

Letter from Frances Rowland

While we will not be able to participate physically in Mass this weekend, we will be able to pray the Mass with the celebrations being held online. If you wish to look at the Mass being broadcast over the internet, here are some of the churches in the diocese where Mass is being broadcast.

http://www.stbrendansparishtralee.net/ Saturdays 6.30pm, Sundays 10 am, 11.15am, 12.30pm,

Weekdays 9.30 am

http://listowelparish.com/ Saturdays 6.15pm, Sundays 9am and 11.30am

Weekdays 10.30 am

http://www.killarneyparish.com/ Saturdays 6.15pm, Sundays 8am, 10.30am, 12 noon,

Weekdays 10.30 am and 6.15pm

https://naomhmuire.wordpress.com/ Saturdays 8pm, Sundays 11.30am

https://www.churchservices.tv/castleisland Saturdays 6.15pm, Sundays 11.30am, Weekdays 11am

It is only in the gravest circumstances that Masses are cancelled. Being unable to go to Mass this weekend will make us more conscious of the gift of being able to attend Mass usually and realise the importance of the Eucharist in our lives. We can revive the practice of Spiritual Communion as we unite ourselves, from our homes, with the sacrifice being offered. We can also be in spiritual communion with all those throughout the world who are not able to attend Mass for different reasons.

We unite as sisters and brothers of Jesus Christ, standing together in the hope he brings.

With kind regards,

Frances

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Moyvane Concert

Elizabeth Brosnan took some great photos at the recent concert featuring Liam O’Connor and family band, Brian Kennedy and local dancers which was held in Moyvane church to raise funds for the upkeep of the church.

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The Light of Other Days

Mattie Lennon sent us this screen grab of the cover of Woman’s Way from November 1969. The cover featured the Housewife of the Year and her family.

The winner of the Calor sponsored competition was Mrs. Ann McStay and she was the first Dublin winner of the title.

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The Diaspora

Around the world there are millions of people whose ancestors came from Ireland. Many of these people were raised on stories of life in Ireland in their forefathers time. They have grown up with a love and appreciation of our Irish songs and dances, our traditions and our gift for poetry,

One such person was the late Australian Bush poet, Martin O’Brien. His ancestors on both sides fled Ireland during the Great Hunger. He knew that his great grandmother on his father’s side was evicted with her 9 children. The mother died and how the children made their way to Australia is unclear.

In this poem Martin echoes the longing of many emigrants to seek out the place of birth of their Irish antecedents. Many long to walk in the footsteps of their forefathers, to reconnect with the land they were forced unwillingly to leave.

THEIR LAND

I hope one day I’ll leave this land

to go from whence they came,

and travel far across the sea

so there at last my eyes will see

the land from which they came.

I know I never will belong
to my ancestors’ land,
but still I’d like one time to see
(if God should grant that time to me),
the land that was their land.

I want to see the sights they saw
and hear the sounds they heard,
because that land still holds some claim –
more than just an Irish name –
some thing unsaid, yet heard.

I want to feel the living soil
they felt beneath their feet;
to watch the sun rise there, and set,
and go to places where they met,
and then to make complete …….

I want to walk some ancient track
where their young feet once lept,
to feel the pain as they had done
when their own exile had begun,
and weep where they once wept.

I know I never will belong
to my ancestors’ land,
but still I’d like some time to see
(if God should grant that time to me)
the land that was their land.

July, 1994.

I found this poem on a great website called Tinteán

About Martin O’Brien

Martin grew up on the O’Brien family dairy farm at Mount Burrell in the upper reaches of the Tweed River. After high school at St John’s College, Woodlawn, he spent many years as a seasonal worker – cutting cane and picking fruit – mainly on the Tweed, at Tully (Nth Qld) and in Mildura (Vic). In the off-seasons, he returned home to work on the farm. After the dairy crash in the mid-1960s, the family moved out off dairying into beef cattle production, building up (from their AIS milkers) one of the first herds of Charolais cattle on the Tweed. With increasingly lower beef prices towards the end of the 1970s, Martin was only able to work part-time on the farm, and obtained local off-farm work – mainly in sawmills. Tragically, on Christmas Eve 2013, Martin was killed in a tractor accident on the family farm.

He is a poet in the vernacular Bush Ballad tradition and was a finalist in the 1996 Poet Laureate Award at the Tamworth Music Festival.

Martin was deeply interested in his Irish heritage (on both his Mother’s and Father’s side of his family). These two poems are from Martin’s unpublished ‘Irish Collection

Newcastlewest, an invitation to a launch,Michael Hartnett and returning to the land of one’s ancestors

By Listowel Connection

On November 7, 2019

In Uncategorized

Stag with a fine Harem of Wives

Chris Grayson took this photo in Killarney National Park.

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An Invitation for You

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My Trip to Newcastlewest

This is Shirley O’Regan, poet and broadcaster, in the Limerick West fm studio where she interviewed me about my book, A Minute of Your Time.

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I took a stroll around Newcastlewest and here are a few photos from the town square.

This is the inscription on the below sculpture. My half remembered Latin seems to tell me that this is a monument to honour the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Assumption erected in 1950 by the parishioners of Newcastlewest.

The figure is clearly a milkmaid and in her hand she has a pair of butter paddles.

The bronze coin on the pavement also confirms that she is indeed a milkmaid as does the presence of milk churns on the plinth.

This would appear to depict a cow as well.

At the other end of the leisure space in The Square is a monument to local poet, the late Michael Hartnett.

Its a brilliant statue capturing the essence of this thoughtful genius.

Even on the dirty wet day of my visit, Newcastlewest square looked magnificent.

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Someone’s Coming Home

“My G Grandmother Mary Stack born 1832 is from Kilbaha, Her mother is Ellen Shanahan, Stack, Gregory. My G and GG came from Newtown Sandes, John Walsh born 1806 and his son Patrick born about 1830 came to the states about 1850 to Paris Ky.

I am looking forward to visiting your lovely city in late March or early April in 2020 with my son. We will be in Kerry and other locations for 7 to 10 days. I have done extensive searches for family from your lovely county for many years. So now it is time to visit and see it for myself. My name is Robert Patrick Walsh Fister, My son Tony, Robert Anthony is bringing me to Ireland as a gift, I am excited for sure.

Bob F “

Moyvane, Lixnaw, Wartime Rationing and Roddy Doyle in Listowel

By Listowel Connection

On September 27, 2019

In Uncategorized

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Moyvane, Then and Now

The creamery now and then

Crows on Main St. then and now

from https://moyvane.com

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Lixnaw and the Fitzmaurice clan

Kerryman 1957

If you would like to learn more…

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Been There, Done That

With all the talk of food shortages if the U.K. crashes out of Europe, I thought it might be timely to look back to a time when there were food shortages in Ireland.

Above is a wartime ration book. Certain foodstuffs and other stuff like fuel were in short supply so the government issued books of coupons to people. Coupons could be exchanged for these rationed goods.

A little known fact is that the health of British children improved during the period when rationing was in force. When I see the list of goods that will be in short supply after a hard Brexit, I think we might see the same unintended consequence.

Another fact that is not widely known is that food was also rationed in Germany. This poster from 1916 illustrates, in cartoon form, the range of foodstuffs rationed there.

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Fighting Words

Kate Kennelly, Kerry Co Council Arts Officer, Roddy Doyle and Jimmy Deenihan.

Roddy Doyle was in Kerry Writers’ Museum on Tuesday, September 24 2019 to promote Fighting Words, an organisation that he co founded to promote creative writing among young people. Fighting Words workshops have been running in Listowel since 2017. The workshops are held outside of a school setting, are free of charge and facilitated by adults who are not necessarily teachers. All you need to be a volunteer is a love of stories and a desire to help young people to write them.

If you would like to volunteer, contact Cara at Kerry Writers’ Museum.

Bernie and friends at Fighting Words Launch