Market Street, Listowel on Tuesday Mar 8

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Two related pieces of Good News

Mayor of Listowel Aoife Thornton, Kerry Rose Édaein O’Connell, Joan Flavin of the Community and Business Alliance with, front, Trevor Horan of the Community Centre and Alliance chairperson Rose Wall launching the Listowel Community Rose selection.

(photo and caption : The Kerryman

On March 31 2023 in The Listowel Arms Hotel the selection of our community rose (there are 8 in all) will take place. These 8 will compete to replace Edaein O’Connell as Kerry Rose.

Co-ordinator and Festival Director Suzan O’Gara said. 

“In the spirit of supporting local and creating a positive community buzz in each of these locations, we are inviting all interested young women between 18 and 29 years of age, and young men aged 21 to 31, to send in their application forms via www.roseoftraleecommunities.com as soon as possible to ensure they’re on time to enter their local Community Rose selection events.”

Funds raised by Listowel Community Rose selection will be shared with the community centre to help with refurbishment expenses following the recent fire.

The second piece of good news

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The Moving of the Dandy Lodge

Dandy Lodge in 2020 before the Pitch and Putt Mural was painted

The Dandy Lodge was built in 1875. In 1997, when it had fallen into disrepair, it was taken down, moved and rebuilt stone by stone in the town park.

Tom O’Halloran R.I.P. who lived nearby was a citizen journalist before the term was invented. He took the following photos of the demolition in progress on his doorstep. His family are now sharing them with us.

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A Forgotten Food Fact from 1916

I told you this before. You have probably forgotten it. I certainly had.

Bovril operated a distribution warehouse at Eustace Street, Dublin. In the aftermath of the Rising there were grave food shortages, caused mainly due to the forced closure of bakeries. Many Dublin people were starving. Bovril was distributed free to the citizens to ease their hunger.

(Fact learned from Ireland’s Own)

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Listowel Emmets

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Adopting a Native American Child in the U.S.

Apropos of yesterday’s story from 1952, Kathy Reynolds wrote;

I have long had an interest in Native American culture maybe first because of Sunday afternoon cowboy and Indian films on RTE as a child but really because of a visit to petroglyphs at Monument Valley in 1988. As we looked at these ancient petroglyphs 2,000 or more years old the Americans around us on hearing British accents could only talk of our long history and the USAs lack of history. They saw no merit in Native American history. This was underlined as we toured the Navajo Tribal Park when our guide said how much he enjoyed taking Europeans around as they appreciated the history will the Americans only saw them as a curiosity.

In case you have forgotten yesterday’s letter here it is;

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Seely, 

Thank you very kindly for your donation of 10.00 for my little Indians. Yours is the first invitation that was ever extended to one of our papooses [Native American children] to come and spend the vacation somewhere. We have a few little boys and girls who have noone at all interested whether they live or die or come and go. 

I would send a little boy of six years or older or a little girl whatever you prefer. These Indian children are very little trouble, especially the one I have in mind. If you really mean it, I will see that we get him ready; you may have him any time you desire. I am not making any inquiries about you, because it takes a good person to make an offer as you did.

Please, let me know. 

With kindest regards, 

Father John

The Fr. John was Fr. John Pohlen of Tekakwitha Indian Mission in South Dakota.

“The boy that Malcolm and Suzanne Seely wound up adopting is now 71 years old as of March 2018. Dennis Isaac Seely told us in a phone interview that he was an infant in 1946 when he was forcibly taken from his mother, a Dakota Sioux woman living on the Lake Traverse Reservation in Sisseton, close to the North Dakota-Minnesota border:”

Kathy sent us the link to the whole sorry story;

 https://www.snopes.com/news/2018/03/13/native-american-child-adoption-letter/

Thank you, Kathy, for opening our eyes to this awful chapter in the history of Native American people.

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