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: Neodata site

Dick Spring’s Favourite Poem

Bunting at St. Mary’s to welcome the bishop and the young people who were confirmed on Friday last

Redevelopment of the Neodata Site

Jimmy Moloney sent us this letter…

Dear Cllr.,

Thank you for attending the briefing today on this project. As discussed, please find attached plans and particulars for the proposed Trailhead Facility at the Neo-Data site.

This project is going out for Part 8 public consultation tomorrow 24th of April 2024 – with a closing date of submissions on the 5th of June 2024.  The plans will be available online and on display at the Council Offices in Listowel.

The Project is for the development of fully accessible ‘Trailhead Facilities’ at the former Neo-Data site at Bridge Road Listowel to service members of the public,  users of the North Kerry Greenway and users of the Childer’s Park amenities. The construction of the Trailhead Facilities is funded by the Department of Rural and Community Development under the Outdoor Recreation Infrastructure Scheme (ORIS) and Kerry County Council (€550k). In summary the proposed facilities will provide vital infrastructure for people of all ages and abilities who enjoy walking, cycling, fishing, nature and spending time outdoors. 

Alongside this project, Kerry County Council is currently developing a masterplan for the larger riverside sites including the remainder of the Neo Data site, the Ball Alley and the Town Council Depot (see figure below). The masterplan shall examine and propose the potential other uses of the area as possible location for other outdoor recreation and sporting facilities which will add to the existing offering of sporting facilities in the surrounding area. These further sporting facilities will include for a hub building including showers and changing facilities which could also service users of the proposed Blueway on the River Feale. The development of the masterplan for the area is funded Under the Department of Rural and Community Development under Rural Regeneration and Development Fund (RRDF) and Kerry County Council. 

If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Regards

Micheál Lyons

SE

Capital Development Unit North

Gaeilge ar na Sráideanna

More photos from a 2007 TY project

Lifelines

This book was compiled by students at a Dublin secondary school. They wrote to well known people and asked them to nominate their favourite poem for inclusion in a fundraising book.

Flowers of the Fairest

Maurice Walsh

I’ve told you before that discovering treasures in the swap box at the library has become a delightful occurrence in my life .

(N.B. If you are a Maurice Walsh fan you won’t want to miss this;

Public lecture on the Listowel literary tradition by Dr Deirdre Serjeantson: ‘Landscape and Memory in the Novels of Maurice Walsh’. on Sunday June 2 at 3.00 p.m…part of the Writers Week programme)

Look what I found last week. Thank you to the donor.

More tomorrow

Sad Tale from the Newspaper Archives

Today’s Fact

In April 1843 William Wordsworth was appointed Poet Laureate to Queen Victoria.

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A Robin, Beef Tea by John B. Keane and Fr. Danny Long and Maisie McSweeney

Closeup of a Robin


Photo: Ita Hannon

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Garden of Europe Update



This corner of our lovely town is looking very bare these days.


signs of spring

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A Fruity Poem  by William Cole  (from For Laughing Out Loud)



I thought I’d win the spelling bee

And get right to the top.

But I started to spell “banana”,

And I didn’t know when to stop.

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Bridge Road


This is the old Neodata site. It looks like it is going to be a car park, for the foreseeable future anyway.





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Beef Tea  (concluded)


by John B. Keane


….There was another
man in the street at the time, a notorious rogue albeit a likeable enough
fellow. He was greatly addicted to all forms of intoxicating drink and as is
the case with such people he often found himself with an insatiable desire for
meat. He would insist, on his arrival home from the public house, that his wife
did not look at all well. As it happened, she was something of a hypochondriac
and liked to hear such things.

“I haven’t been
feeling well all day,” she would agree.

“What you need,”
he would say,” is a nice mug of beef tea. If you have a shilling or two handy
I’ll go down and knock up the butcher and get a pound of the finest round.”

All beef tea
consisted of, by the way, was the water in which the beef was boiled.  As soon as she started to partake of the beef
tea our friend would start to partake of the beef. It was a good ruse and it
kept both of them in good health for many a year.

Nowadays there is
no talk of beef tea and more’s the pity because I might not be here at all only
for it. There were occasions when it was supposed to have brought people back
from the very mouth of the grave. Under no circumstances was the fat of beef to
be used. A nice lean cut off the round was the very man for the job.

People may look
askance at it now but in my boyhood it was held in reserve to the very end much
like a crack battalion in time of battle. Then when all seemed lost the beef
tea like the battalion would be unleashed on the enemy, the battalion upon the
opposing army and the beef tea upon the harbingers of human extinction.

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Fr. Danny Long and Maisie McSweeney


Billy McSweeney writes;


Fr Danny Long was President of St. Michael’s College from Sept 1954. I
remember him fondly, not only because he was a relief to all the
students from his predecessor, but also because he had a sharp sense of
humour. His arrival at St. Mike’s on my first year definitely saved me
from an ‘uncomfortable’ 6 years.

In my memory we have a story of when Danny Long visited the Library and
asked my mother for ‘Dr Zhivago’ by Boris Pasternak. This was out new at
the time and was all the rage. There was a long queue of borrowers
waiting their turn to read it.

Danny was insistent that she put him at the head of the queue, which she
rejected and refused to do as it would be unfair! She told him so!

“You know that I could turn you into a goat!” says Danny. (To non-native
Listowel readers this was a well-known piseog of old!)

“BeGod Father, if you do I’ll puck you,” was the reply.

He had met his match!

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