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: Ogham

Out and About with Camera

By

On August 29, 2024

In History, Listowel

Time to write…Display in The Listowel Arms

<<<<<<<<

People I Met

I met Mary and Cathriona McCarthy and Joan Buckley on Friday evening on their way to Revival.

I met Mary McGrath and her lovely daughter on their way to visit Peter.

Jessica and Áine were taking a break in Market Street Kitchen.

Three Mountcoal ladies, Chrissie, Eileen and Peggy were having a cuppa and a catch up.

<<<<<<<

From the Archives

21 Sept 1912

New York NY Irish American Advocate

Chicago News;

A very pretty wedding was celebrated In this town last week when Mr. Patrick J. Buckley, of Clounmacon, Listowel, Co. Kerry, and Miss Josephine Sheehan, of Tarmons, Tarbert, Co. Kerry, were joined In wedlock. The ceremony was performed by the Rev. F. Quigley in the Church of Our Lady of Sorrows, Albany avenue and Jackson Boulevard. Miss Sheehan was dressed In white silk, and carried a bouquet of Killarney roses. Mr. R. Walsh acted as best man, and Miss Marie McKean as bridesmaid. After the ceremony at the church the young couple and their friends drove to 1039 Oakley Boulevard, where breakfast was served, after which the young couple went on a honeymoon trip to California. The presents from the friends of Mr. and Mrs. Buckley were numerous and beautiful. On their return they will be at home at Monroe and Ogden avenue.

<<<<<<<<

A Poem we Learned at School

<<<<<<<<

Ogham

This is the stoney corridor in UCC. It is the most marvellous free museum. Along the walls are stones/ boulders which have been removed for safe keeping from several locations in Munster.

Before there was paper, there was stone. People actually wrote on stone. Obviously if you were chiseling out every letter on stone, you wouldn’t write much.

These Ogham stones have the names of chieftans and important people carved on them. The name was carved in a morse code like system of scratches in the edge of the boulder. The name, I am told was read from the bottom upwards.

It is marvellous to have these great artefacts within touching distance. Of course we mustn’t touch them. We must show them the respect their longevity and historical significance demands.

<<<<<<<

Caring for their Customers

This is a good idea. Be sure to tell the youngsters, just in case….

<<<<<<<<

A Fact

The longest place name in Ireland is Muckanaghederdauhaulia (muk-an-hand-ra-do-dauter-hal-i-a). It is a 470-acre townland in the civil parish of Kilcummin in County Galway, Ireland.

<<<<<<<

Last of the photos from my Book Launch, The Square, Some Shops Closing and an Exhibition in St. John’s

By

On February 3, 2020

In Uncategorized

Lower Courthouse Road

The Square Listowel, January 2020

Two car charging locations in Listowel Town Square in January 2020

Both of these shops, the sweet shop and the wool shop are closing soon.

 <<<<<<<<<

The last of The Photos from the Book launch of A Minute of Your Time

Eamon Dillon

Eddie Moylan and Paddy McElligott

Eibhlín Pierse

Eileen Moylan

Eileen O’Sullivan

Eileen O’Sullivan

Eilish Wren

Elaine and John Kinsella











































Proud Nana with all of my grandchildren

 <<<<<<<<


Kerry Person of the Year 2020


Photo and text from Tralee Today




THE Kerry Association in Dublin’s Kerry Person of the Year has been announced as Dr Patricia Sheahan.

Listowel native Dr Sheahan, is Head of Palliative Care at University Hospital Kerry, has been central to the development of palliative care services in the county. She will receive her award in March.

The Laochra Chiarraí award has also been announced as Listowel Tidy Towns for their enormous success and community efforts over the past number of years. The announcements were made on Radio Kerry this morning.

The Kerry Person of the Year award, now in its 41st year, recognises an individual who has shown leadership, brought honour to the county, and performed services for the county to such an extent that could be described as being beyond the norm of everyday life.

The awards will be presented at the Association’s annual Oiche Chiarraí which will be held in the Red Cow Moran Hotel on Saturday, March 28.

<<<<<<<<<



Exhibition Launch at St. John’s


The setting was the charming St. John’s Arts Centre Listowel.

The day was Feb 1 2020, the first day of Spring in the old Irish calendar.

The music was Woodbrook, played for us by the very talented Ellen Egan.


The artist was poet, Mary Lavery Carrig whose marvellous exhibition marries ancient Irish script with images of birds and trees.

Old Gaeilge was an oral language and people used visual images or prompts to remember the letters, so each letter corresponds to a bird or a tree.

In the old days Japanese poets and artists used minimal lines and sketches.

Mary Lavery Carrig has created a new art form in this tradition, combining her haiku poems with images of birds and foliage.

You’ll have to go along to St. John’s to see for yourself. All the pictures are framed for sale and are very reasonably priced.

If you want to learn more about this fascinating art form, visit Mary’s website

Haiga.ie

The Garden of Europe, Ogham and the cliff walk in winter 2018

By

On February 7, 2018

In Uncategorized

Lesser Redpoll


Photo credit:  Graham Davies

<<<<<<<


Garden of Europe in Winter 2018


 The trees are bare and, after weeks of relentless rain, the ground underfoot is soft and soggy.

An evergreen tree relieves the uniform greyness.

Schiller is framed by the bare arms of the willow.

This lovely green hedge at the side of the lower entrance is coming along nicely.

The plaque indicating the MacMahon tree needs a facelift.

The McMahon tree is a bay which once grew in Bryan and Kitty MacMahon’s garden in Church Street.

 There was a solitary daffodil in bloom beside the sleeper steps.


The Town Council Depot is a bit unsightly from this path into the Garden.

<<<<<<



Ogham




Listowel silversmith, Eileen Moylan, of Claddagh Design engraving a name in Ogham on a ring

Seven Facts about Ogham


Ogham is the oldest form of writing found in Ireland. It dates from the 4th to the 6th centuries.

Ogham is an alphabet with letters based on the names of trees

All outstanding Ogham inscriptions are proper names.

Ogham was carved in stone.

Typically the name of a chieftain would be engraved in the edge of a stone monument.

Ogham reads vertically from the bottom up.

Ogham is now popular on Irish designed jewellery

<<<<<<


Ballybunion Cliff Walk


I took advantage of a short break in the wet weather to take a walk along the cliff at Ballybunion.



<<<<<<,



Sive at the Gaiety


This is now



That was then.



A modern interpretation of Sive is wowing audiences at the Gaiety.  Back in Feb 1959 Listowel people knew they were witnessing something groundbreaking. I think no one realised quite how enduring this great play by a local lad would be. 

Sive tells a story as old as time. It’s Romeo and Juliet. It’s Westside Story. John B. always had his finger on the local pulse. He was a great observer and recreator of characters. While Mena may be seen as the villain, I can’t help but feel sympathy for her. Look at the hard life she had and the bad match she made. She genuinely saw the advantages of marrying Seán Dota. John B. understood here well.

Dave O’Sullivan has been trawling through the newspapers for review and stories from the fifties. Here are a few of the cuttings he unearthed as the play swept the boards at the All Ireland Drama Festival in Athlone.

I still think that local folk are the best interpreters of the play. As I listen to people these days, I am reminded of nothing but the crowd who claim to have been in the GPO in 1916. The whole of North Kerry, it would appear, was in Walsh’s fully heated ballroom for that first spine chilling production. Almost to a man and woman, they cite the stand out memory as the tinkers. The drum beat of the stick and the thud of the bodhrán added a dramatic dimension they had not seen before. It has been dinned into their folk memory ever since.

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén