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: P and T

Baby, it’s cold outside

By

On January 23, 2024

In Listowel, Poem

River Feale in January 2024 photo by Mary Dowling

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Old Photo Shared on Facebook

Phil Lynott and fans in Tralee in 1980.

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For the Weather we have had

from Mick O’Callaghan in Gorey

The pale moon was rising.

I walk out the front door

Of our home in Gorey

Its freezing cold outside 

I look around 

I gaze left and right

I view the spider’s web like tree

At the edge of the garden

It is a most majestic sight

I admire its skeletal appearance

In all its bareness

And undressed beauty

With its beautiful pattern

Of interwoven

Branches and twigs

I take out my camera

To capture its arboreal elegance.

In my photo shot

The rising moon is visible 

In the clear evening sky above

Through the delicate

Web like branches

Its orbital shape

Clearly visible

The street lights

Appear as orange globes

In the background.

I save these images

In my photo memory bank

For future reference

On a bitter cold January evening

In Gorey, County Wexford

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Native mute swan

Neil Brosnan has been in touch…

Hi Mary, I believe the swan in Mary Dowling’s photo to be a native Mute swan rather than a migrant Whooper. See pic attached.

Mary’s swan

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A Polar Plunge

Prompted by my photo of my grandchildren sea dipping in December, Sue in the U.S. sent us this.

This is Lake Michigan with fewer waves. Photographer Laurel Covert captured a Lee Street Beach polar plunge.

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Postbox on Upper Church Street

This mailbox is pre 1984 because An Post, the Irish postal administration, came into being in 1984 when, under the terms of the Postal & Telecommunications Services Act of 1983, the Post Office services of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs (P&T) were divided between An Post and Telecom Éireann, the telecommunications operator now called Eir.

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A Fact

This is a fact verified from my own experience.

The best way to find something you have lost is to buy a replacement.

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A Post Van and a Post Box

By

On January 19, 2024

In History, Listowel

In Market Street on January 15 2024

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A Mail Van

Photo and text shared on Facebook by Baily’s Corner

“For Beautiful Scenery See Kerry”. A Bedford KZ P&T van which would have been built locally here in Kerry! Patrick Hegarty was a mail van contractor, operating under contract to the Department of Post & Telegraphs (hence the P&T logo on the van). P. Hegarty, Killarney. Phone 55.

He operated daily from Killarney to Waterville via Kenmare & Parknasilla. The Postmaster in Killarney, as nominee of the P&T, held a licence under the Road Transport Act 1932 for a passenger service on the route, so the contractor was allowed carry passengers.

Pic: Roy Marshall – The Bus Archive

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Pillar Postbox

I hope the missing collection time notice is just a temporary accident.

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Oh for the days of the Kerry Dances

Text from Martin Moore on Facebook

A story from North Kerry.     Martin Moore

There is a long tradition of step dancing in North Kerry, and this continues, thanks to dedicated masters such as Jimmy Hickey of Listowel.

The earliest known dancing master was  Thomas Moore, known locally as ‘Mooreen na Rinnce’.

Other exponents of this style were Ned Walsh, Jerry Molyneaux, Phil Cahill and Paddy White.

Paddy White was from Bedford, Listowel and at a Feis in Listowel in the summer of 1915, he took first prize in the jig, reel and hornpipe and followed this with the same award for dancing ‘the blackbird’. The newspaper then incorrectly recorded him as ‘D White’.

Paddy lived a long life, and was still dancing when I was a garsoon! 

This is all the more amazing considering how his dancing days could have ended on New Years Day 1921.

That evening some neighbours were playing cards at Bedford and they dispersed on the approach of lorries of Crown Forces.

Paddy and Edward Barrett jumped a fence to hide. The occupants of the lorries raided a nearby house, where a man named Mangan, of Kilfeighney, was hiding.

Mangan, took off, was spotted and fire was opened on him. Meanwhile, Barrett and White found themselves in the line of fire and both were wounded.  Paddy suffered a broken leg.

The injured men were treated initially in Listowel, and subsequently in the military hospital in Tralee.

Paddy’s son, Ned, told me 23 years ago that the White family came to North Kerry from Antrim about 1704.

Crown Forces bullets could not curtail the dancing of Paddy White, shot at Bedford, 103 years ago.

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Reminder of Another Age

My crib figures were passed on to me in this box by my late mother in law.

Lamb Brothers had a jam factory in Inchicore. It was still run by the Lamb family when it rebranded a Fruitfield in The 1950s or 60’s. Before the business was acquired by Jacobs, Fruitfield it was owned for a time by Nestle and the brands were incorporated with those of Little Chip and Chef. 

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A Fact

Gmail launched for the first time on April 1 2004. The timing was unfortunate as many people believed it was an April Fools’ Day prank.

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