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: Pat McAuliffe

Kiskeam

By

On June 30, 2023

In Listowel, Personal

Molly at the Tim Kennelly Roundabout, June 26 2023

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Kiskeam, Co. Cork

Kiskeam is a lovely rural North Cork village. It has, in the last few years, taken to preserving its heritage in murals and other initiatives aimed at connecting its diaspora at home and abroad with their roots.

Kiskeam suffered during the Famine and its population was further decimated by emigration in times of tough unemployment since. Kiskeam people are lovely and they have done every thing they can to welcome home the huge population worldwide with roots in this corner of the diocese of Kerry.

My friend, Phil, met this lovely man, Dan Lane who remembered her parents and was very knowledgeable about the village and knew the location of many graves .

Barr na Sráide is one visitor initiative.

Opposite the graveyard in Kiskeam is an old lane where once local tradesmen plied their trades.

Nowadays on one side are lovely new homes and on the other side murals commemorate the many trades that once kept the village folk alive. A way of life now faded from memory is commemorated for today’s children.

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Summer Maintenance

The fine weather is ideal for painting and decorating our shopfronts. Martin Chute is working on The Harp and Lion.

The Pat McAuliffe plasterwork has stood the test of time and is now ready for Martin’s skilled paintwork.

I disturbed Martin to ask him to pose with Jed Chute who happened to be passing by. Two lovely Listowel men.

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A Last Few Dollies

Who better than Danny to reproduce a good Dolly look?

The Colorado branch of the Groarke family called in to be part of Dolly Day.

Dolly Day was a very inclusive event bringing babies, pensioners and everyone in between together for 2 great charities.

Boasting impressive frontage were Eithne, Barry and Brenda O’Halloran

These three went creative with the costumes even if some of the attire was a tad unseasonal.

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Meanwhile in Sunday’s Well

I’m dead proud of my Anne who, with her partner Kevin, won the mixed doubles in Sunday’s Well recently

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St. Bridget’s Month Begins

By

On February 1, 2022

In Just a Thought, Listowel

Photo; Derry McCarthy, Mallow Camera Club

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St. Bridget’s Day

Kildare Heritage Centre photo

February 1 is St. Bridget’s Day. If you can at all, get or make a St. Brigid’s cross. It is meant to protect the house where it is displayed from all harm but particularly harm by fire. Many houses in Kildare (the home of St. Brigid) used to put up a new cross every year but they did not take down the old one and it was not unusual in a Kildare home to see a long line of crosses displayed on a wall or door jamb.

There is a new moon tonight Feb. 1 2022. The full moon will be on Feb. 16. I never knew until lately that full moons had names. Last month it was a wolf moon. This month it is the snow moon or the storm moon.

By the way this is the chinese year of the tiger.

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Pat McAuliffe’s Abbeyfeale

Photo; Alice Dennehy

Text: Alice Dennehy for Vanishing Ireland on Facebook

I passed this beautiful building yesterday in Abbeyfeale, County Limerick. I believe it was a pub in its day. J.D. DALY established 1869.

From National Heritage of Architectural heritage website it says..

“This unusual large scale building makes a significant contribution to the architectural heritage of Abbeyfeale.

The building is distinguished from its neighbours by its highly decorative rendered façade, which was applied by the Listowel artisan builder named Pat McAuliffe (1846-1921). The stucco work on Daly’s dates to 1890. Here McAuliffe uses an eclectisim of decoration on a single façade: Corinthian capitals, Egyptian cornice mouldings, arabesques, Latin scrolls, Hiberno-Romanesque bearded men and lionheads and Italian diamond pointed quoins. McAuliffe’s plasterwork imitates features more commonly found carved in stone and is best exemplified here by the render pilasters, corbelled eaves, decorative quoins and elaborate window surrounds with masked keystones. Such is the variety and quality in Pat McAuliffe’s work, that these masterpieces merit continued protection and appreciation within Abbeyfeale and Limerick County as a whole”

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Pres. Yearbook 1990

In 1990 the girls on the magazine committee asked a few past pupils to write a bit about their lives now. One of the chosen old girls was Katie Hannon.

She has come a long way since 1990.

I met Katie with Miriam O’Callaghan at Women in Media in Ballybunion a few years ago.

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Just a Though

The link to last week’s reflections, broadcast on Radio Kerry from Jan. 24 to Jan 28 2022 is

Here

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Shop Fronts and Sides

By

On August 5, 2021

In Listowel

At Vartry Reservoir by Éamon ÓMurchú

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Listowel’s Street Art

That was Then

This is Now

Listowel has a long history of unusual public building decoration. Now as then these big pieces of Art are not to everyone’s taste.

Pat MacAuliffe’s quirky stucco sculptures are now treasured and preserved. They are some of the images that define Listowel. Anyone would criticise them at his peril.

Back in the day when they were executed, people had mixed feelings about them. The image of a lion on top of a harp surrounded by a bit of Latin, a bit of French and a bit of Irish looked strange and out of place in an Irish market town in the 1920s. The Arts and Crafts era had arrived in Listowel. It took time for people to appreciate the originality of the work and to cherish the eccentricity and individuality it brought to Listowel’s streetscapes.

In 2021 the Listowel Characters project is also dividing local opinion. The first mural, executed by Garreth Joyce, is of its time. It is big, bold aerosol -can art. It’s graffiti as art and, like Pat McAuliffe’s text, the quotation requires a second or third reading. I think we should give it time. It will grow on us and we’ll come to love it as part of our streetscape.

There are two more large mural projects on the way this year. If you are slow in coming to like this one, reserve judgement until you see the next one.

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Lovely Spot for Outdoor Dining

Lynch’s in Main Street is a lovely spot for people -watching while you eat.

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A Thought provoking poem

In just a few lines John captures the pain and frustration of a lost generation.

Famine

by John MacGrath

Hungry land

Your people deserved better

Summer never wetter

Turf-sods floating in the bog-hole

Praties sick and dying

Like the people that sad winter

Heart of flint, you sent

Another sorry summer,

Scorned their plight. The blight

In every furrow sealed their fate

No hope and no tomorrow.

Yellow meal, too little and too late.

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