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 Spillane

A Communion, A Book and a Beloved Priest

By

On May 2, 2024

In Listowel, Personal

Field of Rapeseed at Glenlohane outside Kanturk in April 2024

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I was at Cian’s First Holy Communion

On Saturday April 27 2014 I was back in the church where I was married, St. Mary’s in Castlemagner. I’m from Kanturk but from the parish of Castlemagner which stretches right into the town of Kanturk.

The church is small but very well cared for. This is the Easter altar display.

When you attend a family occasion back in your old place you inevitable meet old friends and neighbours. Will Collins came from Donegal for his niece’s communion. Will’s parents, Peggy and Willy are dear neighbours to my Kanturk family.

I met Catherine Fitzpatrick and Abbie Kelly, two ladies I had not met since my schooldays.

The man of the moment, Cian Ahern with his dad, William, and his grandad, Pat, my brother.

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Sports Writing

As followers of Listowel Connection will realise, sport is not a topic I touch on often. It is well outside my area of expertise.

Good writing is something I always appreciate. Some of the best writing is often found in sports journalism.

I love this witty snippet from Joe Brolly on the dangers of calling your child after your favourite song.

If you have no idea what Joe, from Derry, is talking about, then just move on.

I found this book in the library swap box. I only know a small bit about this ex footballer and pundit but I thought he might have something interesting to say. He does but a lot of it is delivered in a very critical tone. However, this next piece is pure poetry so I’m sharing it with you.

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Fr. Kieran O’Shea R.I.P.

from Knocknagoshel Phoenix 2007

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Babóg na Bealtaine

In a very old may custom a May Baby was fashioned from straw and decorated with rags and ribbons and used to decorate the May bush. The May Bush was never a whitethorn even though this shrub was usually in full bloom in May. The whitethorn was thought to be unlucky and people did not bring it indoors.

The May Bush could be a furze or other flowering shrub. Yellow is the colour of May and many of the flowers that bloom on May are yellow- furze, buttercups, marigolds, primroses and cowslips.

The beautiful rapeseed fields in Glenlohane are a modern take on the yellow theme.

Everywhere you look here is a sea of green and gold.

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A Fact

In 1752 The British Isles moved from the old Julian calendar to the Gregorian one. In that year September 2 was followed by Sept. 14.

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GAA and More

By

On July 28, 2022

In Festivals, Listowel

Listowel Courthouse and Library in July 2022

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Planning Your Weekend?

Two local festivals are back in full swing next weekend. Here are the details.

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The GAA is all about Family

Pic: Kerry GAA Fans Facebook page

There are some families that are steeped in GAA lore. Football is in the DNA of OSés, Griffins, Cliffords etc etc. But Pat Spillane’s farewell speech has to be the most poignant reminder of how much winning an All Ireland medal can mean even to families who have biscuit tins full of them under beds.

“My father never saw us play. The three sons have 19 All-Ireland medals and his two grandsons today, Killian and Adrian, have two more. He would have been a proud man, 21 senior All-Ireland football medals brought in to his house. It’s just a special day. A special day.”

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Stephen Fernane in this week’s Kerryman tells us why he also remembers his father on Ireland final day.

Photo; BBC Sport

Ogie Clifford in the Sam Maguire cup with his father, David, and his uncle, Paudie in Croke Park on Sunday, July 24 2022.

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Summers Past

“…Oh, for the touch of a vanished hand,

Or the sound of a voice that is still….”

This lovely photo is from The Irish Examiner archive. It was taken in a meadow in Wilton in Cork but it could be anywhere in Ireland in the 1950s and 60s.

I remember the gallon of tea and the sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper from a sliced pan.

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Obituary to a Man who Kept Lartigue History Safe

by David Kissane for The Ballydonoghue Parish Magazine

The Ballydonoghue Parish Magazine was saddened by the death recently of one of its original members, Mick Barry of Ballingown. Mick was an advertisement for mental and physical vigour, with a curious mind and a challenging nature.Well into his 90s, he had a long and interesting life, spent mostly on his farm in Ballingown where his father had passed away when Mick was quite young.

He was well rooted in his own townland and parish, and knew every inch and every person in the locality. He fulfilled many roles in his long lifetime, from farmer to enginerer to mechanic to historian to taxi driver to husband to father to grandfather to philosopher to much more.

He was a fear iol-dánach, a man for all seasons of human life. He was a valued companion of his friend John B Keane, a writer who valued the Kerryness of Mick. Mick contributed this Kerryness to his work with Listowel Writers Week and the Ballydonoghue Parish Magazine. His creativity was displayed on many occasions in his membership of the latter, creating the concept of the photo-story where he took an old photo and generated an article about the people in it, the time it was taken and the latent emotive potential around it. In times of doubt and division at a meeting, he could unentangle the algebra of issues and cast light on the possible road ahead.

An hour spent in Mick’s company always became three hours as he had the ability and nous to draw one into the fresh pastures of his tales, memories and histories. He was also, of course a humorous man and a rogue when it suited! A twinkle in his eye at the start of a story meant that his listener was going nowhere fast.

He was inspired by many things in the parish around him, not least the sulphur green and the bottle green and the lime green and the sea green of the Hill that looked down on him sometimes under a cobalt blue sky. He had the sunny side of that Hill as his first vista every morning, drawing a deep energising breath as he indulged his eyes over its raw and changing face for over 90 years. It was under that Hill that he recreated a section of the Lartigue Train to relive the Lartigue experience of the late 1800s and early 1900s, to the amazement and delight of neighbours like Páidín Roche and Joe Kennelly.

To see Mick in the company of his late wife Sheila at a meeting or on a night out was to experience a team of two who worked well together. They added a colour and texture to many a Lisselton night. Together they rinsed the mundane from many a flat ordinary occasion and rendered it special with a half smile, a knowing nod or a ripened word.

The BPM offers its sincere sympathy to the Barry family.

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Women in Media 2016, Lislaughtin and another 80th Birthday Party

By

On April 26, 2016

In Uncategorized




Chris Grayson



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Women in Media in Ballybunion April 2016


There were some big names in attendance at the 2016 event.


 Joan O’Connor is the organizer of the whole event. She is the hardest working woman in Ballybunion on that weekend. Here she is consulting with Mary Dundon, Head of Journalism at UL.

 Hildegarde Naughton T.D. was there.

 Miriam O’Callaghan of RTE

 Joan Burton T.D.

 Aoibhinn Ní Shuilleabháin of RTE

These two ladies are not so well known because they are the big names behind the cameras; Catherine Magee, producer of Rebellion for RTE and Katie Holly, M.D. of Blinder Films.

I didn’t attend every event. There were big names on Sunday as well but your blogger had moved on to the Brendan Kennelly at 80 event.

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Kennelly’s Lislaughtin


 On Sunday April 17 2016 Listowel Writers’ Week and The Seanchaí Writers Centre celebrated Brendan Kennelly’s 80th birthday with a day of events dedicated to him. In the Seanchaí we watched the remastered DVD, River of Words. We saw a younger Kennelly read his work in Lislaughtin Abbey and in Ballybunion, places we were soon to visit on our bus tour. Then it was on the bus away we went to Ballylongford and Lislaughtin, where Padraig OConcubhair and Gabriel Fitzmaurice were waiting to entertain us with history and poetry.

 We stood among the monastic ruins and the graves and listened, enthralled to tales of friars, monks, piety and massacre, betrayal, looting and sacking.  We heard stories of very powerful O’Connors and the very powerful Cromwell whose marauding army sacked the Friary. The story told to us was that Cromwell, uncharacteristically decided to spare the monastery. But when the monks rang a bell to call everyone to pray in thanksgiving , Cromwell mistook this for triumphalism, returned and burned the place. All of the monks escaped except three old men and these he massacred on the steps of the altar.

The wealthy O’Connor clan commissioned a huge processional cross for the monastery. This was discovered one day years after the sacking of Lislaughtin by a farmer who was ploughing. I suppose a monk had rescued and  buried it during one of the raids on the monastery. The farmer, Jeffcott, was reluctant to part with his find and kept it for eighteen years, before a combination of the gentle persuasion of a local historian and the fact that he had fallen on hard times combined to persuade him to part with it. It is today on display in The National Museum.


As well as history we had poetry. The first of many renderings  of I See you Dancing, Father was given by Denis Hobson.

Before we left the churchyard I took a wander around and noted Ballylongford’s strong republican leanings  with the presence of many tricolours adorning headstones.

This republicanism is alive today. When we returned to Bally a group of people had laid a wreath at the memorial to The O’Rahilly.

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A Hooley in Áras Mhuire



Two 80th birthdays in a row! I took a few photos at Áras Mhuire at James Gould’s birthday party. I’ll share them shortly.

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Giants of the Game


photo: John O’Shea


Mrs Spillane sees her three sons head out to a football game during the glory days of Kerry football.

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