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 Walsh

Something old, Something New

By

On August 16, 2022

In Festivals, Listowel

The Square, Listowel in August 2022

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Brother and Horses

In Bettyville, Kanturk

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Weight Gain

Here is a laugh for today’s young people. Once upon a time, not a hundred years ago for I remember it well, you had to pay to weigh yourself. Scales like these stood in the pharmacy and you put a penny in the slot to operate the weighing scales.

People didn’t have bathroom scales. Many people didn’t have bathrooms. These scales offered a public service. This one appeared recently in a post in my Kanturk Memories group. It stood not in a pharmacy but in a diner style café. The owners , the O’Sullivan family, had returned from the USA and had brought all kinds of new ideas to Kanturk. Their café had banquette seating in booths just like in the movies, it had a juke box and this weighing scales.

When we went to the city; Cork, we loved to weigh ourselves in Woolworths because their scales gave you a little card with your weight on it. Would we want it now?

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Time Flies

These two young men walking with their Nana in Gurtinard last weekend are the same two boys I snapped on Church Street on a visit to Nana in another lifetime. They are Killian and Sean Cogan from Cork. I am the Nana.

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It was Roses, Roses all the way

Our girl is off on her tour around the country and by all accounts, she is wowing them wherever she goes.

I put my money where my mouth is but by the time I got there Edaein was already installed as the favourite. 😍 🤩 🥳

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Revival, the Reunion

It used to be the Races, now it’s Revival. One visitor described Friday evening at Revival as 1000 people in a carpark standing and chatting with old friends and 500 people upfront attending a concert.

Among the former were Seán, Valeria, Richard and Elaine.

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It’s still Heritage Week 2022

You’ve got two more chances to see Bliain dar Saol in Kerry Writers Museum. It’s on today, Tuesday Aug. 16 2022 and Wednesday Aug. 17 2022. Both showings are at 2.30 pm.

I snapped these two local heroes yesterday August 15 2022 on their way to mass.

John Lynch has preserved lots and lots of Listowel memories on film. He made Bliain dar Saol in collaboration with John Pierse. It records a year in Listowel fifty years ago.

Pat Walsh served us well in McKenna’s for years. He was also one of the men who worked so hard to keep the Pitch and Putt course in perfect condition.

Men like these are the salt of the earth.

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Ard Curam Concert, Bogs, Convent Street and Moyvane Post Office closure

By

On May 13, 2019

In Uncategorized

Irish Wildlife Trust Photography Competition Finalist

Martin MacNamara; Irish short- eared owl

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Ard Churam Choir



Recording is done on the EP and practice is continuing for the Listowel Writers’ Week concert. Be sure to book your ticket in good time. The concert will take place in Listowel Community Centre on Thursday May 30 2019. Tickets may be booked online

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Bog Bodies


These items of children’s footwear were dumped in a bog not far from Listowel. I don’t think it was the children who dumped them.

Nearby in the same bog, beautiful Nature flourishes despite man’s indifference.

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Convent Street aka Gleann an Phuca


Photo: Johnny Hannon

This is how Convent Street used to look.

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Listowel Man Remembered in Chicago

Mark Holan who writes a marvellous blog about things Irish spotted this memorial paving stone in Chicago.

It is on the pavement outside the Irish American Heritage Center.

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Moyvane P.O. 



Northkerry blog marked the retirement of the last Moyvane post mistress with this snippet;

FAREWELL Mass and tribute was paid to Mary Collins in the Marian Hall on Tuesday night 30th April 2019. Mary was Moyvane’s last Post Mistress. Previous postmasters include; Bridie Sheehan for 21, her husband, the late Dick Sheehan for 41 years. Catherine Shine, died 1983; J C Shine died 1965; Nora Richardson died 1922. Richard Barrett, Post Office, Newtownsandes, there in 1857; Regulation 1914, In future all female officers will have to resign on marriage, but will be eligible for a marriage gratuity on resignation.

Currently in 2019, An Post is spending €5million on rebranding. The title Post is being changed to An Post, the green colour is being changed to an lighter shade of green. There is another small tweak or two planned but basically the changes are cosmetic , not so the loss of a post office to a rural community.

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Three Generations of “Scribes’ ladies




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Winners Alright




This is the Prosperous Dramatic Society who yesterday won the RTE All Ireland Drama Festival in Athlone.

On the far left of picture is Dave O’Sullivan who does so much work for Listowel Connection. He played the part of Peter Stockman in Prosperous’ winning production of An Enemy of the People. Well done all.

Church St., Poverty in Kerry in 1898 and The Manly Barber on Charles Street

By

On August 23, 2016

In Uncategorized

Church St. Listowel Sunday August 14 2016

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Now and Then




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When Times were Hard



Kerry Sentinel  Wednesday, February 16, 1898

FLAVIN, M.P.

Speaking on the distress in Kerry on Friday night, Mr. Flavin said he did not desire to needlessly prolong the debate, but at the same time he might say that he had little hope of obtaining anything like generous treatment or anything in the nature of a remedy from the Chief Secretary (hear, hear). 

He had made complaints before about the condition of the poor people, and he received no response from the Chief Secretary. He appealed to the right hon. gentleman last year at a time when most of the labouring population in the Listowel Union were in want of work, but nothing came of it. They were told to fall back upon the union for relief. But the fact was that the poor rates now in the Listowel Union were as much as 15s. in the pound, and the ratepayers could not bear any additional burden. 

Unless the Government stepped in to prevent it, there would be great distress in Kerry. There were no seed potatoes and no seed oats, and what seed there was in Kerry and Munster had come from the North of Ireland and from Scotland. So long as the Chief Secretary preferred the statements of his own inspectors to even those of the landlords in Kerry, and the representatives of the people, there was little hope of anything of a beneficial character being done for the people of the poorer districts (hear, hear)

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I Met him on William St.



Pat Walsh favours pedal power. Pat was cycling before it became a fashionable means of transport.

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Manctuary is now The Manly Barber


This shop has pinned its colours to the mast. In case there was any doubt; It is now clearly men only.

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Strange Things in the Sea off Kerry this year


First it was jellyfish, now this is reported in Afloat Magazine

A miniature unmanned
sailing boat has been reported off the Kerry coast after nearly three years in
the North Atlantic.

The boat, named
West, is part of the Educational Passages project by the Middle
School of Westbrook in Maine, USA and is one of five boats the Sebago School
Alliance sent out in the autumn and winter of 2013-14.

West was launched off
Georges Bank along with one other boat by Bro Cote, a lobsterman out of
Hyannis, Massachusetts. Several others were launched about the same time off
the Mid-East coast of the United States and off the Canary Islands for the marine science
project.

“We had hoped the boat
would make the complete circle of the Atlantic Ocean. It has and then some,”
say the project organsiers about West, which has been spotted 32 nautical miles
from the Kerry coastline.

West could arrive in
the Kerry area over the next few days or, depending upon weather conditions,
may go further northwards towards the Galway coast.

Previously West made
landfall in November 2014 when it crashed on rocks in rough seas off Portugal,
where it was recovered by local authorities and repaired with the help of local
companies and relaunched from Lisbon in June last year.

Four months later, it
was recovered entering the Mediterranean, refurbished again and put on a cargo
ship to Madeira and relaunched from there on 28 January this year.

The project
co-ordinators have asked for assistance to help rescue the boat when it arrives
in the coming days

“It would be great if
the boat could be recovered at sea or shortly after landing to avoid
damage.”

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Coming Soon to a small screen in your living room

Gerard Barrett’s Smalltown promises to be one of those close to the bone series. It will be the rural equivalent of Love Hate, holding the mirror up to  aspects of today’s Ireland we may all recognise.

I heard about Smalltown first from Fr. Pat Moore who wrote about it in his very thought provoking blog. Read it here:  Strength within, Support without

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Knockanure Vintage Day 2016


Knockanure Local went to the vintage day and here are his photos

https://youtu.be/VMO4E7ig-Vg

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