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: postcards

Hands across the Ocean

By

On March 13, 2025

In History, Listowel

Market Street in March 2025

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A few More Old Postcards from Máire MacMahon

William Street looks so busy on that day with ladders, horses, Model Ts and people all over the place.

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An Irish American Poet with a strong Listowel Connection

Sean Carlson no linger lives in Listowel but he maintains a strong link with us.

Sean has been in touch. Here is his news…

Hi Mary,

Three new recent write-ups for you to know about:

“Home and/or Home,” my interview following our 2024 Listowel Writers’ Week panel with Erin Fornoff and Gustav Parker Hibbett on their respective poetry and experiences also growing up in the U.S. and writing in Ireland, was published in The Common, a U.S. literary journal.

“Bus to Ballybunion,” my short dispatch from the Tralee to Ballybunion afternoon route was featured in the winter/spring 2025 issue of Trasna, a journal on Ireland and its diasporas.

“Every time a fly went by,” written in and about Listowel and first published last year in the Honest Ulsterman, was recently selected for Verse Daily‘s poem-a-day anthology.

Best wishes from here!

– Sean

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St Patrick got his very own Executive Order

Here is an exchange from the Oval Office as reported by The National Desk.

(On March 7 2025)

“Lindsey Halligan then presented Trump with the Irish American Heritage Month proclamation. She told Trump it was a “proclamation proclaiming March 2025 as Irish American Heritage month in honor of, to commemorate our amazing friendship between America and Ireland and to just honor all of the Irish Americans and I’m a little bit biased, because I am American and Irish.”

Trump said, “They’re great people, great people.”

Halligan reminded the president, “St. Patrick’s Day is coming up as well.”

Trump noted that Irish Americans voted for him in “heavy numbers.”

Holding up the signed document, Trump told reporters, “So for the Irish American people, proclamation.”

Irish Americans have played a crucial role in our great American story — courageously overcoming adversity and hardship to embolden our culture, enliven our spirit, and fortify our way of life. This Irish-American Heritage Month, we commemorate the special bond of friendship between the United States and Ireland — and we honor the extraordinary contributions of Irish-American citizens past and present, Trump wrote.”

Trump obviously loves our American cousins and they love him as shown by their voting for him in “heavy numbers’. Let’s hope he remembers that when it comes to slapping his beloved tariffs on Big Pharma and Tech companies with their European bases in Ireland.

“If You’re Irish, come into the parlour….”

What a welcome from Donald Trump and JD Vance yesterday?

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Remember

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Deborah’s Lixnaw ancestors

Deborah Cronin wrote

“…I am also related to Tony McCarthy from Lixnaw. His charming wife gave me information to help me. 

I will send you a photo of a map from 1850 that Nora McCarthy sent me. This depicts the McCarthy & McAuliffe properties. We visited the McCarthys a few years. My children have also visited. When we were there we met some relatives, Delia McAuliffe O’Sullivan and Mickey Heapy.”

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A Fact

Our national colour used to be blue. It’s only been changed to green in popular, but not official, culture in the last 100 years.

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Remembering

By

On March 11, 2025

In Listowel, Personal

Listowel Fire station in March 2025

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Remembering

St. Patrick’s Day 2023 in Listowel

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Old Friends

The Sheehy family of Main Street remained proud of their Listowel roots to the end.

I wish someone would write the life stories of all these people who are commemorated on benches in town. All of them contributed to Listowel, and Listowel is justly proud of them. Their stories, as well as their names, deserve preservation.

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Different Times

Jer Kennelly found this one.

I did a bit of research and it seems that the dance in question may have beein in 1940.

Here are extracts from an article I found online. The interview awas with a Bray saxophonist in The Irish Independent in 2003.

“…One piece of memorabilia Charlie keeps is a diary in which he recorded all the gigs he played and what he was owed for each. The entry for March 1940, when playing with the dance band, was £2 and 16 pence! ‘That’s what I earned that month,’ laughs Charlie.

In 1942 Charlie joined the Phil Murtagh band, who had a residency in the Metropole on Dublin’s O’Connell Street.

This was the biggest gig in the country and the band was the best in the business. They played all around the country and had a summertime residency in Tramore.

Bandleader Phil Murtagh abhorred alcohol and had a strict rule ‘Whether you were driving to the top of Donegal or the bottom of Kerry, you didn’t stop for a bottle of stout. We drove in two cars – I drove and Phil drove and he always drove behind me to make sure I couldn’t stop at a pub!’ recalls Charlie.

‘In 1946, we were driving to Tramore and on a straight stretch of road I flew on ahead of Phil, went around a corner and he sailed on past. So me and the three I had with me went in for a few drinks, but when we came out I had a puncture. Because it was just after the war and cars weren’t long back on the road, we had no wheel brace to change the wheel. So we went back in for another few drinks!’ Someone eventually came who could help them, but by the time they got to Tramore there it was 10.30pm and the dance started at 8pm!

Given their status as top band in the country, any notions Charlie and his bandmates might have had about themselves were shot down at an enormous dance run by the army in the RDS, also in 1946.

Arriving with their instruments they were stopped by an army officer as they had no tickets. After over an hour waiting around outside they were eventually marched a quarter of a mile down the road to an entrance normally used for horses! ‘That ended any thoughts we had of ourselves as big shots,’ laughs Charlie.

Again he recalls also how little they were payed compared to today – on St. Stephen’s night in 1939 he played from 9pm until 5am and was payed one pound! In 1940 they drove to Listowel, earned two pounds each and crashed the car on the way back!

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Deltiology

According to the internet, deltiology is the third most common collector hobby, after money and stamps. This is surprising since so few people send postcards any more. I once had a huge collection and I used to display them on my kitchen wall., where they eventally got grubby and had to be thrown out.

Máire MacMahon is a deltiologist and she has sent us pictures of a few of her cards.

William St.

St. Michael’s College

Presentation Convent

You can see why postcards were so popular. They were ideal for holiday correspondence with a very favourable picture of your location and just enough room to tell everyone (including the postman) that you were having a good time.

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Reunion

Me, Geraldine, Mary, Breda and Bridget in Lizzie’s Little Kitchen in March 2025.

I was dining in Lizzy’s last week with some old teacher friends when we met a lovely past pupils out to lunch with her family.

By the way the lunch, in my opinion, was better than The Carriage House of last week’s fame.

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Update

The market in the boys’ school yard is now planned to be held on Sundays, not Saturdays as previously advertised. The first market will be held on Sunday May 4 2025 and from then until October, markets will be held from 11.00a.m. until 3.00p.m. every Sunday.

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A Fact

The reason we have a feast day to commemorate Saint Patrick is down to Fr. Luke Wadding. This Waterford missionary petitioned the Vatican in the 1600s to grant St. Patrick a dedicated feast day. Apparently the choice of March 17th was a bit arbitrary. It is believed to be the date of his death but that’s not too certain, like many otherm things about St. Patrick.

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Postcards

By

On April 3, 2012

In Uncategorized

This is a picture postcard image of Listowel.

I have been learning a bit about postcards recently.

Deltiology is the name for the hobby of postcard collecting.

Did you know that the first postcards were issued by the Post Office in the UK in 1870? They were plain on both sides and were pre stamped. They were used mainly for short messages like “Meet me from the train at….” They were cheaper than a telegram and less bother than a letter.

In 1894 permission was given to other publishers to produce postcards and the first picture postcards appeared.

In 1899 the postcard as we know it today came into being. The standard dimensions for a postcard are 5.5 inches by 3.5 inches. Before this time postcards were smaller. There was very little room for a message but it would have been thought unseemly to write anything remotely private in such a public missive.

In 1902 the postcard with the divided back came into being.

1902 to 1914 is regarded as the golden age by postcard collectors. Thousands of postcards were sent in those years. There were usually two postal deliveries per day so the postcard was the ideal vehicle for a cheap short message.

Most of the postcards in this period were printed in Germany so that source dried up after 1914. Seaside holidays were no longer a concern and people had other things on their minds beside postcards.

John Hinde, Ireland’s most famous postcard firm started operations in 1956. He perpetuated an image of Ireland with donkeys, turf creels and flame haired, freckle faced children. John Hinde  sold over 50 million postcards.

When the firm went into liquidation last year he confessed that many of the images were contrived. I think we always suspected as much.

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Listowel Town Council wishes to advise that roadworks will commence on Greenville Road on Monday 2nd April 2012 for two weeks.Revised traffic flow arrangements will apply during the roadworks.

Listowel Town Council apologies for any inconvenience caused during these works.

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Next is an unashamed plug

It’s school holidays again and I’m on Nana duty so it is the very worst time for technology to be giving me headaches. One of the laptops in our house went on strike on Sunday and it was sorely missed.

John at Konnect in Church St. Listowel is your man if your computer is in trouble. He had the broken computer up and running in no time, peace was restored in our house and all with a touch of humour and kindness. Take a bow, John.

Local heroes, collectors and sharers of our heritage

By

On November 22, 2011

In Uncategorized

Doesn’t this photo take you back? I have no idea where it was taken. The picture is part of a huge collection of  memorabilia amassed by local historian, Jer Kennelly of Knockanure.

Jer has done us all a service in collecting materials over the years. Much of this archive stuff would have been lost were it not for collectors like Jer and Vincent. Now Jer is making his photos available to us in NKRO. We are really excited about sharing them with a huge audience. Thank you, Jer.

Another woman with an appreciation of the value to us all of collecting old photographs is Nancy McAuliffe and she has just brought out a magnificent book of photographs of Ballylongford. She has a huge number of quality pictures and, better still, she has told us who they all are.

Tonight the NKRO website will be going live. It’s just at the beginning stage but we are hoping that you will all help us is collecting and sharing a photographic, audio and video treasure trove. I’ll tell you the link tomorrow.

Our NKRO postcards are available now in shops and credit unions. We want people to send them to the diaspora to make them aware of us and hopefully to encourage them to share their photographs and stories with us. When our website is up and running, my friend Maria Leahy, another adopted daughter of Listowel, will blog about North Kerry. So we hope to bring you news of Listowel and the whole of North Kerry on a regular basis.  Exciting times indeed!

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