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: Redmond O’Hanlon

Church Street Long ago, Women in Media 2018, and Redmond O’Hanlon’s true identity revealed

By

On May 8, 2018

In Uncategorized

Photo: Chriostóir Grayson

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Church Street in the Rare Old Times


Denis Quille sent us this old photo of Church Street. Notice the thatched house, second building on the left of picture. That is where Lawlees is now.

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Women in Media 2018


I told you a while back that I was at this great event and then I forgot all about it until now. This year as ever there were some great discussions. I particularly benefited from a discussion on bullying, cyberbullying and sexting Sinead Burke, a very able and impressive little person and James Kavanagh, a Snapchat, Instagram influencer were two of the star turns.

I met lots of Listowel people whose photos I took and I hope they will forgive me that I forgot about them until now.

 These ladies are not actually from Listowel. They are Limerick ladies  with Rachael English but they love Listowel.

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The Good Wine ‘Til Last


The very last event of the WinM conference was not on any programme. It was like a little extra treat for people like me who stayed until Sunday and it was on the theme A Picture Paints a Thousand Words. Along with Jerry Kennelly and Michelle Coper Galvin were some of the movers and shakers in Irish photo journalism and they showed us some of the best of newspaper photos of the past while

There I am in exalted company, your humble photographer rubbing shoulders with some of the best.

Below are some of the photos they showed us. I took photographs of the monitor so the quality is not great. Most of the photos you will have seen before as they are prizewinners and have been singled out as the best of their genre.

I am truly in awe of these masters of their craft.

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Who was Redmond O’Hanlon?



Do you remember last week I brought you an essay on a stranger’s attempts at grappling with Kerry idiom? That stranger from The North was none other than local man, Luaí ÓMurchú.

Vincent Carmody informed me that Redmond O’Hanlon was the pen name adopted by Luaí in his essay writing. Luaí’s son Eamon, at my reques,t filled us in on a few details, e.g. 

Who was Luaí ÓMurchú?

Who was Redmond O’Hanlon?

Luaí Ó Murchú

Luaí Ó Murchú was reared in South Armagh, but spent most of his life in Listowel, Co Kerry.  He was born on 30 May 1909 in Netownhamilton.  He was educated in Ballymoyer School (where his father was Principal Teacher), St. Mary’s College Dundalk, and Salesian College Pallaskenry. He was a playing member of St. Killian’s Football Club between 1928 and 1940, winning an Armagh J.F.C. medal in 1940; during that time he served as Club Secretary and reperesentative at County Meetings; he was a member of the Armagh team which won the Ulster J.F.C. in 1929, and registrar of Armagh County Committee in 1933.  

He joined the Civil Service in 1934, his employment eventually taking him to Listowel, Co Kerry, in 1946, where he played a prominent part in the founding and development of Writers’ Week, Listowel.  He was a founder member and first Chairman of Listowel Writers’ Week. (1971-

1977) 

 A writer and broadcaster in both Irish and English, South Armagh has provided the background to much of his creative work.  Many of his stories have been broadcast on BBC Radio and Radio Éireann. Other stories have appeared in The Irish Press and in various publcations. Over the years he contributed numerous articles and reviews to newspapers and periodicals including Inniuand Comhar.  Much of his writing in English was under the pen-name Redmond O’Hanlon. He published the history of his local football club “St. Killian’s G.A.C. Whitecross” in 1996, and his collection of short storties “Journey Home” was published in 1997. He died in 1999.

“He adopted the pen-name of Redmond O’Hanlon.  Redmond O’Hanlon was a 17th century Irish Raparee who was born in 1640 at the foot of Slieve Gullion, a mountain which could be seen from my father’s home-place in Whitecross, Co Armagh.”    Eamon ÓMurchú

Count Redmond O’Hanlon (1640–1681) was a “rapparee” or guerrilla-outlaw. He is often referred to as Ireland’s answer to Robin Hood. Although born in impoverished circumstances, he was a descendant of the last O’Hanlon chieftain who was Lord of Airgíalla and Master of Tandragee Castle. O’Hanlon lands and property was confiscated when he was alledged to have been present at a fatal argument. He took to the hills around Slieve Gullion and became an outlaw, or rapparee. Many other Gaelic Irishmen flocked to his banner.

Like many dispossessed members of the Gaelic gentry, Count O’Hanlon forced the Anglo-Irish landowners and Ulster Scots merchants to pay for insurance against theft. Travellers under his protection were provided with a written pass, which was to be shown to anyone trying to rob them. Those who disregarded the Count O’Hanlon’s passes or rustled from livestock herds under his protection were forced to return the stolen merchandise, then fined, and finally murdered if they persisted.

On 25 April 1681, Count Redmond O’Hanlon was fatally shot near Hilltown, County Down. According to popular account, he was murdered while sleeping.

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Redmond O’Hanlon (Sung by Tommy Makem)

There was a man lived in the north, a hero brave and bold
Who robbed the wealthy landlords of their silver and their gold
He gave the money to the poor, to pay their rent and fee
For Count Redmond O’Hanlon was a gallant rapparee

Chorus:
Then hurrah for Count O’Hanlon
Redmond O’Hanlon
Hurrah for Count O’Hanlon
The gallant rapparee

He had a noble big, black horse that was his joy and pride
A brace of loaded pistols, he carried by his side
He roamed the hills and valleys with a spirit wild and free
Count Redmond O’Hanlon, the gallant rapparee

Chorus

‘Twas high upon Slieve Gullion that he used to ply his trade
And Squire Johnson from the fews, this handsome offer made
He said “I’ll give four hundred pounds to hang him from a tree”
But, not a man in all the land would sell the rapparee

Chorus

They sent the soldiers after him to try and bring him back
O’Hanlon only laughed at them upon the mountain track
And while the soldiers slept that night among the mountain gorse
He stole their guns and rode away upon his noble horse

Chorus

‘Twas back in 1681 that Count O’Hanlon died
And still along Slieve Gullion’s slopes, they speak of him with pride
And anyone will tell you from Rathfriland to Forkhill
That in the silence of the night, you’ll hear him riding still

Chorus

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+    R. I.P. Margaret Broderick  +



Margaret Broderick passed away suddenly on Thursday last. She was, up to her last moments, full of live. She was fun loving, lively and the heart and soul of any party. She will be greatly missed by her bereft family and by her many close friends. She is a huge loss to Listowel Writers’ Week.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam uasal.

I took this photo in Listowel Town Square on St. Patrick’s Day 2018. Margaret is with two people who were very dear to her, her husband, Fin, and her great friend, Madeleine O’Sullivan. They are on their way home from the mass in Irish that was broadcast on RTE.

Margaret was talking away to me as I was taking the picture. She was full of praise for the beautiful music and singing of Listowel’s folk group. Many of those same singers and musicians sang those same songs for her funeral mass on May 7 2018.

Margaret would have loved her own funeral. Her beloved family played their parts to perfection. She would have been so proud.

Her clearly broken hearted Fin held it together to pay tribute to his lovely wife and to thank everyone who had tried in vain to ease the pain of losing Margaret.

Guím leaba in measc na naomh di.

  

Grugs, Rabbits, Town League 1950 and North Kerry; the Swedish connection and National Poetry Day 2018

By

On April 27, 2018

In Uncategorized

Chris Howes, Irish Wildlife Photography Competition

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The Kerryman Unbuttoned by Redmond O’Hanlon Part 5 


 ….Early I learned that in Kerry the ‘accounts’ that are so prominent a
feature of the social structure of the county are distinct (but not completely
so be  remembered) from financial
statements or debts unpaid. Ramblers have no affinity with the tinkers but are
the Kerryman’s word for loose stones on the road. To be taken up in the bones
may baffle any doctor outside of Kerry. The complaint seems endemic to the
county-  tribute to its mists maybe and,
so far as can be gathered medical treatises are silent on the subject. It is
doubtful too if a medical man can state with certainty the location of his grug
on which a Kerryman sits betimes.

It was in the
townland of Trieneragh near Duagh where the land falls away in eye-soothing
sweeps towards the river Feale, that I met a young man who was a specialist in
the art of indirect approach. I had made my way slowly towards the road from
the inch by the river, burdened with a rifle and a bunch of rabbits when I met
him. Eyeing the bag from time to time as we chatted he at length observed
reflectively, “If my mother met you now she would ask you for a rabbit.” Adding
somewhat unnecessarily that she was terrible fond of rabbit. I thought a brace
of graziers but a small fee to pay for this delightful example of Kerry tact.
In any event, I had been shooting over my young friends fields……

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Town League 1950



This old photograph from Vincent Carmody’s Living history popped up again recently on Facebook.

The occasion is the Ashes team for the Listowel town league of 1950.

The players are

Front Row. D.Prendeville, John B., Toddy Enright (holding mascot, Frank Pierse) Jim O Neill, Mick McAuliffe, Jimmy Harris, Mick Cotter.
Back Row. Timmy Walsh, Michael McGuinness, Jim (Roddy) O Sullivan, Mick Barrett, Micheal Quigley, J.Ryan, Jim Deveraugh, Tom Finucane.

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Spotted on My Walk


A blackbird, a dry wall and a ruin


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A Swedish Influence in North Kerry



A few months ago I had Vincent Carmody’s story of Lars Larsson and how his relatives came to St. Michael’s graveyard to seek out his grave.

On the foot of this story, Jim MacMahon wrote to tell me how it came about that a Swedish man was buried in Listowel.

Sweden was a big dairying country and companies like Alfa Laval had trained many technicians and engineers.

A far seeing creamery manager in Ballyheigue, a granduncle of Jim MacMahon’s, advertised in Sweden for some operatives with technical experience to work in Ballyheigue Creamery. Three of the men who came were our friend Larsson, Nielson and Monson. Larsson was killed in an accident but Nielson and Monson went on to marry local women and their descendants still live in North Kerry or else visit often.

The Monson descendants have a jewellery business.

Monson Irish Jewellery

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Did you do Your Leaving Cert in St. Michael’s in 1968?



A 50 year reunion celebration is being planned for this class and the organisers are encountering some difficulty in rounding up the last few old boys.

Here is an extract from Ned O’Sullivan’s email:

A group of us are planning a reunion weekend on the 7-9 September 2018. It entails a social gathering plus hopefully a nostalgic return to the school, photo exhibition, and some other things finishing with a day at the Races on the Sunday. We have established contact with most past colleagues but we are in the dark about a few. 

It’s possible that some of them read your blog and we would be v thankful if you could put it out there for us. 

Committee members are Michael Moriarty NT., Teddy Murphy, John Moloney n Christy Sheehy. 

Many thanks Mary

Ned O Sullivan. 

Ned has given me his phone number in case anyone of his classmates is reading this and wants to get in touch.



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Healys of Convent Street and their Neighbours




Cathy Healy sent the photo to her uncle Pat in England and he confirmed that the young boy is Mike Healy, Cathy’s uncle. The lady in the hair rollers is till a mystery.



Common sense says that she would not be going too far from her home in rollers, I’d say she was a neighbour of the Healys and of John Hannon who took the photo, so we’re looking for someone from the Gleann area to put a name to a face. Liam Healy R.I.P. would have remembered her name and as Cathy said he’d have the dog’s name as well.

We miss them every day.



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National Poetry Day 2018



Poetry Ireland decided to celebrate National Poetry Day 2018 on April 26 2018. Listowel Writers’ Week went to town on it, literally. They took to the streets and they gave everyone a poem in their pocket and challenged everyone to read at least one poem on Poetry Day.

Here are some of the people they met with a poem.





Would you read a Poem on Poetry Day          by Mary Cogan



with apologies to Dr. Seuss



Would you read it in a shop?

Would you read it with a cop?

Would you read it in a car?

Would you read it with a jar?

Would you read it stuck in traffic?

Would you read if it was graphic?

Would you read with Sinead and Liz

Máire or Maria, gee whiz

Poetry Day brought to my mind

That Writers’ Week’s not far behind.



Listowel Writers Week and the National Children’s Literary Festival run this year from May 30th to June 3rd.



See what’s in store here



Listowel Writers’ Week 2018 programme






The Kerryman Unbuttoned, Healy Father and son, Listowel Community Centre revamp

By

On April 25, 2018

In Uncategorized

Photo: Paul Tips, Mallow Camera Club

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The Kerryman Unbuttoned, (Part 3) by Redmond O’Hanlon


The strange idioms of North Kerry speech

Nettles do no
stink in Kerry. They burn or scorch. A prick is a pinch and soup is called
broth. Leggings to the Kerryman are gaiters and it is only with difficulty he
conveys the distinction between boots and shoes. Shoes and low shoes mark
weekdays from Sundays. Mud is puddle and puddles are locks. The Kerryman wears
his short coat, indifferent to the stranger’s perplexity as to the whereabouts
of the counterpart. Surely, I reasoned, when I first heard the expression, there
must be a long coat in his wardrobe. This does not follow at all. With a
characteristic disregard for logic, your Kerry man, and still more your Kerry
woman and most of all your Kerry girl will speak of a half twin when they mean
a whole one, and a square of crackers hot from the oven when they mean a
triangle.

Let us take a walk
through the fields. See the bullock “itching” himself against the gatepost,
when in actual fact he is scratching his hide. That horse standing at the fence
may be false and one has to learn that this trait has reference not to a
vicious disposition but to the animal’s uncertainty of foot while under a cart.
Admire the riot of saffron buchalawns proclaiming at once the fertility of the
soil and careless husbandry.  In early
spring one may get a malicious satisfaction 
from the Kerry farmers attempts to convey in words the distinction
between freshly springing oats, barley and wheat. He lables the lot grasscorn
and thinks you a purist if you insist that barley and wheat are neither grass
nor corn.

(more tomorrow)


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Father and Son from the John Hannon Archive


 This is yesterday’s picture of Jimmy Browne with Paddy Healy on left.


On the right of this photo is a young Liam Healy, son of Paddy. Any ideas who the lady and child are?

And

Forget Clouseau, Poirot, Miss Marple and the No. 1 Ladies detective agency. When the Listowel Connection network gets working on the case they leave no stone unturned. Many people identified A.T. Chute and Violet McCarthy but the second man and the two ladies were a mystery. The grapevine has gone into overdrive and through the intervention of Beta Whelan, Junior Griffin, and the super sleuth when it comes to identifying Listowel people, Margaret Dillon, we can now say with certainty that the man behind on the right is Charlie McCarthy. His son, Danny, confirmed his father’s identity. The fact that he wasn’t wearing his glasses threw most people but not Margaret.

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Listowel Community Centre Revamp


When I visited last week the front of the Community Centre was painted and there was scaffolding all round the side.



The reception area was gutted and the shop is relocated. I was delighted to see the same smiling face, Mike Molyneaux,  behind the counter .

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Hard Working Tidy Town Volunteers

I was in The Square at around 7.00 p. m. last evening and I met this happy crew setting out on their weekly tidy up. Years of relentless hard work and dedication is what it takes to win a gold medal.

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Nearing Completion

This corner of town is completely transformed. Listowel’s newest pharmacy is looking well.

Kerry Idioms explained, Two of Listowel’s old stock and Many Young Men of Twenty

By

On April 24, 2018

In Uncategorized

Photo: Breda O’Mullane, Malow Camera Club

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Was That Summer 2018?


Beautiful sunshine in Ballybunion on April 19 2018



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The Kerryman Unbuttoned  Part 2


by Redmond O’Hanlon in Shannonside Annual


…..In those days
rural Kerry was strange to me. I knew even less of the county, if that were
possible, than the Customs man at the six county border post who inspected my
pass on one occasion. “Ah, Listowel! I see” he remarked knowledgeably as he
examined my right to pass from one part of my own country to another, “I hear
they’re all six footers and Irish speakers down there.” Whatever about the
physique, I was soon to find that Irish was a sub stratum of the talk of field
and fair in Kerry.

Of words lifted
bodily from the Irish and first heard in Kerry I like to hear talk of collops.
This is a jewel in its English, a warm mouth- filling word, rounded in its
saying as the calves of which it tells. A satisfying word! Plucks too is simple
and expressive. Here I see a cherubic good humoured face., evidence of years of
lush feeding and rosy with content. Incidentally I can recall a townland called
Collops near The Tory Bush in Co. Cavan. But neither the land nor the people were
satisfying.

When I was first
told that the milk in the muller had cracked, I talked cautiously around the
subject until I learned that the milk that was heating in the saucepan had
curdled. Bread baked on a losset I found to be just as flavoursome as the farls
from the bakeboard of my youth, but only just. Bacon and cabbage from the
skillet came no different from the pot or oven. And the brand, I was to find
out, had nothing to do with the stock round up, but was only a substitute for
the bucket hoop that with us kept the griddle from getting too hot. A gruel
stick has a personality of its own, I always thought, with a higher kitchen
status in Kerry than the potstick came south from stirring the stirabout.
Crocks refer not to ancient motor cars or old wheezy men but merely to jam
jars. The woman of the house darns “broken” socks and in the interval puts down
a couple of eggs for John’s tea. When John comes in he pulls the door in after
him. Some feat this for a tired farmer, and costly in repairs……..

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From John Hannon Archive



These men have been identified as Paddy Healy and Jimmy Browne

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Another smiling ESB Girl


Her brother, John Antony Hegarty, sent us this photo of his sister, Josephine Hegarty at work in the ESB shop in Church Street in the 1990s.

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Many Young Men of Twenty



There is nowhere better to see a John B. Keane play than in Listowel and there are no better interpreters of the great playwright’s work than his own North Kerry folk and you will find nowhere a more appreciative audience than in Listowel.

If one were  to single out one actor in a really strong cast in the latest production in St. John’s,  Batt O’Keeffe put in an outstanding performance as Danger Mulally on Friday’s opening night. I have seen Batt  play many parts over the years. His Michael James O’Flaherty in Synge’s Playboy of the Western World was top class. But it would be hard to find a more professional performance than the one Batt put in on April 20 2018. I am delighted I was there to enjoy it.

Jack McKenna, Jamie Mazzelle, Annette O’Donnell, Sonny Egan, Rebecca Stapleton, Margaret Flavin

Oliver McGrath, Batt O’Keeffe, Barry Francis, Frances Kennedy, Tommy Denihan, Conor Foley and Gearóid O’Connor

Caitríona Dillon is missing from the photograph.

In the interval I met up with three lovely ladies who were remembering John B. with great fondness and I’m sure he was smiling down  on them….Anne Keane, John B.’s grandaughter was with a great Keane family friend, Sally O’Neill and Anne’s aunt, John B.’s daughter, Joanna O’Flynn.

Aileen Hayes/ Scanlon was making a return to Listowel for the weekend. Aileen was a teacher in Presentation Secondary School, Listowel before her marriage. Joanna Keane was one of her star pupils.

Glashas, The Building of O’Connell’s Avenue and Women in Media in Ballybunion 2018

By

On April 23, 2018

In Uncategorized

Photo; Pat O’Meara, Mallow Camera Club

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The Kerryman Unbuttoned


From a Shannonside Annual, Redmond O’Hanlon writes of his experience of the distinct idiom and expression of Kerry speech

The woman of the
house where I stopped to enquire told me that the people I was looking for lived
only the pelt of a stone from the road. “Mary here will carry you up to the
headland, sir, ”  she added, “but you
will have to jump the glasha.” My proferred escort was a minute barefooted
maiden of about ten summers. Looking at the wisp of femininity and remembering
my eleven and a half stone, I thought of Sinbad, the Sailor and The Old Man of
the Sea. But the glasha was still a problem. What was it at all and how did one
go about jumping glashas? I wondered as we walked on. And did the daily jumping
of such obstacles in Kerry account in any way for the ease with which the
county’s ball players rose for the high ones in Croke Park?  And then light dawned. “Glasha,” I repeated
as I walked along with the wee one, that must be the Irish glaise, a stream.
And so we came to it. I said goodbye to my guide at the headland and duly
jumped the glasha. No bother this to me in those days. A rangy leggy lad I was
then and the jumping of glashas for years to come was to be one of the
privileges of a job that brought me all over North Kerry and West Limerick.

(more tomorrow)

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Communion Class in Scoil Realt na Maidine



Photo credit; Ned O’Sullivan on Facebook

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Building O’Connell’s Avenue


(Photos and Story from Vincent Carmody’s Living History on Facebook 2016)



In the 10 years after our Civil War, very little was achieved, nationally, in the building of local authority housing. Around 1930, the members of, the Listowel U.D.C. were concerned with severe overcrowding in many properties and the use of many more with very poor sanitary conditions. Following a survey of the town’s housing stock, they presented their findings and sent a plan to the Department Of Local Government. In response they were informed that the Listowel Council had been granted funds for the building of 104 houses. At this time, it was to be one of the largest local authority building contracts in the country.

The contracting tender, in 1932, was won by a local building contractor, M.J. Hannon. This in itself was a great bonus to the town, as it guaranteed a substantial number of years’ work for the town’s tradesmen and laborers, with, of course, a great spin off for the town’s businesses.

Some years ago, I spoke at length, and took notes, from Mr Jim (Red) O’Sullivan of Charles Street. Jim, who had worked with the Hannon Builders since he left school, was officer manager at the time of the construction, (he is pictured in the second last row), unfortunately, with the passage of time, the notes were misplaced.  However, I can recall a number of the things which he told me. The council took soundings on a possible name. One of the early contenders, before they decided on O’Connell’s Avenue, was Eucharistic Avenue, this was on account of the Eucharistic Congress which was been held in Dublin, in the summer of that year. He also explained, that the wage bill per week was, if I remember correctly, in the region of £400. At the time, this would have been an enormous sum of money, Jim would collect the money from the bank first thing each Saturday morning, after which, he would be escorted by an armed detective back to the office. There he would make out the pay packets in readiness for paying each man, at the conclusion of the half-days work on Saturday. All the blocks for the building work were manufactured on site.

The land on which the houses were built had been purchased from Lord Listowel, prior to it being built on, it had been used as meadowing by the O’Donnell family, family butchers in Listowel. The main entrance to the houses was from Convent Street, Later a roadway was built to connect up with Upper William Street. The building of this later facilitated the erection of St Brendan’s Terrace. 

The official opening was on Monday, June 17th 1935. It was presided over, by then Government Minister, Sean T. O Kelly. ( He, ten years later, in June 1945, became Ireland’s second President, replacing the outgoing Douglas Hyde).

The first residents had taken over their houses, prior to the official ceremony. In the main these were couples with young families. Today, a third generation of these families own many of these houses. Over the years there has been mass emigration from the area. However, those who remained, have contributed greatly, to the, social, cultural and sporting history of the town. 

The pink photograph is of a  pamphlet which was distributed to the local businesses, asking them that they allow their employees time off, to participate in the ceremony.

Local men who were part of the official party are seen here in conversation withe the minister. They are Eamon Kissane, T.D., Eddie Leahy and John McAuliffe in conversation with Minister Seán T. OCeallaigh.

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Women in Media 2018



I was in Ballybunion at the weekend for this super event. John Kelliher photographed me with some of the Writers’ Week gang who were there enjoying a festival at which they didn’t have to work.

Of course I was working away on your behalf. John snapped me as I snapped another photo for Listowel Connection. I’ll bring you my report during the week as well as an account of my trip to St. John’s for Many Young men of Twenty and to the Seanchaí for the history lecture.

John Kelliher’s photo of me taking a photo of some Limerick ladies with Rachel English

Elizabeth Dunn, Annette Fitzgerald, Rachael English, RTE journalist and author, Mary Cogan and Elish Wren

Photos; John Kelliher

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