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

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“Commemorate me where there is Water….”

Millenium Arch in April 2023

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Good Friday Walk for the Hospice

Good Friday in Listowel is always a day for sponsored walking in aid of the hospice. Participants assembled at St. Patrick’s Hall on April 7 2023.

There were bicycles, dogs, prams, fast walkers, slow walkers and every pace in between. Many were remembering a lively presence on other year’s walks. Some were remembering loved one’s lost since the last walk and there were walkers who are living with cancer, and many whose cancer journey is thankfully behind them.

Back at base, a party was being prepared for the returning walkers.

On Charles Street I caught up with a few who started late.

They kindly posed for me at the Gaelscoil gate.

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Fred’s Seat

Fred Chute R.I.P. loved the river Feale. I took this photo of Fred with his dog as he walked in one of his favourite places.

This is the seat his family and friends have dedicated to his memory just a little further along that same road.

Fred was my neighbour and friend and a huge supporter of everything I did here and in print. Listowel’s streets are the poorer for his passing.

May he rest in peace.

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Calling all Quizzers

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Spring Horse Fair

On Thursday April 6 2023 we had a fair on Market Street, Listowel. There were a few horses to justify the name but, in fact, there were as many goats and dogs as horses. I saw no farmyard poultry but there was lots of tack, saddles and horsey knick knacks.

I won’t mention the horrendous traffic disruption with road closures still ongoing as work continues on the bypass.

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Par 3 at Augusta Masters 2023

Doting dad, Rory McElroy, watches as his daughter, Poppy, gives Ivy Lowry a hug during the family Par 3 event before the Masters 2023.

Things went downhill from there. The Par 3 family day may hold Rory’s best memories of The Master 2023.

Photo shared on Facebook.

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A Fact

In 1555, Ivan the Terrible had St. Basil’s Cathedral constructed in Moscow. He was thrilled with the splendid result. He ordered that the two architects responsible be blinded so that they never build anything so beautiful again. He wasn’t called terrible for nothing.

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Remembering

Schiller, Garden of Europe, Listowel, July 2 2022

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All grown up

My eldest grandchildren, twins Killian and Sean Cogan have grown up before our eyes on Listowel Connection. In this recent photo they are celebrating their French connection.

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Our New Cycleway

This is Bridge Road in early July 2022. The cycle path is laid but not open for business yet.

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Pres Yearbook 2005/06

In the year following her retirement, pupils shared their memories of Mrs. Anne Dillon with the yearbook committe.

Gone but not forgotten….May her dear soul rest in peace.

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Working from Home, the Reality

A busy mum tweeted this note from her daughter, passed under the door during a Teams work meeting.

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Mixing it with the Big Guns

Ballybunion Golf Club members were delighted to get to chat with Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy as they played a round in Ballybunion in preparation for The Open next week.

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Best Dressed Man at Listowel Races 2016, Gogglebox and a new boutique on Market St.

Two Famous Listowel Men




Billy Keane and Junior Griffin photographed by Mary McGrath at a surprise birthday party organised by his friends in badminton in John B. Keanes on Friday September 23 2016

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Best Dressed Man Competition 2016


The ladies on the left were the judges of the best dressed man at Listowel Races 2016.  Above they are recruiting a local finalist for their competition.

These are some of the finalists with the judges.

Winner all right!


Will you look at how easy it is for the men. They can rock up in fine comfortable brogues and still win. The unstated dress code for the ladies includes vertiginous heels.

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Wednesday’s and Thursday’s Racegoers


The Best Dressed Man competition took place on Thursday. Here are a few more people who were on The Island on Wednesday or Thursday, enjoying a great day’s racing.

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Meanwhile some people had to work

The couple on the left of this picture came all the way from the U.S. to watch their horse run in Listowel. He obliged; He won.

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Cavan Twins Replace O’Donovans as the Nation’s favourite Brothers



I read this story on Journal.ie and the photo is from there too. Apparently the story goes that there is now a programmme on TV3 in which we are expected to watch people watching television. These farmers, who are twins and live in Cavan, are the stars.

Part of the irony is that they don’t actually like television so they are eloquently dismissive of the programmes they are watching.

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Market Street




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Golfer, Rory McIlroy with Arnold Palmer at Bay Hill. Arnold Palmer, the king of the game passed away recently.

Rory posted this photo on his Twitter feed.


Best Dressed Man at Listowel Races 2016, Gogglebox and a new boutique on Market St.

Two Famous Listowel Men




Billy Keane and Junior Griffin photographed by Mary McGrath at a surprise birthday party organised by his friends in badminton in John B. Keanes on Friday September 23 2016

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Best Dressed Man Competition 2016


The ladies on the left were the judges of the best dressed man at Listowel Races 2016.  Above they are recruiting a local finalist for their competition.

These are some of the finalists with the judges.

Winner all right!


Will you look at how easy it is for the men. They can rock up in fine comfortable brogues and still win. The unstated dress code for the ladies includes vertiginous heels.

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Wednesday’s and Thursday’s Racegoers


The Best Dressed Man competition took place on Thursday. Here are a few more people who were on The Island on Wednesday or Thursday, enjoying a great day’s racing.

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Meanwhile some people had to work

The couple on the left of this picture came all the way from the U.S. to watch their horse run in Listowel. He obliged; He won.

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Cavan Twins Replace O’Donovans as the Nation’s favourite Brothers



I read this story on Journal.ie and the photo is from there too. Apparently the story goes that there is now a programmme on TV3 in which we are expected to watch people watching television. These farmers, who are twins and live in Cavan, are the stars.

Part of the irony is that they don’t actually like television so they are eloquently dismissive of the programmes they are watching.

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Market Street




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Golfer, Rory McIlroy with Arnold Palmer at Bay Hill. Arnold Palmer, the king of the game passed away recently.

Rory posted this photo on his Twitter feed.


Sean Hayes, Famine Graveyard and local yearbooks



 Seán Hayes and the Listowel Connection






This is the U.S. actor, Sean Hayes who will be familiar to followers of Will and Grace.


This is the same Seán Hayes in The Listowel Arms during filming for the U.S. version of Who do You Think You Are. Genealogists traced hi ancestors to Ballylongford. The episode will be screened in the U.S. in February

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Sobering Thought for Christmas Week

The story comes from Limerick Life

The History of
St. Bridget’s Burial Ground

This is one of the saddest and most
hidden graveyards in the city, it is located behind the Watchhouse Cross
development on the Killeely Road. It is known locally as “The Paupers
Graveyard” or “The Yellow Hole”. In 1841 on construction of the Union
Workhouse, now St. Camillus’ Hospital a burial ground was required for those
poor departed souls who were left without means or family, for a number of
years the inmates were buried in Killeely Graveyard, Thomondgate. As the famine
years grew longer and the graveyard became overcrowded the concern of health
risks to the local inhabitants arose.

In 1849 the Union Workhouse Board of Guardians leased the plot
of land to become known as St. Bridget’s Graveyard, this site had previously
been occupied as the remains of a ringfort, some of which can still can still
be seen today to the right of the large cross on the hill. The presence of this
ringfort, which would have been known in the 1850s up until relatively recently
as a “fairy fort” would have had many superstitious connotation for 
those living in the area at the time.

The graveyard acquired is name “The Yellow Hole” as during the
height of the Great Famine when the graveyard was in use multiple burials were
a daily event. Large holes were dug to accommodate the dead. The area was a
boggy one and below the suface of the boggy earth was a deep band of yellow
mud, which is common in boggy areas six to thirteen feet below the bogland.
Quicklime was probably used as a disinfectant and means of speeding up
decomposition. Each layer of bodies would be concealed under a shallow layer of
earth, with later burials laid on top of earlier ones. This mixture of
quicklime and decomposing bodies would also have caused a yellow soap-like
substance at the bottom of the pit.

During the early years bodies were laid coffinless in rows of
six dressed in sacking cloth. There were as many as 500 people a month buried
at the height of the graveyards use, and over 5,000 people are thought to be buried
in the graveyard. The last known person to be buried there was in 1940. Over
the years the graveyard became derelict until the Limerick
Civic Trust
in 2010 cleaned up the site and erected a new cross.
They also planted wildflowers on the site, making it a peaceful sanctuary.

Michael Hogan “Bard of Thomond” was greatly effected by the site
of the unfortunate souls who found themselves in the workhouse and ultimately
in St. Bridget’s Graveyard a fate which he himself only narrowly escaped. This
is a snippet of his poem of the famine era in Limerick.

Michael
Hogan, The Bard of Thomond

‘Twas in
ruthless Forty-Seven

When the plague-fraught air was
riven

With the sound which harrowed heaven,

Of a famished
people’s cry…

.. In a place
of shadows sunless,

Barren, sombre, treeless,
tuneless,

Weird, sepulchral, starless, moonless,

Yet not wholly
wrapt in gloom…

.. All my
heart, with horror shrinking

On a
thousand dread things thinking,

I advanced- each footstep sinking

In
the corpse-befatted ground…


( research by Miriam Lohan, Mary Hughes and Anthony Furlong)



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Two stars of 2014



Rory McIlroy posted this photo from his visit to Coolmore Stud. He is pictured with Galileo.

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Local Journals


(Photo: Kay O’Leary)

Anthony Lawless and Caoimhe reading the Lyreacrompane and District Journal 2014.

This is one of the many invaluable publications that come out every year at this time. These magazines are full of local social history, photos and anecdotes. They are an invaluable source for local historians and the people who toil on them do great work in preserving an account of what our lives are like today and how our forefathers fared in time gone by. They deserve our support. So go out and buy The Ballylongord Journal, The Ballyguiltenane Yearbook, or one of the many great books out there. 

The Advertiser is free and the Christmas edition is a great record of the year gone by.

Happy Christmas to all my fellow local chroniclers. Bail ó Dhia ar an dea obair in 2015.

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