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: Seán McCarthy

Icon of the Holy Family in Listowel, New Road Signs and a Turf Powered Steam Engine

By

On April 9, 2018

In Uncategorized

Denis Carroll in Ballybunion

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Icon of The Holy Family in Listowel



This icon will be with us in Listowel Parish church from this afternoon, Monday April 9 2018 until Wednesday.

What is The Icon of the Holy Family?

The icon of the Holy Family was specially commissioned by WMOF2018 (World Meeting of Families), written by iconographer Mihai Cucu, and assisted by the Redemptoristine Sisters of the Monastery of St Alphonsus, Iona Road, Dublin, as part of their ongoing prayer for families.  The Icon was unveiled and anointed on the 21st August 2017, during the launch of the one-year programme of preparation at the National Novena in Knock, Ireland. 

Everyone is invited to come and view the icon while it is in town. It doesn’t matter if you are a believer, a non believer, an art lover or just plain curious, I think you should come and take a look . 

If you have never been to St. Mary’s before of if you have and have never looked around you at the magnificent mosaic work and stained glass, take this opportunity to really look at this artistic treasure, St. Marys. It has been left to us by our forbears and beautifully preserved and enhanced by generations of Listowel priests and parishioners.

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Republican Funeral in 1918



A visitor to Dingle library during Easter took a photograph of this picture for us. Tomás Ruiséal died of a bayonet wound received during a confrontation with the army in Co. Clare.

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A Word of Caution




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New Traffic signs


These new Slow Zone signs are appearing in housing estates all over town. I have no idea why they have put them so high up on the poles.

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A Steam engine Powered by turf

This was a short lived and ultimately unsuccessful experiment. I read the story on

Bord na Mona Living History

When O. Bulleid joined CIE from British Railways in 1949 he decided to build a turf-burning locomotive.

Trials were made with a stationary engine using pulverised turf and these trials were observed by HMS Miller of Bord na Móna. CIE then converted a 1903 locomotive to burn turf and extensive steaming trials were carried out in 1951 and 1952. The engine was tried out on a main line in 1954 but broke down in Cork and had to be towed back to Inchicore. It was also too large to turn on any CIE turntable.

In 1955 the locomotive was tested using semi-briquettes. During a trial run in 1957 sparks from the locomotive set the leading coach of the test train on fire. It never hauled a fare-paying passenger but some use was made of it between Houston Station and the North Wall on goods trains. By that time the replacement of steam with diesel was well advanced and the locomotive was scrapped in 1965 when Todd Andrews was Chairman of CIE.

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Labour Then



This photo of Listowel men, Seán McCarthy and Michael Guerin with John Joe O’Sullivan and Dick Spring appeared in this week’s Tralee Advertiser.

Séan McCarthy, more on the wren boys and some more Listowel people in November 2016

By

On December 15, 2016

In Uncategorized

Listowel Castle 2016





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Seán McCarthy at Christmas


Seán McCarthy’s poems about Christmas were gathered into an anthology sometime in the 1970s. Junior Griffin has a copy. Below is another of the poems. In it Seán is writing about Christmas in his U.S. home in South Carolina.


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Human sisters

I snapped Alice and Catherine Moylan at the BOI expo back in late November 2016.

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Wm. Molyneaux’s recollections of the Wrenboys of his youth

 Part 3 

But then, about the
Wren.  How the wren derived her dignity
as the king of all birds.  That was the
question.  An eagle issued a challenge
between all birds, big and small as they were-wrens, robins, sparrows,
thrushes, blackbirds, jackdaws, magpies, or else.  They commenced their flight this
day-Christmas Day-The eagle, being the bravest continues her flight and was
soaring first.  All the other birds were
soaring after, until, in the finish, after a lapse of time in her flight, the
weaker birds seemed to get weary and could not continue their flightsome  ways further. 
But the Wren pursued to the last. 
The other birds got weak and worn out and in the heel of fair  play, the eagle said that she was the king of
all birds herself now.  The wren
concealed yourself under the Eagles feathers, in the end of  fair play the Eagle got worn out.  The wren flew out from under the Eagles
feathers and declared yourselves the king of all birds.  That is how the Wren derived her dignity as
being the king of all birds.  So we hunted
her for the honour of it.  Also, when St
Stephen was in prison and as he was liberated the band went out against St
Stephen, and it was a daylight performance and the wren, when she heard the
music and the band, came out and perched yourselves on the drum.  That’s how we heard the story.

Anyway we made our
tambourines.  You’d get a hoop made (in
them days) by a cooper.  There is no
cooper hardly going now.  You’d get this
made by cooper for about half a crown.  I
used to make my tambourines always  of goat’s
skin.  You could make them of an ass foal’s
skin-anything young, do you see.  How?  I’d skinned the goat, get fresh lime and put
the fresh lime on the fleshy side of the skin-not that hairy side but the
fleshy side of the skin-fold it up then and double it up and twist it again and
get a soft string and put it around it and take it with you then to a running
stream and put it down in the running stream where the fresh water will be
always running over it, and leave it so. 
You could get a flag and attach it onto the bag, the way the water
wouldn’t carry it.  Leave it there for
about nine days and you come then and you can pull off the hair and if the hair
comes freely you can take up the skin and pull off the hair the same as you
would shave yourself.  And then you
should moisten with lukewarm water.  You
should draw it the way it wouldn’t shrink. 
You should leave it for a couple of hours.  You would get your ring and you’d have the
jingles and all in-the bells-you’d have them all in before you put the skin to
the rim. You should have two or three drawing the skin to keep it firm-pull it
from half-width, that would be the soonest way t’would stiffen.  Let the skin be halfwidth and put it down on
the rim and  have a couple  pulling it
and another man tacking it with brass tacks. 
That’s the way I used make my tambourines, anyway.  Ther’d be no sound out of it the first night.  I used always hang my tambourines
outside.  And then the following morning
t’would be hard as a pan  and a flaming
sound out of it.  And then after a bit
t’would cool down.  T’would be bad to
have them too hard, they’d crack.  Ah,
sure I made several tambourines that way.

To be continued…

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People at the BOI expo in November 25 2016


Maurice Hannon and his delicious cakes all available at the Market on Fridays.

 Why not let Claire pamper your pup for Christmas?

 Sharon was giving a make over.  Just the thing for Christmas.

 One of my favourite coffee shops, The Flying Saucer.

I bought some wooden tree decorations from an enterprising Tarbert girl. The tree fell in a storm, her father cut the branches into slices and she decorated them with Christmas images…lovely!

Wren boys continued, a Christmas poem, the Clauses of The Seanchaí and people at the Coca Cola truck event

By

On December 14, 2016

In Uncategorized

Abbey at Rattoo photographed a few years ago by Padraig O’Connor

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A Very Sad Seasonal poem from Seán McCarthy



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Wren boys in North Kerry by Wm. Molyneaux as reported in The Shannonside Annuals in the 1950s

Part 2

He (The Man from the BBC) asked me then what way we used to dress in the Wren boys. I told him we used dress in green and gold or any colour. I told him we had a Wren Cross (which we had in them days) and we had the Wren Cross painted in green and gold and we often took out two wrens in the morning and brought them back alive and restored them to liberty. I told him when we go in to a farmer’s house that we’d say those words to the farmer-the farmer’s houses where we’d expect to get a good reach the captain of the Wrenboys would address the man of the house by saying these words:

The man of the house is a very good men

And it was to him we brought the wran,

Wishing you a happy Christmas and a merry New Year

If you give us the price of a gallon of beer,

We’d continue on until we go to the next house-which was the landlady’s house. The captain addressed the landlady in these words

the wran, the wran, the king of all birds-

St Stephen’s Day she was cought in the furze;

although she be little, her family being great,

Rise up, landlady, and give us a trate;

Up with the kittle and down with the pan

We’ll thank your subscription to bury the Wren!

That’s the way the captain would address if he went into a big farmer’s house or into a landlady’s house.

(more tomorrow)

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Humans



John (Junior) Griffn and Billy Keane at the launch of Billy’s novel some years ago.


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The Seanchaí Claus family at the BOI Enterprise Town expo



Joe’s been a good boy.


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Gala Christmas Sunday in Town


Eoin Enright’s photo gives a good idea of the scene in The Square as the light was fading on Sunday December 11 2016.







Here are some people I met at the Coca Cola truck on Sunday December 11 2016



Oliver Plunkett, Killarney, a great escape and a few St. Vincent de Paul Volunteers

By

On December 8, 2016

In Uncategorized



Festive bike outside Eleanor’s Flowers in Tralee


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Blessed (now Saint) Oliver Plunkett

I came across this recently. It’s a relic of a relic; “a piece of linen that touched a relic…”


This prayer for his canonisation worked.


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Killarney, Christmas 2016

Killarney looks very Christmassy this year.

This is a brilliant idea. They have used the old phone kiosks to house defibrillators.

The key to access the life saving device is housed in a little box with  glass door.

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Smart Boys


26 May 1877 Freeman’s Journal



CLEVER ESCAPE FROM A BRIDEWELL. An incident of a novel nature occurred

at  Listowel on Monday, in connection with the cleverly planned

escape from the bridewell. A lad named Mulvihill, aged 13 year, had

been convicted about five months ago at Tarbert Petty Sessions, of

stealing a dog, and sentenced to five years in the Upton Reformatory.

On his removal, after leaving Tralee gaol, he succeeded in giving the

gaol officer the slip, and managed to elude the police until last

Saturday, when he was apprehended at Ballylongford, and lodged in

Listowel bridewell preparatory to being sent back to the reformatory.

His younger brother, aged about 11 years, visited him on Monday, and

while in the cell with him the prisoner exchanged clothes with him ;

and thus disguised, he was allowed to pass out by the official, who

naturally believed he was the brother who had passed in some minutes

before. The mistake was of course soon discovered.  but the escaped

culprit had a good start, and has not been recaptured. The brother is

kept in custody, having been remanded to next petty sessions.

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Listowel Humans




Christmas is a busy time of year for these ladies, Kay, Nancy, Hannah and Eileen. I met them at the BOI Enterprise town expo but they are usually to be found with their fellow volunteers in the Second Time Around shop in William Street or at bingo or Meals on Wheels at The Plaza or out visiting and quietly helping the less well off at Christmas time and throughout the year. 

They are the salt of the earth.

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Seán McCarthy’s Christmas



Christmas is often a lonely time for someone who has lost a life’s partner. Seán McCarthy puts it sadly and poignantly in this old song which I photographed from an old book among Junior Griffin’s treasures.






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Thomas F. O’Sullivan Update



Mark Holan contacted me to alert me that he has recently updated his blogpost about T.F. O’Sullivan of Listowel.


UPDATE:

I heard from Vincent Carmody of Listowel, a local historian and author. He writes that Thomas F. O’Sullivan and his book are not forgotten. Story of the GAA received at least five mentions in The G.A.A., A People’s History, a 2009 book by Mike Cronin, Mark Duncan and Paul Rouse.

Carmody continued:

When in Listowel, [O’Sullivan] was the driving force, both as a player and administrator of the local G.A.A. club. He later served as an administrator at both County and National level of the Association. He is credited with the proposal of Rule 27, of the G. A.A.s rule book. This came into force in 1902 and it read, ” any member of the association who plays in any way, rugby football, jockey or any imported game which is calculated or injurious affect our national pastimes, is suspended from the association” . This rule was commonly known as, The Ban. It was for a long time rigorously enforced, indeed in 1938, the then President of Ireland, Douglas Hyde, was banned from the G.A.A. , for his attendance at an International Soccer match in Dublin. The rule was deleted in 1971.

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