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: St. Michaels

Sunset in Bromore, 60’s Listowel boys and New Orleans Irish in 1800’s

By

On November 14, 2013

In Uncategorized

Boat in the Shannon Estuary, photographed from Bromore Cliffs by Mike Flahive in November 2013.

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Another one from Dan Doyle




Dan is third from left at the back.

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St. Michaels’ extension under construction…not sure of the year.

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Back to Listowel. Ontario. It would appear that we were twinned with that town and a delegation came to Listowel, Co. Kerry in 1967.  They dressed in traditional costumes as they were celebrating their town’s  centenary. There are photos in the Kennelly Archive. Tom Fitzgerald found them here

http://www.kennellyarchive.com/id/QVS007/

Anyone among you readers remember the event? The late John B. Keane and Michael Kennelly are recognisable in the photos.

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Then and Now

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Norwich council taking delivery of its first computer!!!!!

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This next story comes from a great website; Irish Central.

Mary
Helen Lagasse is an award winning author based in New Orleans.
She is currently researching her latest book on the Irish who died while
building the New Basin Canal. By the time the canal opened in 1838, 8,000 Irish laborers
had succumbed to cholera and yellow fever. She is appealing for anyone with
information about their ancestors who may have been involved in the
construction to get in touch with her. She can be reached at  mhl5sol@cox.net.   

In 1832,
in the Second Municipality, sometimes called the American Sector, an area
upriver from Canal St., the arduous task of digging the New Orleans Navigation Canal, later known as
the New Basin Canal, began.

“Paddies”
slipped into the swamp to dig with pick and shovel the mosquito-infested ditch
that would be the new 60-ft. wide 6.07 mile long shipping canal. There was no
dynamite, nothing but wheel-barrows with which they’d haul the sludge out of
the ditch on inclined planks. And there was no way for them to drain the
relentless seepage but with pumps invented by Archimedes in 287 B.C.

The
builders of the city’s New Basin Canal expressed a preference for Irish over
slave labor for the reason that a dead Irishman could be replaced in minutes at
no cost, while a dead slave resulted in the loss of more than one thousand
dollars.

Laboring
in hip-deep water, the Irish immigrant diggers, who had little resistance to
yellow fever, malaria, and cholera, died in inestimable numbers. Six years
after construction began, when the canal opened for traffic in 1838, hundreds
if not thousands of Irish laborers would never see their homes again. It was
the worst single disaster to befall the Irish in their 
entire history in New
Orleans.

                                               

This is
the preface and focal point of my work-in-progress, working title “Bridget
Fury,” a novel based on the building of New Basin Canal and of the tragic
consequences for the Irish immigrant laborers, many of who died from disease and
exhaustion and were buried in shallow graves alongside the fetid ditches.

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Listowel Ontario and the Listowel,Kerry connection



Maeve Moloney pointed me in the direction of Wikipaedia for this;

Settler John Binning arrived in 1857 and was the first to create a permanent residence in the area. The community was originally named Mapleton, but the name was changed when a post office was established. The new name was chosen by a government official and refers to Listowel, Ireland. The majority of early settlers were of Protestant Irish origin (Ulster Scots Planters, or English Planters). Incorporated in 1867 as a village and in 1875 as a town, Listowel is now part of the town of North Perth.[2]

Listowel has a large Irish festival, called Paddyfest, which is held over the two weeks surrounding St. Patrick’s Day. The festival was first started in 1977 from an idea put forth by Dave Murtha to honour the large numbers of persons of Irish ancestry present in the Listowel area and is largely maintained by the Kinsmen and Kinette clubs of Listowel.

The official spokesperson for Paddyfest is chosen yearly in the Paddyfest Ambassador Competition. Contestants must perform a speech, impromptu question and interview with the judges and receive the overall highest score to be awarded this position. A separate award of Talent is given out to the contestant with the highest score in the talent competition. Runner-up and Congeniality are also awards which are available. Although the Paddyfest Ambassador Competition changed its name and official status from being Miss Paddyfest when first created, a male has yet to win the title.

(Now wouldn’t it be interesting to find out who that Listowel man was.)

Class reunion; Grieving and digitized maps of Irish bogs

By

On November 7, 2012

In Uncategorized

Paudy MacAuliffe sent me this photo of his former classmates who reunited  and played a football game for old time’s sake.

Back Row:
Shane Harnett, Pat Scanlon, David O’Brien, Sean Pierse, Liam Kelly, Don Keane, Darren Enright, Padraig O’Donnell

Front row:
Eddie Bolger, Liam Brennan, John Moloney, Paudy Macauliffe, Donal Flaherty, Mike Carmody.


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Something completely different;

This achingly beautiful piece from one of my favourite writers was published in last Saturday’s Irish Times. It will resonate with anyone who has lost a partner.

Dermot Bolger is reading poems from this very very sad collection, The Venice Suite on Thought for the Day all this week on RTE1 in the mornings. These poems are intensely personal but strangely universal as well.

 Where we are now

DERMOT BOLGER

POEM: THIS IS THE CONCLUDING poem in a
sequence, The Venice Suite, that no poet would wish to write. Its memories are
unique to me, yet its voyage of loss is undertaken by thousands, sometimes with
huge support, like I was privileged to receive, but often in isolation.

In
2010, my wife, Bernie, collapsed while swimming with one of our sons. She had
no symptoms of ill health and no thoughts of death before death cruelly thought
of her. I was beside her when she died from an undiagnosed ruptured aneurysm on
a trolley in the Mater hospital in Dublin, still awaiting the doctor assigned
to her.

I was
numb with grief, and I have no recollection of writing poems. But, sorting
through drawers, 18 months on, I found multiple scraps of paper tucked away:
barely legible lines scribbled on envelopes that were not poems but notes left
to myself during the first dark year of mourning. Reshaping them into poems
allowed me to confront that initial grieving process and try to imagine myself
into the different life I now lead.

These
memories are unique to me, but their underlying emotions are not. Thousands of
people articulate the emotions expressed here with greater eloquence in the
silence of their hearts than I managed by reconstructing thoughts first
scribbled down on whatever scrap of paper came to hand.

Three
years have passed since a day of incessant snow

That
halted at midnight, when I ventured with our boys

Through
the unchained park gates opposite our house

Into a
white moonscape untainted by footstep or bird claw.

Squadrons
of swollen clouds impeded any moon or starlight,

Allowing
an eerie luminosity to emanate from the ground.

Branches
overburdened, benches twice their natural size:

Each
everyday object transformed into a source of light.

The
ordinary made wondrous: rendered gleaming at midnight.

We
three raced home to try and lure you from your bed

To share
in our witnessing of this miraculous spectacle,

But you
complained you were sleepy, snuggled down,

You
waved aside each entreaty as we begged you to come:

“Not
tonight,” you said, “not now, but I promise the next time.”

None of
us could have conceived that when the snow next fell

It
would cover your grave for weeks, leaving us shell-shocked,

Mutely
comforting each other as we mourned your absent radiance.

Two
years after your death I have finally built our extension,

With
six feet of balustraded decking, five steps above the garden.

Our
sons have converted it into an impromptu amphitheatre.

Tonight
its recessed lights are abetted by the colossal supermoon

That
occurs each twenty years, when its orbit is nearest the earth.

Guitars
and a mandolin have been brought out to accompany songs

Composed
by your sons and their friends, interspersed with old tunes

You
would love to hear, as lads pass around long-necked foreign beers.

We
three have known grief; have carried coffins thrice in two years,

But
tonight is serenely beautiful: this is where we are, in this moment

That
cannot be repeated. You’d love to sit here, but if you were in bed

I would
need to plead and coax you to get dressed and wander down,

With
you protesting: “Not tonight, not now, but I promise the next time.”

Next
time a supermoon occurs our sons will be forty and forty-one:

I may
be a pensioner of seventy-three or be long since deceased.

I don’t
know what or where I will be, I am robbed of all certainty,

Liberated
from trying to predict the future or shield you from it.

I know
only the single lesson we have been taught by your death:

There
is no next time; no moment will replicate the wonder of now.

I feel
you have moved on and I possess no desire to hold you back:

But,
just this once, don’t say “Not tonight, but I promise the next time”;

Don’t
argue or prevaricate, but let your ghost come and sit, unnoticed,

On the
wooden steps of this moonlit deck that throbs with song.

Be with
us, for the eternity of this supermoon, as guitars change hands:

See
what fine sons you blessed the world with; what good friends

They
have summoned around them with music and chilled beer.

Two
years on and this is where we are: mourning you deeply still,

Yet
moving on, as we must move on: our eldest finished his degree,

Our
youngest immersed in college life, their dad in a battered hat

Joining
the gathering briefly to sit and share shots of Jägermeister.

We
don’t know where you are, but we are finding ourselves again.

I don’t
know if ghosts exist or just a welcoming emptiness awaits:

All I
know is that, if you were here, dragged protesting from bed,

You
would love to hear these songs, these subtle guitar riffs.

So,
whether your ghost sits here or not, I want you to know we are okay

As I
call you back to be with us one last time and then let you depart.

The
Venice Suite is published by New Island

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This is a photo of Richard Griffith (1784-1878). He was one of
the engineers involved in mapping the bogs of Ireland from 1809 to 1813. He was
a remarkable man, he surveyed 80,000 hectares of lowland bog and 100,000 hectares
of mountain bog in detail during 1,300 days of intensive field work spread over
the five years from 1809 to 1813. The maps were drawn up at a scale of four
inches to the mile and were the most accurate maps yet produced for such a
large area.

Bord na Móna has digitised the maps from The Bog Commissioners
Reports of 1809 – 1814. The reports are the most valuable single work on
Ireland’s bogs and are an essential starting point for local bog studies today.
They cover, in detail: 1,013,358 acres of bog and contain a wealth of detailed
information on reclamation practices in different parts of the country in the
early 19th century.

The maps are here;

http://www.heartland.ie/multimedia/maps-drawings

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Two stories from Radio Kerry:

Plans to redevelop Ballybunion Church have been given the go ahead in part by An Bord Pleanala. St Brendan’s Diocesan Trust had planned to carry out renovations and extensions; a new entrance; landscaping; as well as ancillary works at the church, which is a protected structure. St John’s Church Ballybunion is the work of Irish Architect George Ashlin. Church building work began in 1894 and the building was dedicated on August 6th 1897. Kerry County Council originally granted planning permission to St Brendan’s Diocesan Trust for the works. However An Taisce lodged an appeal saying some of the plans may have a negative impact on the architectural quality of the protected structure. The plans include rearranging the altar rails and the baptismal font, extending the sacristy and installing underfloor heating. An Bord Pleanala has granted overall permission, but the removal of the altar rails and extension of the sacristy will not be allowed.

………………


A quarter of road accidents so far in Kerry this year involved a person over the age of 60. That’s according to the Kerry Garda division which has launched a new road safety campaign aimed at older drivers.

Traditionally road safety campaigns have been aimed at younger motorists. Now Gardai are asking older drivers to take account of their age when they consider their driving ability. 

 Inspector Donal Ashe is from the Kerry Garda traffic corps. He says this campaign is not about targeting older motorists, but supporting them.


KnitWits, St Michael’s staff and Famine donors

By

On October 10, 2012

In Uncategorized

This is the KnitWits crew in Scribes on Saturday last. We knit there every Saturday from 11.00 to 1.00 and we welcome new members. Call in for a chat or just to see what we are at.

This is our newest doll model showing off one of the dresses that will be for sale in aid of the St. Vincent de Paul Society at the craft fair on November 4.

Quinny modelling  a smart pink coat.

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The quality of these pictures is really poor but I thought some people might like to see them anyway. The staff of St. Michael’s College in the 1990’s.

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Famine Donors

A little known fact is that many people worldwide came to the aid of Ireland during The Great Hunger. A new book sheds some light on just who reached out the hand of friendship to us in our darkest hour.

Former US President Abraham Lincoln, a tribe of
Choctaw Indians and a Turkish Sultan were among a group of 15,000 people
worldwide to donate money to Ireland during the Great Famine.

That’s according to a new book by the historian and
lecturer Christine Kinealy, who is one of the world’s most respected
authorities on the Great Hunger, having studied it for over 20 years.

The Drew University Professor says Abraham
Lincoln’s donation, made when he was a newly-elected senator, came as part of a
wider effort organised by the then-vice president George M Dallas.

In 1847, the vice president of the United States
convened a massive meeting in Washington and he called on all senators and
congressmen to go back to their states and do something for the Irish
poor. 

At that stage Abraham Lincoln, who was
newly-elected, really wasn’t very well known except for maybe in his
home state. But he sent about ten dollars, about five pounds.

The president of the US sent a donation which was
50 dollars.

Christine says that that mass donation didn’t pass
without incident, however:

There was a whole controversy about the vice
president Dallas, who was a slave owner. 

So people in Ireland – most of whom were opposed
the slavery – had a dilemma: should we take money from people who owned
slaves? 

In the end they decided that they would and he was
happy with their decision.

She says one of the great myths of the Famine
surrounds Queen Victoria’s donation. It is widely believed that the British
monarch only sent five pounds to help with the famine relief. 

In reality, she sent much more than that:

People say that ‘Queen Victoria gave five pounds,
she gave a far higher amount to a local dogs’ home’. In fact, this is is a
myth. 

Queen Victoria was the largest individual donor to
famine relief – she gave two thousand pounds and she became involved in some
other ways. 

But I think people prefer to hold on to the fabled
fiver myth. That fits into their image of [her].

Help came from further east too. A Turkish Sultan,
who was the head of the Ottoman Empire and had an Irish doctor, offered to give
ten thousand pounds to Ireland. 

However, in the end gave a thousand
pounds. It’s believed that he tried to help out in other ways  – the
subject of which may be made into a movie – but Christine says that the story is
difficult to verify:

One of the myths, it
just hasn’t been substantiated so maybe its just a myth
waiting to become a fact,  [is] that he sent three ships that
the British government said couldn’t land in Dublin so they
made their way to Drogheda. 

So there are all these debates about whether the
Sultan of Turkey’s ships came to Drogheda. It’s a myth that people like to think was true because it’s a
heartwarming story.

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A shocking picture from Life magazine of London during the blitz

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Picture from The Farmers’ Journal of the scene outside Dáil Eireann yesterday. The picture below is from the Irish Times.

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Great news: Kerry Group announced 800 new jobs to  be created in a new R&D plant in Naas.

Published on Tuesday 9 October 2012 16:12

Having started out as a local dairy co-operative, Kerry Group is now a world leader in food ingredients and flavours.

The group’s origins date back to 1972 when they opened a dairy processing facility in Listowel, Co Kerry.

The company started out with a workforce of about 40 people and reported profits of €127,000 on a turnover of €1.3 million in it’s first year.

Today, Kerry Group employs more than 24,000 people around the world and generated revenue of €5.3 billion in 2011. They supply over 15,000 food, food ingredients and flavour products to customers in more than 140 countries.

This is made possible by Kerry’s manufacturing facilities in 25 countries and international sales offices in 20 other countries.

Headquartered in Tralee, Kerry Group is listed on the Dublin and London stock markets, having launched as a public company in 1986.

The group makes several well-known household brands, including Denny, Galtee, Shaws, Cheestrings, Charleville, Mitchelstown, LowLow and Dairygold.

– Liam Godinho

St. Michael’s staff 1989

By

On April 4, 2012

In Uncategorized

This is a poor quality photograph of the staff of St. Michael’s College on the occasion of Fr. Seamus Linnane’s retirement, May 18 1989.

Front: Jim Cogan, Mick Mulcaire, Inez Toal, Declan Rowley, Fr. Linnane, Paddy Rochford R.I.P., Jimmy Harman and Joan Regan

Back: Fr. Jack Fitzgerald, Pat Given, John Moynihan, John Burke, Donncha Crowley, Tom Healy, John Regan, John O’Flaherty, John Molyneaux (Junior)R.I.P., John Molyneaux (senior) Brian O’Brien and Gay Brennan

Only two are still on the staff of the college.

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In the states they are celebrating the release of the 1940 census records. We soon may too have something to celebrate:

From Claire Santry on Irish Genalogy News::

1926 Census gets green light

Legislation to allow the digitisation and release of Ireland’s 1926 census will be passed within three to four months, according to Heritage Minister Jimmy Deenihan TD.

In a response to a question raised this week in the Daíl, he said: ‘The legislation [to digitise the 1926 census] has been approved by the Cabinet. Following its enactment, I will have to come up with the resources to implement it. I cannot start the process until the enabling legislation has been passed. It is hoped it will be ready in June or July.’

The release of 1926 Irish census has been the subject of a long campaign by the Council of Irish Genealogical Organisations (CIGO).

Steven Smyrl, CIGO’s executive liaison officer, was delighted to learn of the Minister’s statement. ‘This is terrific news and more than justifies the long campaign which CIGO had led to convince those responsible that the 1926 Irish census returns are an invaluable source for the history and genealogy of the Irish people.

‘The returns, compiled 86 years ago, amount to a ‘family snapshot’ taken just after a succession of tumultuous events in the history of this island. First the Great War, then the 1916 Rising, quickly followed by the War of Independence, partition and the creation of the State and then the fateful civil war!‘

Exactly where family historians will be able to access the 1926 census returns remains to be seen although it is thought unlikely that free online access won’t be part of the package. As to the timescale, the Minister has previously expressed a desire to see the release completed by 2016, in time for the anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising.

Whether or not any redaction of information (to obscure personal data of people who were children when enumerated) will be insisted upon, is another detail yet to be confirmed.

What is important right now is that plans to release these records have shifted from the ‘wish list’ to enactment.

So what information will the 1926 census returns reveal when released to eager Irish genealogy researchers?

In addition to the usual name and surname, relationship to head of household, marital status, language, religion and profession, this census collected the following:

  • Age in years and months 
  • Town or townland of birth
  • ‘Orphanhood’ ie whether a child had lost one or both parents
  • Name and address of employer
  • If unemployed, normal profession/trade plus period of unemployment
  • Present marriage duration (both men and women to answer)
  • Total number of children born in present marriage (both men and women to answer)
  • Number of living children and step children under 16 for all marriages (both men and women to answer)
  • Size of the household’s landholding, if any, in acres.

Obviously, questions like these help provide us with fabulous detail about our ancestors and may well help many Irish genealogists break down brickwalls or solve family mysteries.

Altogether now: Hurray!!!!!

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