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. Patrick’s Day 2018 Page 2 of 4

More Humans of Listowel in March 2018, Lars Larsson in Listowel and local people collect for Daffodil Day

Photo: Chris Grayson

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RTE Mass from St. Mary’s Listowel on March 17 2018

The church was filling up nicely as parishioners made their way to St. Mary’s.

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Continuing Vincent Carmody’s tale of Lars Larsson and Dotie Cronin

………..So began my friendship with Dotie, baptised Mary Ellen Cronin in 1901,
which lasted until her death in 1992. As I grew older and became more aware of
local history, I realised what a font of knowledge she had. Sadly, I realise
now how much more valuable our question and answers would have been if they
had been recorded or written down. Even though she once told me that she had
never travelled outside Kerry, she did however see most of the county, many of
these excursions, in the company of her father, following and supporting the
Listowel Brass and Reed band and the town’s football team of the day, the
Listowel Independents.  Dotie also was an
avid daily newspaper reader, often recalling national news, the Rising, Civil War,
Truce, Treaty, and world events that shaped the world that we know today.

One evening as we sat there, having spoken for some time, she tired and
said, ‘off you go now, you know enough’, Just as I was going out the door, she
said, ‘Did I tell you about the man from Sweden?’

 “Who’s that?’ I said,

I sat down again and she started telling me. ‘My mother died in 1926,
afterwards I looked after the house.  Some
years later, on one Sunday, when my father had gone to a football match, a stranger
came to our front door. He was a foreigner, he explained that he had previously
contacted my father and arranged for him to put up a memorial gravestone over
the resting place of a Swedish man, Lars Larsson, who had died in Listowel in 1929’.

The man had visited the cemetery and was happy with the work that had
been carried out, so he wanted to pay the remainder of the bill. He then paid
Dotie, also giving her two half crowns for herself. Before leaving, he left an
address of a family in Sweden, where he requested Dotie to ask her father to
formally write to confirm completion of the job and receipt of the cash. As I
was unaware of the grave, Dotie then told me where the stone was to be found,
which I visited, out of curiosity.

One fine evening in the mid 1990’s, I had been up at the Sportsfield to
see a game, on coming down past the cemetery I went in to visit our family
grave. Inside the gate were two heavily laden sport bikes. As I went down the
central pathway I was approached by two people, by their style of dress, I
guessed that they owned the bikes. They had been looking at the graves. On introducing
themselves, they enquired if I was a local, was I familiar with the various
graves, or if not, would the local authority have a record of the graves.’ I
would have a fairly good knowledge of the place, so out of curiosity, I asked.
‘What particular grave or stone are you looking for?

They were brother and sister, in their early twenties, from Sweden. They
explained that when they were young, they had been on vacation at a relatives
home in rural Sweden. One wet day, they had taken refuge in the attic of the
house. While up there, they came upon an old trunk, opening it, they found old
clothes and some old letters. Looking through these they found one which was
not in Swedish. Taking it downstairs and showing it, it was explained that it
came from Ireland and concerned the burial of a relative who had lived in that
house and that had died in that far distant land.

So after all these years, the brother and sister, who had found James
Cronin’s letter in the attic trunk, now found themselves back in the town where
Cronin, the stonemason, lived, and where their relative, Lars Larsson had died
in 1929. I found their story amazing. I said, ‘you are lucky, you have just met
the only person that knows the whereabouts of the grave and the history behind
it’.

(more tomorrow)

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More photos from town on Daffodil Day 2018




Listowel People Today and in Yesteryear

Photo: Chris Grayson

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Glamourous was Hannon’s

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Listowel People on their way to Mass on March 17 2018

 On St. Patrick’s Day 2018 I stood at the gate of St. Mary’s, Listowel and snapped some good folk as they went to mass on our national feast day.


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Vincent Carmody Remembers Growing up in Listowel in the 1950s


The name Lars Larsson was first mentioned to me in a conversation that I
had with Dotie Cronin, who was an elderly neighbour of ours, and an old time
family friend.

The Cronin family originally lived in a thatched cottage in Upper
William Street. When the house was demolished in the late 1800s, James Cronin,
a stonemason, built a slated cottage at the lower end of Charles Street.

As I grew up in the late 1940’s and ‘50s, I became aware of the two
elderly Cronin sisters, Kathy and Dotie, 
their back yard, which entered into the laneway at the back of our
house, was home to fowl of many descriptions, with each species, hens, ducks,
bantams, and even two geese, having little sheds of their own. Every morning,
the back gate would be thrown open and the fowl would be allowed scatter to the
four winds, ranging out through the various fields, belonging to Chutes,
Shanahan and Broderick’s , at the rear of the street. Broderick’s field skirted
the Limerick/Tralee railway track, with countryside on the far side, stretching
up to Knockane and Raymond’s of Dromin Hill in the far distance.

This railway track defined in our young eyes whether one was a townie or
from the country. The Cronin birds, then perhaps, would have been the last of
the free rangers in our urban setting. By early evening when the fowl would
have returned, like the hunter home from the hills, Dotie, the enumerator,
would do a head count. If any failed to return, she, in consternation, would
arrive in our back door, calling out to my mother, ‘Those wayward bitches of
hens don’t know how fine a home they have in Cronin’s, would Vincent have a
look for them’. Most times, the stragglers would be rounded up and a relieved
Dotie would present me with a couple of fresh hen eggs.

(more tomorrow)

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Daffodil Day in Listowel in 2018



Friday March 23 2018 was Daffodil Day this year and as usual the Listowel folk were out in force raising funds for this good cause.

I had two young men with me as they began their Kerry Easter holiday.

This is an old photo of an earlier Daffodil Day organising committee. It is sad to see to see so many lovely Listowel folk who are gone from us but good to see so many others still going strong and still involved in helping the community.

Carnegie Library on Bridge Road and Listowel folk at 11.00a.m. mass on St. Patrick’s Day 2018



Great photo by Peter Tips of Mallow Camera Club


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Listowel’s Carnegie Library…the early days



Denis Quille found this old photo and sent it to me to share with you in Listowel connection. It sparked interest in many of the blog’s followers so, on your behalf, Dave O’Sullivan has been doing some research.

Here are the answers to some of your questions

Who was Carnegie and why did he build libraries?

Around the turn of the century, Scottish businessman and philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie, decided that the “best gift” to give to a community was a free public library. Carnegie credited his remarkable success to access to library books in his childhood and teenage years and believed strongly that educational opportunities should be free and accessible to all. In 1898, Carnegie put his beliefs into action and started a funding program that would lay the groundwork for the public library system in the US and Canada. By the time his corporation ceased funding the projects 20 years later, over 2500 libraries had been built around the world using the “Carnegie formula,” which provided initial capital for the construction of the building with municipalities committing to carrying ongoing operational costs. 

This is the Carnegie Library in Listowel in Canada.

Why Listowel, Co. Kerry?

Basically because some farsighted local people asked for one. There was also the question of a local contribution and Listowel was willing and able to raise this. Most of the Carnegie libraries in Ireland are clustered around the cities of Dublin, Galway and Limerick but there are a few dotted around elsewhere.


Brendan Grimes is an expert on Carnegie Libraries and as well as writing the book he has recorded a talk on them which Dave found on youtube


Brendan Grimes on Carnegie Libraries , Skerries 2013


Who designed the Listowel library?


Dave found the answer on line and here it is;

Architect and engineer, of Dublin. Rudolf Maximilian Butler was born in Dublin on 30 September 1872, the son of John Butler, a barrister from Carlow, and Augusta Brassart, who came from Schleswig-Holstein.(1) He was educated in Dublin until he was ten, when his father died. At the time of his father’s death in Dublin, Rudolf was on a Christmas holiday with his mother in Germany, with the result that he remained in Germany to finish his education. When he was sixteen he returned to Dublin, where, after a brief spell in the wine business, he became a pupil first, from 1889-1891, of JAMES JOSEPH FARRALL   and then, from 1891 to 1896, of WALTER GLYNN DOOLIN. H  e stayed on as an assistant to Doolin from 1896 to 1899, when he became his junior partner. Following Doolin’s death in March 1902, Butler carried on the practice in partnership with JAMES LOUIS DONNELLY   as DOOLIN BUTLER &  amp; DONNELLY.  (2) Since 1899 Butler had also been architect and engineer to Rathdown Rural District Council, in which capacity he designed some five hundred cottages in Cos. Dublin & Wicklow.(3) In 1902 he was also appointed consulting engineer to the Gurteen drainage board.  

Who built the Listowel library?

Thereby hangs a tale as Dave discovered in the newspapers.

The contract was awarded to Mr. John Sisk of Cork in 1914. But there was a hold up.

So it looks like they all lived happily ever after.

Kerry libraries.ie has the following…..The Public Libraries Act was adopted by Kerry County Council in 1925, making the Local Authority responsible for all libraries in the county, except Listowel (which operated under a Trust until 1953). Prior to this, grants had been received from the Carnegie Trust for the erection of Carnegie Library buildings at Cahirciveen, Castleisland, Dingle, Kenmare, Killorglin, Listowel and Tralee. The Library service in Cahirciveen, Dingle, Castleisland and Kenmare still operates from these original or reconstructed buildings.

In September 1983, the new County Library Headquarters and Tralee Branch Library were opened. This gave a major boost to the Library Service and provided facilities for a modern Library Service to meet future educational, social, cultural and recreational needs of the community.

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More Listowel People on March 17 2018



St. Patrick’s Day 2018 in Listowel and a family outing to Ballybunion

Listowel Folk on their way to mass on St. Patrick’s Day 2018

 Mary and Joe Hanlon were celebrating 45 years of wedded bliss.


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Ballybunion, March 18 2018




Molly was the only one of our little troop with a fur coat in Ballybunion on March 18 2018. The rest of us were as cold as we have ever been in our lives.





Meanwhile Daniel and Majella were playing golf

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Music, Poetry and Craic



All roads lead to Ballydonoghue this weekend for their first ever Bardic Festival.

Look what’s in store

Ballydonoghue Bardic Festival 2018

St. Patrick’s Day 2018 in Listowel, March 18 in Ballybunion and my “Thoughts” from last week

Some Listowel Folk on their way to mass in St. Mary’s on March 17 2018



Tim O’Leary was helping with the church gate collection. He had a few words in Irish for one and all.

Dr. Olive Pierse was resplendent in green.

This beautiful piece was given to her by her husband, Robert on her 80th birthday. I think you’ll agree it’s beautiful.


You’ll recognise lots of local people here, all very kindly allowing me to preserve memories of this day for future generations.

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On the Wild Atlantic Way


On March 18 2018, we wrapped up well and headed for the beach.

Mario had been out since early morning working on a very important commission.

Looks like Daniel and Majella are taking in Ballybunion on their road trip. They were grand marshalls at the parade in Millstreet and they came on to Kerry afterwards. I didn’t stick around to greet them.

The weather was freezing cold and there was scarcely a soul on the beach.

As you can imagine, Molly loved having the place to herself.


Not a living soul in sight.



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Just a Thought



Last week it was my privilege to give the Just a Thought reflection each day on Radio Kerry.

If you would like to listen to the reflections they are online for another week.

Just a Thought

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