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: The Harp and Lion

Kissanes of Kilcox, The Harp and Lion then and Now and Busking for M.S. in the small square

By

On August 16, 2016

In Uncategorized

Family History Lesson from the Kissane Clan Gathering





Every family should have a family historian. Few families are as lucky as The Kissanes of Kilcox for they have their very own amateur genealogist in Eily Kissane Walsh. Not only is Eily a thorough researcher and a dogged chaser after family lore, but she is unstintingly generous with the information she has gathered and she shares it with her clan in a entertaining and informative way.

Last year she mounted an exhibition of family photographs telling the story of her ancestor, Richard Kissane and his descendants. This year she took the descendants of brothers John and Richard Kissane on a walking tour of the old homestead, pictured above in Bridget O’Connor’s photo.

Above is a small section of the participants in the Walk and Talk with Eily Walsh in the centre.

Here is an account of that day from one of the participants;

On Friday August 5 2016 I did the  ‘Walk & Talk tour of the Kilcox Kissane farms with Eily Walsh. It was amazing!

From the top of Scralom hill we were looking right down onto the farms of Richard, The Elder, and that of his brother John, The Elder. I was thrilled to be walking  in the footsteps of my Kissane ancestors.


Eily covered a huge span of history from the late 1700’s to modern times. She was so informative! She was able to tell us exactly who our ancestors were & what they did for a living. Her niece Meghan Kissane, Dick’s daughter, had a map of the farms printed out for each of us, naming each field by the name it was known back in the day. 

No stone was left unturned. 

Eily spoke at 5 viewing points along the way. The sights were breathtaking.  We could see 3 counties, Kerry, Clare & Galway. We were also entertained by Meghan who recited an aptly chosen poem, ‘The Boglands’ by William A Byrne. 

The purple heather is the cloak
God gave the bogland brown,
But man has made a pall o’ smoke
To hide the distant town.
Our lights are long and rich in change,         5
Unscreened by hill or spire,
From primrose dawn, a lovely range,
To sunset’s farewell fire.
No morning bells have we to wake
Us with their monotone,         10
But windy calls of quail and crake
Unto our beds are blown.
The lark’s wild flourish summons us
To work before the sun;
At eve the heart’s lone Angelus         15
Blesses our labour done.
We cleave the sodden, shelving bank
In sunshine and in rain,
That men by winter-fires may thank
The wielders of the slane.         20
Our lot is laid beyond the crime
That sullies idle hands;
So hear we through the silent time
God speaking sweet commands.

……………..

 Eithne, Eily’s daughter, sang in Irish ‘Táimse im’ chodhladh is ná dúistear mé’, i.e.  ‘I’m asleep and don’t waken me’. 

Tráthnóinín déanach i gcéin cois leasa dom
Táimse im’ chodhladh is ná dúistear mé
Sea dhearcas lem’ thaobh an spéirbhean mhaisiúil
Táimse im’ chodhladh is ná dúistear mé
Ba bhachallach péarlach dréimreach barrachas
A carnfholt craobhach ag titim léi ar bhaillechrith
‘S í ag caitheamh na saighead trím thaobh do chealg mé
Táimse im’ chodhladh is ná dúistear mé

……..

This is a lovely Aisling poem. The poet is asleep and he wants to continue dreaming forever because in his dream he sees Ireland as a beautiful woman who will free Ireland from the yoke of English rule.

 Eithne sang this plaintive song as she stood in front of the ‘Cillín’. This is an ancient burial ground on the farm. It is one of 400 in Kerry which date back to  pre-Christianity. The Cillín is a breathtaking sacred place surrounded by trees and framed by the lovely river Shannon. Cillíns were ancient pagan burial places which were used in Christian times as the resting place for unbaptised babies, people who died by suicide, or anyone who was deemed to have died ‘in sin”. 




You can see the cillín beautifully preserved within the circle of trees.


The whole experience was very moving.  

To top it off we had a picnic in the lands of our ancestors! It was absolutely perfect.


Eily plans another gathering in 2017. It will, no doubt, be equally informative and entertaining. 

Thank you, Eily and everyone who helped make this year’s event such a success.


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A Work in Progress



The same shopfront in August 2016

This painter obviously relishes a challenge. He is starting with a clean slate. He has hours of painstaking work ahead to repaint this iconic Listowel shopfront.

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Busking for M.S.


The weather delayed fundraiser took place in town on Friday August 12 2016

Junior Griffin was making his contribution from his car.

They could be sisters! Barbara Walsh was out collecting for the local branch of the M.S. Society when she ran into her mother.

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Then and Now




e car as a symbol of Progress, Tasty Cotter, Writers Week Competitions and an Emigrant’s Tale

By

On February 4, 2016

In Uncategorized

Listowel January 2016; an ecar fuels beside the Bus Eireann shelter in The Square. In the background is St. John’s.

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Tasty Man about town


(photos and text; Vincent Carmody)



Tasty Cotter

Timothy Fitzmarshall Cotter was
also known as ‘Tasty’ Cotter. He was a well loved Listowel character. The
family had a shop at the corner of Main Street and Church Street, Timothy
worked with the Urban Council as a rent collector. He always dressed in style
and was a familiar figure at all events, be entertainment, sporting or
otherwise.

Tasty was a very efficient
Hon.Sec.with the Listowel GAA club in the early 1900s and as you can see from
this 1908 photograph of The Independents, he was a well turned out footballer
as well, as were the rest.


Timothy trod the boards and was a
prominent actor and performer with an early drama group, known as ‘Listowel
Dramatic Class’.  He also was a member of
The Listowel Musical Society and he is included in that Society’s rare and well
preserved programme from their Grand Opening Concert in St Patrick’s Hall on
Tuesday March 4th, 1930.


There was a story told once by
Bryan McMahon of a time when Maurice Walsh (of Quite Man fame), had invited a
number of his friends from Listowel; Bryan McMahon, Tasty and a few more to
attend an opening night in Dublin. Afterwards Maurice Walsh and his friends
adjourned to Boland’s, his local in Stillorglin for drinks. Here they were
joined by some members of the press. As the evening progressed those present
gave their various party pieces, Tasty sang his; an operatic number in Italian.
The press people in particular, were enthralled. One was overheard to ask, how
one from such a rural part of the country could have such clear diction in that
language. Hearing this, Tasty’s reply was spontaneous. He said, ” Friend,
if I had the benefit of a University education, like that lavished, like axle
grease on the heads of newspaper reporters, then sir, I would have become
Governor General of Hyderabad.”

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Do you know a Young writer?



If you know a young person who loves to write please encourage them to visit The National Children’s Literary Festival.

The competitions are free to enter and the prizes are good.

There are competitions for adult writers too.

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One Listowel Emigrant’s story


Junior Griffin and his late brother, Bert

Junior and Bert’s father’s people come from Knockalougha outside
Duagh. It was from here that Junior’s father emigrated to the U.S. in 1915. He
remembered getting off the boat and seeing a paperboy announcing the main
story; The sinking of the Lusitania. He found work in the Ford Motor Co. in Detroit
and he worked there under the first Henry Ford. They were manufacturing the
Model T.

John Griffin Senior experienced tragedy early in his life in
the new world. He married a lady from Tipperary called Sheridan. Their son was
very young when John’s wife died in the great flu epidemic of 1920. He brought
his young son home with him in 1926 and this boy, Jimmy, was raised in Fourhane
by Junior’s grandmother.

John married again. His second wife, Junior’s mother, was also
Griffin from Fourhane. They married in Detroit and their first daughter, Joan, was born there
in 1931. Junior’s maternal grandmother had 12 children, 11 of whom lived to
adulthood but the eleven were never under the one roof together. The eldest
two, Annie and Josie had emigrated to America before the youngest 2 were born.

When the Griffins returned from the U.S. they settled first
in Knockalougha and their eldest daughter, Patsy was born while they were
there. Her birth was well remembered in the family. Junior’s father had to
travel through two feet of snow to Duagh to fetch the midwife on February 25
1933.

Jimmy Griffin, Junior’s older half brother joined the army
and was one of Douglas Hyde’s official army drivers. After leaving the army he
settled in Limerick and he married a lady called Eileen O’Riordan, a grandaunt
of Dolores of The Cranberries. Jimmy has passed away.

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Renovation Work Underway here



Hammering banging and clouds of sawdust are emerging from here recently. A big refurb job underway apparently.

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Look Who Got the Golden Ticket


Bernard O’Connell, formerly of Upper William Street and his wife at the Bruce Springsteen concert.



Bernard took this picture as the stadium at the Air Canada Centre filled up.


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