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 Square Page 6 of 7

Stags, A Crolly Doll, Sive songa and a George Fitzmaurice quote

Chris Grayson took these rutting stags in The National Park, Killarney in October 2017

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A National Treasure



Gaeltarra Eireann made these dolls right up to the 1960s. They were much prized by U.S. tourists and are now “collectable’. 

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Berkie Browne’s



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Sive Songs



These verses are on the wall of Lynch’s Coffee shop in Main Street 

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Poetry in The Square



This is one of the pieces in Listowel Town Square

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One for the Exiles



Instant messaging, wild flowers and John McCormack in Killarney in 1947

Listowel Town Square, March 2017

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Wild Garlic and Buttercups


The park and Garden of Europe is “alive with all the urgency of spring”. If you are lucky enough to be near enough to walk here, you will enjoy the changing landscape day by day as new flowers appear.  Remember a weed is just a flower in the wrong place.

 Wild garlic

 Narcissi

Tulips


Primroses

Buttercups


Daisies


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Communication Technology




Regular readers will know that I have a fascination with old phone boxes and postboxes. They are reminders of a time when the pace of life was slower and “friends” were people we met regularly or to whom we wrote letters or talked to on the phone.

I grew up in a house with no telephone and when we got one we shared it with the neighbours who came regularly to make or receive calls. People who had no phones rang people by appointment or had their family ring them by appointment. There was such a thing as a “person to person call” and that meant you didn’t have to pay for the call if the person you wanted to speak to wasn’t available. Of course there was no caller display so when the phone rang, there was always that moment of anticipation while you guessed who the caller might be.

In the days of the dial up phone, you had to ring the operator first and ask her (it was usually her) to put you through to the number you required. If the number didn’t answer she told you so.

A phone that you could carry around with you and could receive calls while not attached to a land line was as remote and fascinating to us as the carrier pigeons our forefathers used.

Future generations will see our smart phones in a museum and will wonder what we thought was so smart about them.

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Killarney 1947


From the archive of the Capuchin Annuals, John MacCormack and his brother in Killarney.

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Lovely Day for a Run; April 8 2017

I was enjoying an interesting stroll in the park with my weekend visitors when I spotted some activity around the Dandy Lodge. David Twomey who is usually developing the absolutely lovely 1916 commemorative garden was moving a table into position, not far from what was obviously a finishing line. David is also a marathon runner so I was putting two and two together when I saw Chris Grayson. As blog followers well know Chris is a super photographer whose images often grace these pages. He is also a marathon runner. I had never actually met Chris in person until Saturday April 8 2017 and the meeting was as pleasant as it was unexpected. Here is the story in pictures.

Mary Cogan and Chris Grayson

David Twomey with the winners of the half marathon

Supporters patiently waiting for the first finishers of the marathon.

Vincent O’Leary finishing another great race on home turf.

Stained Glass in Ballybunion and Progress at the Community Centre

WOW

Chris Grayson photographed this magnificent peacock in Fota Wildlife Park

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More photos of St. John’s Ballybunion

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Progress at the Community Centre



The blocks are flying up.



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The Square, Listowel February 2017


MBC is a new business at this premises



The Tidy Towns’ sculpture is a nice addition to this corner of town.

Badminton, Youth Culture and a Pat Given poem

In Listowel Town Square

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Badminton in The Community Centre, Sunday January 16 2017

The man himself wasn’t there when I called to the community centre but his seat was reserved for him.

These three, James Sheahan, Margaret Healy and Mark Loughnane were busy running the show.

The prizes looked very impressive. Also very impressive was the collection of trophies in the County badminton photo which was on display.

Listowel’s winning Division 4 team.

This brother and sister had come all the way from Valentia especially for the tournament.

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Bop It


This is my grandson playing Bop It. You’ve never heard of Bop it? Well, that’s only the start of it. I learned a lot about young people’s culture during my sojourn in Cork at Christmas. Let me share some of what I learned with you.

In this photo my three granddaughters are wearing JoJo bows.

Never heard of those? Jo Jo Siwa is a young girl with a You Tube channel and she is super at marketing. Every young girl in Cork seemed to be wearing these.

While we’re on the subject of Youtube sensations, have you seen this man?

He also has his own Youtube channel and his Pineapple Pen song (It’s hardly even a song, more of a jingle) is a viral hit. It was the audience participation song at the panto in The Opera House and, I kid you not when I tell you that every child in Cork knew it.

Do you know about the Musically app? Very young children are using this to make music videos and to lip synch and share their compositions with their friends.

And then there are Vines.

“A Vine is a download-only short-form video hosting service where users could share six-second-long looping video clips.”   Wikipedia.

Here endeth today’s lesson on Youth culture. I hope your head isn’t too addled.

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A Poem

Helios; A Cork dog with French connections

Welcome 

by Pat Given…from his anthology October Stocktaking

When I returned after one
week’s absence

Such rapture greeted me!

Now, some would say such open
demonstration

Of affection is vulgar.

Others say; anything so
overdone

Smacks of pretence.

But I say to the first,

Show me one other who greets
me so,

To the second,

Deceit is not in the nature
of a dog.

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Quarant Ore


Quarantore was the practice of 40 hours exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. It was celebrated in Listowel with a procession through the convent grounds. As people’s memories of this annual event are being stirred, I am getting a clearer picture. We have the priest surrounded by altar boys, communicants strewing rose petals, nuns in their cream cloaks which were worn at funerals and other solemn occasions, Children of Mary and, now, according to Anne Dillon who remembers participating in the procession when she was in sixth class, all of the girls from the primary school. 

Wouldn’t it be lovely if someone could find an old photo of this occasion.



Something old, something new ….

An eagle eyed follower spotted what looks like a tar truck in The Square in the this old post card. Were they carrying out roadworks in the deserted square?

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Like a Bird on a Wire


On a trip to Ballybunion during the holidays, I photographed these brave little birds.



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Down Memory Lane with The Kerryman



Seems like yesterday!

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An Old Post Box


This postbox is on the wall at Convent Cross. I think this  box is in continuous use since the Edwardian era. King Edward died in 1910 so Listowel people have posted their letters here for over a century.



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An Extraordinary Story of Two Ordinary Good People

From Abbeyfeale on line December 2016

In 1975 Irish immigrant brothers Denis and Pat Mulcahy of the NYPD

gathered a group of family, friends and neighbours together in New

York to start a scheme offering children from Northern Ireland a

chance to temporarily escape the violent turmoil of their daily lives.

From modest beginnings Project Children ultimately brought over 20,000 Catholic and Protestant children to suburban US for summer-long visits where they forged unexpected friendships and found they had more in common with the “enemy” than they thought.



Denis and his brother Pat hailed originally from Meelin in County

Cork. They emigrated to America in the early sixties and eventually

joined the NYPD.



Their mother Eileen was born in Caherhayes, Abbeyfeale. She was a

sister of Joe Moriarty and Josie Foley (néé Moriarty) from The Hill.



In 1977, just two years into the project, Pat was injured at work and

had to retire and return to Rockchapel. However, he continued to

support the project from home and recalls numerous phone calls from

Denis over the years to tell him that passports etc. needed to be

sorted.



The Mulachy brothers got the People of the Year award in 1989 for

their work with Project Children and were also given a special medal

from the Pope.



Denis has been nominated twice for a Nobel peace prize and he has also

received an accolade from president Bill Clinton. He accompanied the

former president to Northern Ireland in the 1990s.





During the course of 40 years more than 20,000 children from some of

the worst-hit areas of Belfast and Derry spent six-week stints with

American host families, far from bomb blasts and riots.



The tale of how Cork natives Denis and Pat launched Project Children

with willing family and friends in 1975, is told in the feature film

“How to Defuse A Bomb: The Project Children Story”, narrated by

Ballymena-born actor Liam Neeson.



The film won the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature at The

IFI Documentary Festival and was recently shown on BBC and is expected

to be broadcast by RTE in the near future.

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“A Cold Coming they had of it…..”



Forget the three wise men. The most stylish formally attired bar staff were in John B.’s on January 6 2017.

photo: Love Listowel on Twitter


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