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: Vintage Day 2017

Pat Leane, Vintage Day 2017 and O’Quigley’s Ladies and Gents Hairdressers

Chris Grayson

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Old Dublin



Source; Old photos of Dublin on Facebook

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Pat Leane, Olympic Athlete



At Listowel Races I met the lovely Helen Lyons and her charming mother. Helen’s mother is sister of the great Australian athlete, Pat Leane

I’m  reproducing below the piece I included in the blog a few year’s ago , when John and Monica Summers alerted me to this unsung hero.


Next
up is an Olympic story with a Listowel (more correctly Finuge ) connection.

The
following information was sent to me by John and Monica Summers, who live in Sydney, Australia but who have a Whelan
connection with Finuge. 

(Sorry
about the format. It’s a digitized old newspaper…March 14 1952) 

Pat
Leane’s  family was from Finuge and there are still members of the family
living there including Nell Leane who was born in Australia, fell in love and
moved to Finuge in the 1950s. 





PAT S A STAR ALL-ROUNDER

Rugged Pat Leane has
impressive records for almost everything on the athletic field. He has hopes of
Helsinki

TWENTY – TWO – YEAR – OLD’ six-footer Pat-
Leane, of Oakleigh, 13 stone of Irish pluck,must be Victoria’s most versatile amateur
athlete.

Australian Olympic selectors have so far
overlooked him, but happy-go-lucky, curly-haired Pat hasn’t given up hope yet.

He’s going to make one last do-or-die bid to
crash his way into the Helsinki team this month. And rugged Pat can do it if anyonecan.

Tomorrow he will be in the last stage of
the stiff Victorian decathlon championship – the perfect outlet for his varied
and out-standing talents.

Title-holder Leane‘s best total so far has been
5,886points. But he’s training hard daily, and is sure he can reach the Olympic
standard of 7,000 points, provided he is not hampered by adverse weather

or track conditions.

Talk to the star and youfind him almost
excessivelymodest, but his list of bestperformances easily qualifyhim as the
State’s leadingcne-man athletic team.Here they are:

High Jump: 6ft. 5¿in.

Broad Jump: 24ft. 23in.

Hop, Step, and Jump:

44ft. 6in.

Pole Vault: 10ft. 9in.100 Yards:
10.1sec.220 Yards: 23.3sec.

440 Yards: 51.7sec.

Javelin Throw: 165ft.Shot Put: 38ft.

Discus Throw: 128ft. 6in.120 Yards Hurdles:
16.9

sec.

1,500 Metres: 5.20

Pat has
already proved him-self Australia’s best broad andhigh jumper this season,
andrecently became the only ath

lete to better the Olympic stan-dard of
6ft. 4in. for the highjump.

When he’s not concernedwith improving his
athleticform, schoolteacher Pat is
also well up in the football world. A brilliant centre half-forward, he played
with Association club Oakleigh in 1947-48-49, and Golden Point, Ballarat, in
’50

For recreation he playsa
keen game of tennis,and in his spare time plays the piano!

A natural athlete, Pat began picking up sport trophies
as a12-year-old at De La Salle College, Malvern. He was good at football,
cricket, and handball,and school champion in the 100and 220 yards, high and
broad jumps, and shot put.

He had some early tips from De La Salle
honorary coach. BobWright, and now gets a little advice occasionally from
“Pop”Gordon, well-known University coach. Mostly, however, he trains
by himself, and figures out his own schedules.

“It’s more fun that way,” hesays.

Experts believe he has suchterrific
potential that If he had been coached consistently

Over the last 10 years he would now be in
top international class in any one of his strong events. But Pat, undisturbed, likes to have a go at everything,although
he prefers jumping.

For his decathlon training Pat Is building up stamina with two
six-minute miles once

 a week,
and improving technique on five other days.

Pat‘s future
is uncertain. His burning ambition is to represent Australia at the Olympic Games.
But if he doesn’t go to Helsinki, his athletic career may be cut short.

Pat‘s
engaged to a Ballarat girl, and a tempting offer has been made for him to play

professional football with North Melbourne.

He makes no attempt to disguise his love
for athletics, but professional football would help him establish a home. It
would also immediately disqualify himas
an amateur.

Pat‘s’
parents hail fromCounty Kerry, and they’remighty
proud of their son.

“But,” says Pat with
aprobably they reckon he’d be a world-beater at

the good old Irish game of hurley.

“that’s one game at which I’d draw
the line -it’s too tough!”

– Alan Trengove

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A Few More Photos from Vintage Day 2017



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O’Quigley’s Repainted



Ballybunion Ballad, Waterford Greenway and Recycle Reuse Fashion Event 2017

Chris Grayson and one of his favourite models

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Old Ballybunion Ballad


Liam O’Hainnín is a great lover of music and of all things old and precious. He shared this old ballad on Facebook.

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Waterford Greenway Trip

Bobby Cogan and family took a cycling holiday for the weekend on Waterford’s greenway. They had a great time and even met someone famous at a pit stop. Sonja was also cycling the greenway but at a slightly faster pace.

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Recycle, Upcycle Day at Listowel Races


Listowel Tidy Towns had the great idea to start this recycle reuse event 5 years ago. It has grown from year to year and now rivals Ladies’ Day in popularity. It has now become known as Vintage Day and some participants this year bought their outfits in vintage shops and online vintage outlets.

The very popular winner was a local lady who looked really chic in a outfit first worn by her mother and she brought the photo to prove it.

Here is Lisa with her sister, her grandmother and mother , a very stylish family, you’ll agree?

John Kelliher took these photos of Lisa talking on stage to the judge. The judge showed the photo of Lisa’s mother in the same dress, holding Lisa as a baby. Lisa’s grandmother, Mary Keogh, made the handbag on a course in An Grianán.

This outfit was the perfect example of timeless fashion that this competition is all about.

This man won the best dressed vintage man section.

Part of the judging process is that the finalist gets to tell the judge the provenance of the outfit. This is often the most entertaining part of the process.

Tally Ho regaled us with a story that involved fleas, moths and bees. I think the judge never met anyone like him. She was enthralled.

Vincent Carmody is a great man to tell a story. His tie and watch stories were very entertaining and all the better for being true.

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Lovely People I met at The Races


Imelda Murphy was organising the Tidy Town event. She was dressed in a vintage cardigan that once belonged to Mary John B. In the photo with her is Cliona Cogan in a vintage Michelina Stackpoole dress and scarf.

The McElligott family, Emma, John, Ian and Gillian were celebrating Ian’s engagement.

Old friends meeting up is one of the great benefits of the races.


A very popular and stylish winner of a special category at Vintage Day was local lady, Nell Canty dressed from head to toe from Listowel’s St. Vincent de Paul shop.

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Thank you for Making my Day



Go raibh míle míle maith agat, Joyce.

Maire MacMahon kindly sent me this photo she took of Joyce at The Races. Joyce, Máire and Keelin were class mates but hadn’t met for 6 years. Joyce now lives in Cambodia.

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Good News story of the Week




Photo; Pascal Sheehy on Twitter

This is Mary Murphy, the postmistress of Bere Island off the coast of Co. Cork. She sold the winning ticket in the Euromillions draw that won €500,000 for a syndicate of local people. While the world’s media was making its way (on a ferry skippered by her husband)  to the island to try to locate the elusive winners, the syndicate was in Dublin collecting their cheque.  The winners wish to remain anonymous but say they will be generous to people in their small island community.

It was been established that the post office only sold 2 euromillions tickets on Monday so I’d say Mary has a good clue who the winners are.

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