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: washing

Nano Nagle Place, Old Piseogs and Carrigkerry

 Chris Grayson

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Old Cork

This photo was not taken today or yesterday. I think it’s the 1960s and these are tourist caravans on the Western Road outside the Ear Nose and Throat hospital. The street is now one way.

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The Legacy of Nano Angle and The Presentation Sisters



In Listowel we have a memorial to the work of the nuns centralised in our town square. We were lucky to have both Presentation and Mercy sisters helping to educate and care for generations of Listowel people.

The mission of the Presentation sisters was to educate the young ladies of North Kerry and I was privileged to work with them for many years.

Nano Nagle, who founded the Presentation sisters was a Cork woman. The order now has converted their South Presentation school and convent into a magnificent heritage centre. I was there with my daughter, Cliona, a Pres girl,  on Heritage Day 2018

Impressive, isn’t it?

 The nuns’ burial ground with its uniform headstones reminded me of the graves I’ve seen in pictures of a battlefield.

It was a bit of a shock to see a grave with a family name. I don’t know if she was any relation.

 This was a surprise. I can’t imagine how she came to be buried here in South Pres.

 The convent garden is wonderful with borders of lavender on which bees were at work.


In the museum there were artefacts and photos from Presentation communities around the world.There was a stamp from Listowel and a roll book from South Pres.

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Some Little Known Superstitions






From Patrick O’Sullivan’s excellent Country Diary



Times were different back then!

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Carrigkerry



Just over the border in Co. Limerick is the lovely little village of Carrigkerry.

Mount Brandon, Reading, Fishing, washing and a tale of a lost boy

On the Top of Mount Brandon

Faha Ridge

Our intrepid photographer is Catherine Moylan who braved the elements to climb Mount Brandon two weeks ago. I think you’ll agree she got some great photographs.

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Oh The Joys of Reading


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Fishing from the beach in Ballybunion is popular. Bridget O’Connor took the photo.

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Good drying



Photo: Facebook

Do you remember when everyone had a long washing line and it always sagged in the middle? A housewife’s Monday was made is there was ‘good drying’.

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Signs on Courthouse Road




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In Search of an Evacuee




These photographs were taken in Ballybunion one day in 1945. The little boy and the little girl had just made their First Holy Communion.

He is Hurst Hess, a German boy evacuated to Ireland during WW2. He stayed with the family of the little girl’s cousins. She is Eily Mai Kissane.

The first  old photographs was discovered by Bridget O’Connor as she was trawling through boxes of old photographs to give to the family historian, Eily Walsh who is compiling another photographic exhibition of the Kissanes of Kilcox, Lisselton. Eily had the photograph of her aunt, Eily Mai.

The photographs were taken in Beazley’s in Ballybunion.

Eily is now busily trying to track down Hurst or his descendants. The Kissane family were very fond of him and missed him when he returned home to Germany. But they never heard of him again.

Eily would love to share this part of their family history with Hurst’s German family.

German boys were also evacuated to Listowel and surrounding areas. I wonder does anyone remember any of these. Wouldn’t it be nice to bring them all back to the place that was their home for over 2 years during a very troubled time own their country’s history.

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