Nuns

Today I am back to nuns again but this time it's real ones.

Postulants in Oakpark Tralee. The Presentation Sisters had their novitiate in what is now Collis Sandes House. This photo was taken on the morning of their profession. It was customary for the young ladies to dress like brides, brides of Christ.

By their habits, these nuns would appear to be from different orders. Jer. does not know where or when the photo was taken Maybe someone else does.

This link is to David Lyons video of the official count on Nunday in Listowel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g994vVzspM

and a good blogpost here

http://landsleaving.wordpress.com/2012/07/05/nunday-or-in-praise-of-listowel/

July horsefair and other country matters

Jer Kennelly has put together a great montage of faces at the fair on Thursday last:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHqiRIKAfmk

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At one time much of the trading in horses and other livestock all took place on the streets of towns up and down the country. Here are a few pictures.

Market St. Listowel on a Fair Day.

Sheep Fair in Killarney

Fair Day in Rathkeale, Co. Limerick

The Square, Listowel on a Fair Day

Taking  pigs to the fair in 1905

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Meanwhile in Pamplona!!

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Jamie O'Connell's trip to Listowel Writers' Week is here:

http://www.jamieoconnellwriter.com/?services=writers’-week-listowel-2012&wpmp_tp=0

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A few Wednesday announcements

On Wednesday next I will be going with 3 of my friends from North Kerry Reaching out to Radio Kerry to chat with Alison Nulty. It should be Weeshie but Weeshie got a better offer and Alison got his Radio Kerry gig. On July 11 we will be chatting with Alison about NKRO, about our upcoming festival and other matters historical and genealogical. I'll tell you all about it, with a photo, later on in the week.

Also on Wednesday our friends in Listowel Comhaltas will be continuing with their Seisiúin in The Listowel Arms. From 9.00p.m. you can enjoy the best of Irish music song and dance. If you have visitors on your hands, this is the ideal night out for them. If you are visiting North Kerry, be sure to drop into the Listowel Arms for the Wednesday seisiún on any summer Weds. night.

Thank Crunchy it's Friday!

It's been a week that was dominated by memories of Nunday. My blog has never been so popular as it was this week. So many people wanted to see either themselves or their friends in nuns' gear.

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Now to some other news this week. Jimmy Deenihan announced the setting up of a task force to bring employment to Listowel. Denis Brosnan is to head up this group whose job will be to boost employment and tourism in our area.

On Wednesday people from the Kerry area met to plan The Gathering for 2013. We will be hearing more about this.

Damien Stack has made a start on organizing The Stack Clan Gathering. He is inviting Stacks from all over the world to gather in Listowel in 2013. Keep up to date with developments here:

https://www.facebook.com/stack.clangathering

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=LKAI7DN79zE

Happy old times with Bunny Dalton and John B. Keane.

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With the threat of abolition looming over our town council and the consolidation of the 2 Kerry constituencies into one, it is timely that I fill you in on a bit of Kerry political history. This information comes from a great online magazine called Ballybunion News. The latest edition is here:

http://www.ballybunionnews.com/June%2029th.pdf

Kerry was last represented as a single constituency in the General Election of January 1933 where the county had seven T.D.s who served until the next election in July of 1937.
Those seven were : Fianna Fáil’s Eamonn Kissane, Tom McEllistrim, John Flynn, Denis Daly & Frederick Crowley along with Fionán Lynch and John O’Sullivan from the Cumann na nGaedheal party who then became Fine Gael in September of 1933.

The County was then divided into North and South Kerry constituencies for the next General Election in July of 1937 and following the election, North Kerry were represented by Fianna Fail’s Eamonn Kissane, Tom McEllistrim and Stephen Fuller along with John O’Sullivan from Fine Gael while Fianna Fáil’s Frederick Crowley and John Flynn along with Fine Gael’s Fionán Lynch were elected in South Kerry which was a three-seater.
Outgoing T.D. Denis Daly of Fianna Fáil who was from Caherciveen in South Kerry, did not seek re-election after serving just one term.

The country went to the polls again within 12 months, in June of 1938, where the same seven deputies were re-elected with the three in South Kerry unopposed.

The next election of 1943, saw Lynch and Crowley re-elected with Flynn retiring in South Kerry to be replaced by party colleague John Healy, while in North Kerry, Kissane and McEllistrim were re-elected but O’Sullivan and Fuller lost their seats to Labour’s Dan Spring and local man
Paddy Finnucane of Urlee who was representing Clann na Talmhan (The Farmer’s Party). Finnucane reverted to Independent in 1951 and held his seat until his retirement in 1969.

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Latest in technology courtesy of Broadsheet.ie!

 We have gone so far forward we are meeting ourselves coming back.

The Polaroid Z2300 Instant Digital Camera, due out this August: a 10MP sensor and optional 2x3in ‘smudge-proof’, sticky-backed prints from its onboard Zink printer.

No word on the cost of consumables but, given the legacy of its predecessors, we’re guessing ‘not cheap’.

uncrate/pic

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Spotted in a Social Welfare office in Tullamore yesterday.

I guess they just swanned in to see if there was anything for them.

Some mourning customs and that motorbike again

As you know I am following the Gleasure letters avidly.  


http://gleasureharberletters.blogspot.ie/


Recent letters have had a black border. This is because the family is in mourning. 

I remember from my own childhood such letters and their envelopes coming. Everything around death seemed to be black back then.

When my grandmother died in our house in 1964 many of the old traditions were observed. 

All of the pictures (these were mostly family portraits anyway) were turned to face the wall.  Mirrors were covered. Curtains were drawn.

A black crepe was put on the henhouse door. My mother described this custom as “draping the hens”.

The clock was stopped. The family went into mourning. The radio fell silent. The women dressed only in black and the men wore a black diamond (a piece of black material in a diamond shape) sewn to the right sleeve of their jackets.

The family kept to themselves. We did not go visiting or to any places of entertainment for a full year after the death. If we, children, became too boisterous or noisy, we were reminded that we were in mourning.

It was not uncommon for a widow to dress only in black for the rest of her life.

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Some photos along the lines of the same theme.

This is the funeral of Michael O'Flynn, a pilot from Fermoy who died during WW2.

Terence McSwiney's lying in state 1920

A priest in Fermoy gives absolution to the troops during the civil war.

Kevin Barry's memorial card

Families in Listowel still place a card on the door with the notice of death and details of funeral arrangements. It used to be a custom that all shops would close their doors while a funeral passed and the shopkeepers and customers would stand outside with heads bowed. This custom went out with the coming of multi nationals and the introduction of a one way traffic system, meaning funerals no longer go up Church St.

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Remember this from yesterday?

Jer's information was correct. Michael Lynch, County Archivist,  provides us with this interesting account of the bike's provenance:

"I’ve had a look at our collection of RF.11 Registers of Registration and Licences for Road Vehicles, and have come up with some information on the motor cycle pictured below (Reg. No. IN 190).

Our collection doesn’t go back to the original registration for this vehicle, but picks it up on duty paid on it in 1927.

The owner is listed as William S. Moore, Listowel.  The vehicle is an AJS Cycle, (Engine No. 166660, manufactured in 1922).  It is a 2 ¾ HP cycle, weighing 197 lbs.

There is a back reference to an earlier register, but this doesn’t survive.  There is also a forward reference, which leads us to a new owner in 1928: 

Partick J Birthistle, Market Street, Listowel.  Another forward reference sends us to a second entry under Birthistle’s ownership, and gives another forward reference to a register which doesn’t survive either.  I’m afraid that after that the trail runs cold."

We don't know when the photo was taken so we do not know which of the owners this is.


For the real motorbike enthusiast, all the lowdown is here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AJS

Independence Day

July 4th commemorates the birth of the great nation that is The United States of America. Happy holidays to all our friends stateside.
Daniel Webster delivered one of the more famous Fourth of July orations
"This anniversary animates and gladdens all American hearts. On other days of the year we may be party men, indulging in controversies more or less important to the public good. We may have likes and dislikes, and we may maintain our political differences....But today we are Americans all, and all, nothing but Americans."
Still true today.

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Another one gone: the Polish shop closed its doors this week.

Recently I took a stroll by the river. After all the recent rainfall the level of the river is very high.

I observed that the ball alley has been prepared for its facelift.

I went up onto the bridge. Its lovely now with the flowers and the new lights.

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Some more nunsense: these from Paul Woods

http://perrylane.org/photoshoots/nunday/index.html

and the final countdown from Tom F.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJTVR7xfnqo

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Jer Kennelly tells me that this could be a Listowel man.

Football crazy

Euros 2012 fever is beginning to abate and those of us with only a glancing interest in soccer can reclaim the telly.

I thought that it would be timely to put up a little post about soccer.

Firstly I am going to share with you a piece by my favorite sports writer, Con Houlihan, which he wrote about someone who had as much natural talent as any footballer ever but unfortunately, mishandled his talents and became more famous for his antics off the pitch than on it. I speak of course of George Best.

Folk memory has forgotten that, towards the end of his career, George had a brief unhappy sojourn on "the banks of my own lovely Lee".

"George Best, like Brendan Behan, came from a family whose closeness made the arrows of exile all the sharper.

Brendan Behan was the kind of child on whom grannies and aunts and assorted auld wans dote - so  seemingly was George Best.

Such indulgence makes for a pleasant childhood -- but when eventually you sail out into the open sea, you may find the going a bit rough.

 ....

I have a particular little cause for being ill disposed towards George Best.

It concerns a Christmas week some years ago when I was spending a well earned holiday in the bosom of my family.  (The well earned etc part  is what low-grade correspondents in the Kerryman say about some dosser home for a few weeks from England.  ) 

There I was on Saturday night, 28 December 1975, eating a little piece of Christmas pie and drinking a mug of lemonade, when word arrived over  the electronic wire ordering me to be in Cork on the morrow.

The reason for this dramatic message was the rumoured appearance of wee Georgie in the colours of Cork Celtic in a League of Ireland game.

At that stage of wee Georgie's career everything was rumour.  But I  turned up -- so rather amazingly did he.

And so did the greatest gaggle of small  boys and indeed small girls seen at large since the Pied  Piper of Hamlin turned debt collector.  The winding little lane that leads down from the city to Flower Lodge was almost bursting its banks..

 I find it hard to forgive George Best for his display that day.

Lo and behold -- George was back for the next match (against Shelbourne at Harold's Cross).  A big crowd came to that game too -- and went away less than gruntled.

George appeared one more time for Celtic -- and people stayed away just because his name was on the team sheet.

An old truth had been illustrated -- you don't pay twice to see the same fat man in the circus sideshow.

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Now I've rifled through Listowel Celtic's website to bring you these old photos of soccer closer to home

The early days: a 1960 Celtic team:

back row (l to r) - Noel Downey, Jack Carmody, John Croghan, Mike Brennan,

           Joe Guerin, David Shaughnessy, Michael McEvoy

front row ( l to r )- Michael Sugrue, John Leahy, Owen Beechinor, Jerry Griffin 

1970's

Back Row.. Jackie Carmody, Pa Kennedy, Daithi Carroll, Toddy Scanlon, Leo Allman, Tony Carey, Henry Molyneaux, Jack Kelly, John Bunyan, Denis Bunyan. Front Row.. Mike Casey, Paddy Lynch, Paddy Hannon, David Fitzmaurice, Declan Sheehy, Gerard Tarrant.

1980s

Back Row... Tony Carey, Gerdie Collins, Mike Canavan, Nix Riordan, Liam Canty, Dobs O'Brien, David Mulvihill, John Chute, Sean Carey, Pat Carmody,Tom Walsh. Front Row...Declan Leahy, Mickey Kelliher, Maurice Hannon, Gerard Tarrant, Fergus Houlihan, Tommy Sweeney, Declan Sheehy, Jimmy Dore, Alan Grimes, Colin Grimes.

Nunday through the lens

Due to popular demand, Monday's post is coming to you a day early.
There will be no post tomorrow.

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Excitement was building to fever pitch all week. The whole town was behind the O'Brien family and looking forward to a good day on Saturday.

Betty McGrath had one of the more imaginative window displays but lot of businesses took on the nun theme for their windows.  Fair dues, all!!!!

By 5.30 the town was a sea of black and white, with all roads leading to the sports field.

The weather was begin to spit rain as we headed out.

We had to wait for our 3 unlikely looking postulants

There were a few familiar faces who had taken the veil for the evening and a lot of un nunlike behavior on display.

Cogans en famille

Cora O'Brien directing proceedings

Friar John having a laugh

Brenda, Maura and the little sisters of the bookshop

Nora Relihan, Helen and Róisín Kenny, Sr Maisie and her postulant

Noreen Brennan and sisters in every sense of the word.

Checking the iPhone

Are my seams straight?

Betty McGrath has a word in the ear of the reverend mother.

Patsy Kennedy looks every inch the part.

Jer Kennelly shared a great video of the event.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjoNFLtq3Yg&feature=youtu.be

In case there was any doubt, the record was well and truly beaten. Listowel on June 30 2012 had over 1400 people dressed as nuns in the same place at the same time. Look out for us in The Guinness Book of Records.

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Don't forget that it was all done to raise awareness of  the tragedy of suicide and the work of

Pieta House