Ramadan, Flavins

This evening is the first day of Ramadan in Ireland. This is a particularly disciplined time for  Irish Muslims because daylight lasts so much longer this time of year.
During Ramadan, which lasts 30 days, Muslims do not eat, drink (not even water) or smoke during daylight hours. People who stick rigidly to the rules of Islam often have their first meal of the day at 3.00 a.m. This first meal, known as Iftar is often a  big family feast.

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The Irish Times is running a competition to identify the best of Irish shops. Anyone can nominate any shop anywhere in Ireland and then in August the paper will travel around the country inspecting these shops and the best will be included in a special magazine with the paper later on in the summer.
I have nominated Flavins of Church St.

This shop is in the Flavin family since 1880. It was originally a book shop, later a library and now a bookshop, newsagent and stationer.

This is Joan, the present owner behind the counter where her uncle Micheál and his father Dan once stood.

Why don't some of you get cracking and nominate some of the other lovely shops we have in town. It would be great if Listowel could be well represented in the guide to the best of Irish shops.

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You gotta laugh

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The Boss is in town again. Here is a  ticket from Bruce Springsteen in Slane in 1985.

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Found this on the internet:

"If you found a lost child who said "Please help me find my Mom" I am sure that you would wait with that child until her mother was found.
You wouldn't walk on by!
Sadly, there are thousands of children all over the world in this exact position. They can't find their mothers and the world is walking on by.
I am talking about all the little boys and girls who were adopted from Ireland. They are adults now but they are still looking for their mothers.
In their thousands they write to convents and government agencies in Ireland every year.
In their thousands, they are refused access to their records.
In their thousands, they are refused any information about the women who gave them life.
On the other side, there are mothers, some in their 80's now, who are still searching for their babies.
They live every day with the knowledge that they may die without ever finding their babies. Many have already died.
Please don't walk on by!
Please sign the Access to Birth Records Petition.
Please sign now.
We need at least another 200 signatures to bring about an end to this cruel situation. "

Emigration, Bunny Dalton and the final chapter of the handball history

These figures tell a sad story.

Many of their descendants now are out there looking for their roots and they are learning these 5 golden rules of genealogy:

#1 Leave no stone unturned, unless it is a headstone.

#2 Handwriting legibility is inversely proportionate to a document's importance.

#3 The further away a cemetery or library is, the more awkward the opening hours will be.

#4 The relative you most need to talk with is the one whose funeral you are currently attending.

#5 Wherever you find two or more siblings, there also will you find two or more surname spellings.

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http://homealoneinireland.wordpress.com/2012/07/16/lets-talk-about-emigration/

Good blog about emigration "by the last guy left".

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 It was not unusual for newspapers in far flung places to report a bit of Irish news. The above comes from New Zealand Tablet, June 5 1855.

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The book that everyone is talking about!

This is how the 2 sequels were displayed in Dubray Books in Dublin.

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An old picture from Ballybunion of the Bunny Dalton Band.

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Handball...the final installment

Membership dropped over the following years but there was one notable development

 that took place roughly around 1969/1970.

The committee were approached by Mr. Bill Kearney who asked would the club allow

a few pitch and putt holes to be placed in the Alley ground. He wanted a base in

which to commence a pitch and putt club for the town.

Mr. Kearney himself acted as secretary, Mr. John Joe Kenny as Chairman and Mr. Jnr

Griffin as treasurer.  

It proved to be dangerous area for pitch and putt as many golf balls were struck

over the wall on to the main road.  If the traffic then was as heavy as it is now, serious

damage could have been done.

However, Mr. Kearney used this to his advantage when he approached the Town

Council to include a pitch and putt course in the Town Park (Cows Lawn). A nine hole course was granted to  Mr. Kearney  and thus, the Listowel Pitch and Putt Club was formed. Indeed, two men, John Joe Kenny and Kevin Sheehy who were stalwarts of the handball club for years gave wonderful service to the Pitch and Putt Club for

many years to follow.

A new generation off handball lovers came on the scene including the likes of Denny

O’Connor, Eddie and Mike Broderick, Charlie Nolan, Tony Stack, Jerh Loughnane,

Con Gorman, Tony O’Neill, Jimmy Canty and others  but the building of the new

community centre in the town park in the mid eighties “drew” away from the old

Alley and handball ceased to be played there.

The new centre which had an enclosed 40ft by 20 ft handball alley did cater for

handball enthusiasts  but as there was no structure of a club it never really took

off so both the handball and squash courts were utilised for other purposes.

In the years of 2008-2009, John Griffin (Junior), being the only surviving trustee,

 and with no handball committee formed for many years, and following the  advice

from former members, decided to sign over the alley ground, which was purchased

by the handball committee in 1962, to the safe keeping of the Listowel Town

Council.  This was done through the good offices of Pierse-Fitzgibbon, Market

Street, Listowel with the one request that if at any time in future years the

handball club will be reformed that the Council will facilitate the committee in

every way possible if they are looking for a site to build a new handball alley. 

Strangely, though the Alley ground was legally signed over to the Town Council three

or four years ago, this transaction has still to be acknowledged by the Council or the

Council office

John (Junior) Griffin)

The above is a brief history of the Listowel Handball Club. As I was engaged in

compiling the history of another sporting organisation over the past two years I

had not the time to research as much as I would have liked to of the Listowel

Handball Club.

My sincere apologies if I have omitted names of people who would have given

their time to the club, before or after my years.

As mentioned there was but the one minute book available which happened to be in

my own possession.

Just to advise that I have all the above saved and if anyone can add more to the club’s

history please feel free to contact me.

Hopefully, the wonderful game of handball will return again in all it’s glory to the

town of Listowel.

Junior

 Our very sincere thanks is due to Junior for compiling this history and for sharing it with us. I know that many people enjoyed it  and would love to hear more. If any reader has any stories about handball or indeed about anything else of interest to people with a Listowel connection I would only be too delighted to post it here. 

Colin O'Donoghue, Lacrosse and handball

Lacrosse and the Listowel connection from Jim Horgan in Pittsburg

Lacrosse is one of the oldest team sports in the world. Native Americans from the north of America used lacrosse to prepare for war or resolve conflicts between rivaling tribes. In 1640 the game was named lacrosse when French missionaries saw Indians play the game. In 1856 Dr. William George Beers established the first lacrosse club in the world: The Montreal lacrosse Club. In 1867 he created the ground rules by which lacrosse is still played today.

Lacrosse is a team sport of Native American origin played using a small rubber ball and a long-handled stick called a crosse or lacrosse stick, mainly played in the United States and Canada. Lacrosse is played with 10 players per team (men's lacrosse), 12 players (women's lacrosse) or 6 players (box lacrosse). It is a contact sport which requires padding. The head of the lacrosse stick is strung with loose mesh designed to catch and hold the lacrosse ball. Offensively, the objective of the game is to score by shooting the ball into an opponent's goal, using the lacrosse stick to catch, carry, and pass the ball to do so. Defensively, the objective is to keep the opposing team from scoring and to dispossess them of the ball through the use of stick checking and body contact or positioning. The sport has four major types: men's field lacrosse, women's lacrosse, box lacrosse and intercrosse.

Here is the link to the Irish Lacrosse website:

http://www.irelandlacrosse.ie/home/?page_id=212

Colin O’Donoghue is the grandson of the late Tom O’Donoghue of Tannavalla.  Tom emigrated to Pittsburgh in the 1950’s  and was a dedicated GAA man for years, heading up the Roger Casement Football Club in Pittsburgh, PA. Tom was chairman of the North American County Board for a number of years in the late 1970’s and early 19080’s.  His restaurant “The Blarney Stone” in Pittsburgh was a well-known center for Irish sport and culture in Pittsburgh.  Colin’s father Jack played for the Pittsburgh teams as well during the 1980’s and 1990’s and is still a big supporter of the GAA in Pittsburgh.

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This photo with a  suggestion for some enterprising Listowel publican was sent to us by Marty Sheehy.

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Good article here on Limerick's bacon factories

http://limerickslife.com/limerick-bacon-factories/

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Please don't do this!

This is the next worst thing to parking across the dished part of the pavement. For some reason that I can never fathom some people always park their bikes ON the footpath. It is an appallingly inconsiderate practice. As well as blocking up the pavement for pedestrians, they are making life so difficult for wheelchair users.

The proliferation of street furniture is another bugbear. But I'll leave that rant for another day.

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Now more handball

At the Club A.G.M. held on Tues March 31^st 1964 the Chairman Mr. Kenny paid

tribute to the club members who had won Listowel’s first ever County Championship

titles during the past season. This was the County Novice Championships and were

played in Listowel for the first time ever. Brendan Murphy won the minor singles and

partnered Richard Galvin to win the minor doubles and Tom Enright and Junior

Griffin had won the senior doubles title.  

1.  

The last recorded minutes in the minute book were of the A.G.M. held on April 19^th

1965. The outgoing Chairman, Mr. John Joe Kenny presided.

The following officers and committee were elected;

 Hon. President; Mr. Michael Keane

Vice-Presidents; Rev. Fr. O’Brien c.c., Rev Fr. Kieron O’Shea, M/s Bryan McMahon

Louis Murphy, Brendan Macauley, Andy Molyneaux, Jack Fitzgibbon, Con J. Keane,

Tim Shanahan, Pat Sugrue.

Chairman; Mr. John Joe Kenny

Vice-chairman; Mr John Keane

Hon Sec; Mr. John (Junior) Griffin

Hon. Treasurers; Mr. Tom Enright and Mr. Dermot Buckley;

Committee; Richard Galvin, Kieron Murphy, Ml. O’Sullivan, Buddy Scanlan,

Jimmy O’Sullivan, Seamus Browne and Jimmy Bunyan.

In his address to the meeting Mr. Kenny paid tribute to all who had helped the club

during the year and congratulated the winners of the various tournaments. He paid

special tribute to Aidan Murphy for the efficient manner in which he ran the National

School tournament.

Even though the above were the last recorded minutes in the minute book notes have

have come to hand of the A.G.M of 1996 in which Mr. Kenny stood down as

Chairman. Elected at that meeting were;

President; Ml. Keane

Vice-Presidents; Rev. Fr. O’Brien c.c., Rev Fr. Kieron O’Shea, M/s Bryan McMahon

Louis Murphy, Brendan Macauley, Andy Molyneaux, Jack Fitzgibbon, Con J. Keane,

Tim Shanahan, Pat Sugrue.

Chairman; Aidan Keane

Vice chairman; Dermot Buckley

Hon Secretary; Junior Griffin;

 Hon Treasurers; Tom Enright and Junior Griffin

Committee; Andy Molyneaux, Timmy Daly, Seamus Browne, Richard Galvin,

Jimmy O’Sullivan, Liam Browne, D. Browne.

At this meeting arrangements were put in place to run a town league Tournament,

Teams entered were; The Bridge Road, E.S.B., Garda, The Boro, The Gleann.

To be continued.... 

Blogging, Fred Chute and handball

I want to explain something about how my blog works.
I usually compose the bones of a post a day or two ahead of publication. I leave it in draft mode until the night before. Then I tweak it a bit, add a photo or two or sometimes something that I have found on the internet or something that has been sent to me by email. I then schedule the post to upload the next morning at 7.30 a.m. People who check into my blog anytime from 7.30 on see this latest blogpost.
BUT
Niall, the techie who set up the NKRO website added a feature to my blog. This feature is called Google feed burner. It is a facility that invites interested people to sign up with an email address in order to receive my posts by email. 120 of my"followers" have done this. These are not the 49 who appear as followers on the right hand panel. Now here's the rub. People who receive my posts by email get them a day late,
I have learned from talking to people that many of you read the email and never visit the actual blog,
http://listowelconnection.blogspot.ie/
If you are one of these people, you probably then delete the email. This means that you are not alerted if I modify the content (I very rarely do unless I have made a big mistake and it is pointed out to me) or if someone posts a reply ( again this only happens rarely as most people have difficulty with the reply facility in Blogger).

All of this is by way of explaining why I am posting these next two pieces that came in as comments:

"was following the irish lacrosse team in the european championship as my sons wife brother-in-law Tim Weir is one of the coaches.They were in the top10 in the world before the final and this should push them up.I checked all week during the tournament for results but not a line in any irish paper.The team is made up of irish born and of irish decent.One name caught my eye was a ODonoghue kid from pittsburgh and Listowel conections.If i remember years ago a ODonoghue family from Tanavalla left for pittsburgh and were involved in the bar business there. "


"really enjoyed reading about the handball alley and the wonderful people that played there.I remember playing in a tournament during my 2 yrs. at St.michaels and the one match i won was against i think Bernie Murphy or bernie Buckley.that is as far as i advanced.My story about the ball alley is at the tender age of 16 i was selected to be the goalkeeper for the listowel senior hurlers against Abbeydorney in a curtainraiser to Kerry V Roscommon at Sheehy park in 1961.Off i went to the ball alley for 2 weeks practicing hitting a ball up against the wall and catching it with the bare hand.Now trained to perfection and ready for the big day and big crowd.Well the first ball that came to me was a high ball and with my backline of Renie Farrell,lyons and Rohan keeping the forwards at back put up my hand to catch the ball as i had done hundreds of time in the ball alley in secret training I swung at the ball instead.Big Mistake.missed the ball,Goal.15 minutes and 4 more goals later got the call from the sideline from Guard Healy,Sheehy off Tony Barrett on.I remember one of the umpires saying to me after the 5th.goal i should have stopped that goal,my answer was i should have stopped all the(----__)goals.I wonder we had 4 goals Barrett should i be called 5goals Sheehy.Just a thought.Thanks vincent Carmody for the program of that day which i will treasure. "


Both of the comments came from Mike Sheehy in NY and formerly of Main St. Listowel. Thank you Mike. Your stories are welcome anytime.

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An Irish man has made history by becoming the first person in the world to complete the Oceans 7 Challenge.

46 year old Steve Redmond  from Ballydehob in West Cork  crossed the 20 kilometre Tsugaru Strait in Japan yesterday evening in a time of 14 hours 24 minutes.

The endurance swimmer  had to abandon previous attampts to take the Strait in June when he was defeated by strong currents.

It joins his other epic swims in Hawaii, New Zealand, California, the English Channel, the Strait of Gibraltar and the Irish Sea.

He’s the first person ever to complete this  grueling challenge – which is considered to be the equivalent to climbing the seven summits in open water swimming.

Mighty man indeed!

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Fred Chute painting the new sign on O'Farrell's shoe shop on Church St.

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Handball continued

A special meeting was held on Wed. Feb. 14^th at which the chairman reported that the

sub-committee had met with M/s McMahon, O’Hanlon and Ml Keane who had

approached Mr. Joe O’Mahony, the local representive for Lord Listowel. Mr.

O’Mahony informed the deputation that the Listowel Handball Club had no legal right

to the land in question which was the property of Lord Listowel.

He had in turn received an offer for the ground and it could be possibly be sold by

4pm the following day. He would, however, give the Handball Club the first choice

if they wished to purchase the property. The members present decided to purchase the

handball site at £140.

At subsequent meetings 5 trustees were elected as legal advice was received from

Mr. Paddy Fitzgibbons (senior) who advised that a club as a body had no legal

standing and had also advised on the role of the trustees. The five trustees appointed

were M/s  Tom Enright, Andy Molyneaux, Ml. Keane, Brendan Macauley and John

Griffin (Jnr).

At a following meeting Mr. Enright withdrew his name from the trustees and for

personal reasons Mr. Fitzgibbons retired as chairman and was replaced by Mr. John

Joe Kenny.

At the 1963 A.G.M. the chairman, Mr. John Joe Kenny paid tribute to the club

President, Mr Joe James who had died during the year.  Mr. Kenny said that Mr.

James had been a founder member of the Listowel Handball Club and had at all times been available to give advice to committee members and players, and had always taken a special interest in the juveniles

.  On the proposition of the secretary it was decided to purchase a shield

for the minor championships and call it after Mr. James.

Mr. Kenny also paid tribute to former Club vice-president Mr. Frank Sheehy who

also had died during the year.

The club tournaments were still the main-stay of the club and great interest was

 still generated in these. At a meeting held on Sat. Nov. 16^th1963 the draws were

made for both the novice doubles tournament and for the senior singles tournament for the Gaelic weekly Shield.  Novice doubles draw as follows; J.O’Sullivan &

 J.Ryan v A. Molyneaux & P. O’Flaherty; C.Chute &. J.Nolan v M.O’Shea & T.

Keane.

The Senior singles tournament was played on a handicap basis for 40 aces. Draw;

C. Chute (plus 21) v J. Keane (plus 15); T. Enright (6) v D. Carroll (26)

J. Coady (20) v M.O’Shea (23); J.O’Halloran (9) v J. O’Sullivan (28)

D. Buckley (8) v S. Guerin (23); J. Griffin (scr) v J.J.Kenny (18)

Unfortunately, the results of the tournaments have not been recorded.

NKRO in Radio Kerry and yet more handball

Due to family illness, I did not make it to Radio Kerry but the three musketeers did a great job. Kay's picture shows Kay O'Leary, Ger Greaney and Noreen O'Connell with Alison Nulty who was filling in for Weeshie on Wednesday night.
It was a lovely programme. well done all!

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Check this out
http://www.irishlivesremembered.ie/magazine.html

Great coverage of North Kerry folks with beautiful photos by Tom Fitzgerald

More about Tom here : http://www.pencilstubs.com/Magazine/MagPage.asp?NID=2713

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 John B. Keane bats the breeze with some local folk in Whelans and on the street. 1980s Listowel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSXYip4K-rs

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Congrats to Daithí and Rita

Dingle hosted a celebrity wedding yesterday when Daithí OSé married Rita Talty. There is a Listowel connection. Daithí is a frequent visitor to Listowel Races in his role as commentator with Raidio na Gaeltachta and his father, the well known writer and musician, Maidhc Dainín OSé drove a lorry for Kerry Group until his retirement a few years ago.

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Handball History continued

With the war over there was mass emigration which included many of the Listowel handball fraternity but the coming fifties saw another upsurge in the fortunes of the Listowel handball club.

Along with the experienced John Joe Kenny, Dick O’Connor, Kevin Sheehy, Jackie Fitzgibbons, Tim Shanahan and Mick Glynn, new enthusiasts such as Dermot Buckley, Tom Enright, Kieron O’Shea, Gene and J.J. O’Connell, Junior and Bert Griffin, Thomas Hassett, Johnny O’Halloran, John Maher, Aidan Keane, Richard (Dick) Galvin, Joe Moriarty, Danny Enright, Darby Broderick, Tony O’Connor, Frankie White, and John Keane began taking the game seriously

Tournaments were again commenced and an approach was made to Mr. Frank Sheehy who was chairman of the Gaelic Weekly newspaper at the time with the view to sponsoring the singles tournament.

Mr Sheehy kindly condescended and a shield was presented which was named the “Gaelic Weekly Shield”

The first final in 1959 was an all family affair with Junior Griffin overcoming his brother Bert in a close final.

One of the main features in those years of the late fifties and early sixties was the immense interest in handball by the students of St. Michaels College such as Brendan O’Shea, Michael Enright, the four Murphy brothers, Eamon Brendan, Kieron and Kevin, Batty Hannon, Eamon O’Brien, Tony Dillon, John Fitzgerald, Cyril Kelly, Seamus Browne, Bernie Murphy, Chas Chute, Brendan and Denis Quille, Buddy Scanlan, Jimmy and Michael O’Sullivan, and Kieron Hayes and many of these brought a wonderful freshness to the club.

The current Boys National School was opened in 1959 and its hall was opened in 1961, built on the site of the old school.

The Handball Club were one of the first customers to use the hall and ran a series of Whist (a card game) Drives on Sunday nights and also secured a Sunday night to run a “monster” Whist Drive in Walshes Super Ballroom during the season of lent. Indeed the committee of those years were very active in fund raising with the burning aim being to have sufficient funds to build a four wall handball court in the town.

The only Handball Club minute book that is currently available began with the Annual General Meeting of 1961 and closes with the Annual General Meeting of 1965. This minute book records the minutes of 27 meetings which includes 5 A.G.M.’s and one Extraordinary General Meeting.

The 1961 A.G.M. was held in St. Patrick’s Hall on Saturday May 4^th and was presided over by the outgoing chairman, Mr. Kevin Sheehy.

The officers and committee elected on that night were

President; Mr. Joe James

Chairman; Mr. Jack Fitzgibbon

Vice Chairman; Mr. Kevin Sheehy.

Hon. Secretary; Mr. John (Junior) Griffin;

Hon. Treasurers; M/s Dermot Buckley and Mr. Tom Enright

Committee; M/s. John Joe Kenny, Batty Hannon, Brendan Murphy, Brendan O’Shea,

Eamon O’Brien, Tony Dillon, Seamus Browne, John Keane and Bernie Murphy.

To read the minutes of those 27 meetings there was one recurring topic that arose in

most of these minutes  and that  was the hope and the wish to build a four wall proper

Championship handball alley in the town of Listowel.

These minutes give many details of fund raising; of deputations to the government

Deputy for North Kerry of that time; of a meeting with the Listowel Urban Town

Council; of letters to both the National Handball Organisation and to the Gaelic

Athletic Association and whilst promises were made and encouragement given,

the heart felt dream of a new alley for the members of that time was never realised.

It is worth noting the sale of membership cards around that period of the early and

mid sixties.

In 1961 the members sold 124 to both playing and social members at 2/6 each.

77 in 1962; 103 in 1963 and down to 63 in 1964.

At a committee meeting held on Jan. 12^th 1962 a letter from a local man was

considered in relation to he purchasing the goodwill of portion of the alley ground.

On the proposition of Mr. Andy Molyneaux it was decided to hold this over to the

forthcoming A.G.M.

 The A.G.M on Jan 31 presided over by Mr. Jack Fitzgibbon, amongst other matters, considered a petition signed by M/s Bryan McMahon, Michael Keane, M.E.

O’Hanlon and C.J.Keane against selling any portion of the ball alley ground. After a

lengthy discussion it was decided to appoint a special sub- committee to consider

this matter. 


More to follow

Handball continued

Killorglin  July 2012 by Wayne Murphy

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Bonfire in readiness

Meanwhile, in Belfast, it's July 12th

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Listowel Handball continued


In those years of the 1940’s one of the social events of the year was the annual Handball Club dance which was held at the Plaza on St. Stephens night with catering by Diana and this event it seems was a wonderful occasion with the then chairman, Stuart Stack one of the main driving forces.

During the duration of the Second World War the Alley was generally packed with players and, indeed the side alley as it was known then, the other side of the right hand wall was used quite a lot.

At war time emigration was not on the agenda throughout Ireland, so for many staying at home was the only option even though employment was scarce.

Many of the Listowel great handballers’ would have been seen in action in those years, names such as the Gatler Moloney, Paddy Rowan, Pat Joe and Dick O’Connor, Tommy Daly, John Joe Kenny, Jackie Fitzgibbon, Stuart Stack, Tom Sweeney, Christy Mackessy, Connie Keane, John O’Mahony, Tim Shanahan, Mick Glynn and Kevin Sheehy were looked upon as the cream of the crop.

The annual doubles tournament was eagerly looked forward to and was played before large crowds as if an All Ireland title was at stake.

Local man Toddy Enright remembers being involved in one of these tournaments in the mid 1940’s.

Toddy reminisces; “I was not playing handball long and was asked to enter the tournament, which I did. I was partnered with Gatler Moloney who was one of the star players of that time. I got my instructions very early on from the Gatler.

“You keep in around the short line and leave everything to me. I did what I was told, picking up a few handy aces near the front wall from time to time but Gatler mastered everything and we eventually won out the competition defeating Tommy Daly of Market Street, and his partner, whose name I can’t remember, in the final. Tommy was a Listowel footballer around that time as well. I know we got a few shillings for winning out, whether we would be considered professionals or not, I don’t know but the few bob was handy.”

The sense of entrepreneurship was very much evident among the youth of the Bridge Road at that time.   

The likes of Paddy O’Leary, Kieron O’Shea, Junior Griffin, Gene O’Connell, Thomas Hassett and others found a means of making a bit of handy pocket money.                   

In the days when there was 240 pence to the pound, one old penny was secured in some way.

After early morning Sunday Mass a visit was made to a lovely lady named Mrs. Dowling who lived a mile or so out in Woodford.

For the penny Mrs. Dowling would give 8 or 10 apples and it was back to the alley as fast as possible to sell the apples.

The aim was to make at least 4 old pence. Anything more than that was a bonus and would ensure that the price of the apples for the following Sunday was secured.

When the magical 4 pence was made the hearts were aglow.  It meant 2 pence for the Sunday matinee and 2 pence worth of Cleeve’s slab-toffee was “in the fist”.

For the 2 pence, 4 squares of the slab toffee was purchased from Miss Eily Sheehy, Upper Church Street, a sister of Frank Sheehys; she had a little cutter for the purpose and cut off the four squares in the one piece.

It was then across the road to the Plaza for the matinee. The toffee was broke into four single squares off the metal chair legs.

Of course some would always fall to the ground but the word hygiene was not in our vocabulary at that time. Maybe a quick wipe off the short pants but it was into the mouth as soon as possible and our week was made. We really wanted nothing else.




More tomorrow.........


___________________________________________________

Tennis, Handball & Lacrosse

Andy Murray

Didn't your heart break for him? If he had been Irish we would have put him on an open topped bus and paraded him around the country for 6 months. He was trying to be the first British man in 74 years  to win at Wimbledon. He failed in his bid but became a national hero in the attempt.

Fred Perry


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Did you know that our lacrosse team has been doing very well in the European championship?
Here is the report:

Story by Alan Ryan

The Irish lacrosse teams have been doing very well of late, with the women’s team finishing 8th and the mens team winning a silver medal against a strong English side in the final of the European Championships in Amsterdam.

The performances of both teams were acknowledged by Minister of State for Tourism & Sport Michael Ring recently when he said “I would like to congratulate everyone involved in lacrosse in Ireland. As a minority sport, it relies on the support and dedication of a large number of volunteers. It’s great to see their efforts being rewarded with this achievement.”

Among Jer. Kennelly's huge collection of photographs is this one of a lacrosse team. Could it be that we had such a teamsport in these parts at one stage?

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Where would we be without sport?

Junior Griffin has put together a history of Listowel Handball. These notes that he shares with us here are his own memories of great times on the Handball alley.

HANDBALL CLUB HISTORY

John (Junior) Griffin

When was handball first played in Listowel? When was the alley (as it is more commonly called) built by the banks of the Feale River?

Regretfully, the answer to these questions concerning the founding of the game of handball in Listowel has been lost in the passage of time. No records or minute books of that time are available and most of those who might have played handball in years gone by are long since gone.

But one thing is sure, the alley was built and handball played in Listowel in the late 19^th or the early years of the 20^th century and the one name that those of us who played the game in the 1940’s to the 1960’s were told about was that a club founder member was the late Joe James, O’Connell’s Avenue.

The Listowel Alley was, of course, a three wall alley, 60ft. by30ft, with the front wall being part of the “Big Bridge” and it was to this that the two side walls were joined, with wire netting placed on top of all three walls to prevent the ball from being struck on to the road or into the river. Incidentally, the railings that can still be seen on top of the side walls are part of the Lartigue rail track which was closed down in 1924.   

In a message written for the match programme to celebrate the opening of the Sportsfield football pitch, now the Frank Sheehy Park, on May 15^th, 1960 by the late Dr. Seamus Wilmot, Registrar of the National University of Ireland, Dr Wilmot wrote;

“When I recall the Listowel that I knew before the First World War, two places come immediately to my mind—the Ball Alley and the Sportsfield.

So do other places, of course, like Kenny’s Heights, The Long Inch, the Knight’s and Pat’s Field, but the reason, I think, that my memory jumps firstly to the Sportsfield (or The Field, as it was always known) and the Alley, is that they were the only two places where we enjoyed freedom, unrestricted in the case of the Alley, conditional as to the Sportsfield, the limitation as regards the latter only serving to give its authorized enjoyment an edge that was not always to be found in the unalloyed freedom of the Alley.” 

In the same programme Bryan McMahon was described as a “well known handballer and hurler” in his youth”

So, as one can glean from Dr. Wilmot’s message handball was played in Listowel before the First World War.

In the nineteen- teens and the twenties, other names associated with Listowel Handball along with Joe James, Seamus Wilmot and Bryan McMahon were Frank Sheehy, Brendan Macauley, Michael Keane, Vangy O’Hanlon and Tony Chute to name just a few.

In a conversation about handball in Listowel Bryan McMahon passed on the following story to this writer many years ago.

It seems that a son of a local business man, who shall remain nameless, was an ardent handball fanatic but his skills at the game left a lot to be desired.

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Indeed, he was looked upon as a soft touch by other players of that era.                      

Many, with no money in their pocket, would bet him a £1 per game and give him a handicap of plus 20 and the serve out of a game of 21, would then contrive to lose the first game, but on a doubles or quits basis would collect the £4 at the end of the second game. As one player remarked years later, it was his drinking money for the week.

The father was told of the son’s handball gambling and he was packed off to Argentina for a number of years on business.

To quote Bryan; “I went down to the Alley on one summer’s evening for a game and I could see someone seated at the Alley wearing a large sombrero. On getting closer, lo and behold, I saw that “xxxx” was back in town and back to the place he loved so well.”

But whether the lesson was learnt or not is another story.

More tomorrow........