Opening Night Listowel Writers' Week 2018, a local poet, candle making long ago and pitch and putt today

In the Pink

Photo; Chris Grayson

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Folk on their way to Opening Night Listowel Writers' Week 2018


In glorious evening sunshine on May 30 2018 they trooped into the ballroom of The Listowel Arms. There were writers and prizewinners, invited guests and local people. I photographed only a few of them.

Writers' Week opening night is attended by loyal local people, writers, young competition winners and their proud parents, older competition winners and the great and the good in Ireland's literary firmament.

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Donal O'Connor, Tarbert

Photo by Graham Davies on Facebook

Donal is a poet farmer and a bit of a local legend. He is a brilliant raconteur with stories and poems readily to hand. He gained a whole new audience with his appearances on a TV series called Senior Moments.  If you encounter Donal in storytelling form, he is sure to brighten your day.

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When fat wasn't all bad

The school's folklore collection has all sorts of little interesting snippets of information. This extract is all about candles and candle making

Before candles were commercially made people used to make their own from “fat.” They used the fat of goats and other animals according to Mary Hickey of O’Connell’s Avenue who was 85 when she told her stories to B. Holyoake of Railway House. According to Mary, they got a mould, put a stick across the top. Attached to the stick were 6 or 7 “cotton threads”  These were obviously the wicks. Then they “rendered the fat”. 

(I rememeber well my mother rendering suet in the days before cooking oil.  There was always a bowl of fat or dripping at the ready for frying. This dripping is actually making a comeback recently and you can buy it again in artisan food shops.)

Back to 1937…the hot fat was poured into the mould and left to set overnight. In the morning they had 6 candles. Half penny candles were called “padogues”.

Another type of candle was a dip candle. These were so called because the wick was dipped into the tallow, brought out, allowed to cool and then dipped in again.

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Listowel Pitch and Putt Competition

I was out walking early on Sunday morning when I spotted a competition about to begin at the pitch and putt club so I grabbed a few photos.

I learned later from Facebook that it was the County Strokeplay competition and these were the winners.

Listowel Writers Week 2018 Opening Night, Roadworks, Revival, Folklore and an old photo

During this recent warm spell, the Beal dolphins came in really close to the shore and Ita Hannon got this photo.

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People at Opening Night Writers' Week

I took up my position st the door of the Listowel Arms and I snapped these lovely people on the way in to the festival's opening event.

As you can see I am automatically drawn to local people or people with a Listowel Connection. If you see anyone here who you know is not a blog follower will you alert them.

(more tomorrow)

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We Still have roadworks Disruptions

Listowel people have had a lot of disruption to put up with as natural gas is brought to Listowel. Road works begin at 7a.m. and finish at 8.00p.m. and we won't mention the odd disruption to water supply due to burst mains.

It will be all worth it in the end.

I just hope that the Tidy Town judges will understand because the local committee is doing every thing it can to keep the town as clean and tidy and presentable as possible while the work is ongoing.

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Revivsl

Book early as ticket numbers are limited. Listowel's great music festival is back for another year.

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From the Archives

The following is taken from the great folklore collection of 1937/38 when local children throughout Ireland collected lore from their older family and neighbours. We are lucky in Listowel that we had Bryan MacMahon on board with this project. Bryan was a great collector of folklore himself and he well understood the importance of remembering and preserving folk memories.

1. Baskets

One boy wrote about a woman called Madge Shine who lived in The Red Cottages, Cahirdown. Madge used to make baskets from hazel. She used to place the hazel twigs over the fire to soften before weaving them into baskets.

Sciath is the word in Irish for shield. We are familiar with it now in the title Sciath na Scol. So I'm guessing that the sciath refered to are flat baskets.

Another local man, Martin Sheehy, made ‘sgiaths” from “scallops” According to Michael O’Brien of Ashe Street who recorded the story, “he bended the sticks in and through one another until he had his sgiaths made.”

Bill Barrett of Beal made baskets from sedge which he used to harvest from the sandhills in Ballybunion. He also made hats and babies cradles. He also made “gads” for flails for threshing.

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This is how Listowel Races looked up to the 1970s  before all of the public were moved to the stand area. There used to be a cheaper option of attending The Races in the centre of the field on the inside of the racetrack. This option had bookies and a few carnival stalls and but no shelter.

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Job for an artist?

Job description

We currently have full time position for a **Sandwich Artist** in our store on Market St, Listowel Co. Kerry. Sandwich Artists have a positive outlook, thrive in a busy work environment and are keen to learn the art of great sandwich making. You will work well as part of a team, making delicious sandwiches to customer requirements. You will be responsible for serving customers, following health and safety procedures, and keeping the store clean.
The job will involve evening and weekend work so applicants must be fully flexible.

The job is going in Subway, by the way

Healy Fishing and Listowel prepares for Writers Week 2018

Another super photo from Ita Hannon

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Healys of Listowel

Seán Healy posted this photo on Facebook. It shows the Healy brothers at their annual Paddy Healy fishing competition in Cape Cod.

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Final preparations for Writers' Week 2018

By the time you will be reading this it will be all over. I'm taking a short break from blogging to recover from Writers' Week but I'll be back ....

The WW committee make a final trip to The Listowel Arms to make sure everyone is on message for the 2018 festival.

The bunting is up. The signs are out. Let the fun begin

Shops and businesses are busy preparing for our visitors.

Olive Stack's gorgeous window display has a Monet theme.

Brenda Woulfe's bookshop welcomes the authors by displaying their works prominently.

Brigita Formaleine gave her Scribes sunroom a complete makeover

You could be in a parisian café.

The final brushstrokes are applied at Doran's Corner.

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I'm taking a few days off to enjoy Listowel Writers' Week 2018. But I'll be back before you know it with lots of photos.

Mangans' Garage, Cork City

Photographer Ita Hannon took this photo of a robin at sunset...wow!

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Mangan's Garage from John Hannon's Archive

P.J. Kenny identified two people in this old photo. The lady is a Miss Hickey from Ballybunion and the man on the far right is Seamus Buckley from Patrick Street.

Mangan's garage was where Spar, Market Street is now.

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ACorner of Cork

I recently chanced to spend a few minutes here. This is Opera House Square in Cork.

These signs are all over the city directing tourists to places of interest.

This last picture is the Crawford Art gallery. It is one of the many beautiful old buildings in this plaza. But unlike The Crawford most of these attractive houses are now home to garish multinational chains.

The planners have obviously imposed strict guidelines on Nandos and Starbucks but Sticky Donuts seems to have slipped under the radar. If they were to pass by now there is no fear they'd miss it!