Guiney's:the Listowel connection

Martin Sheehy sent me this story of Denis Guiney of Listowel.

Denis Guiney of Main Sreet, Listowel had a pub, where the Pizza Shop is today. (Mama Mia) He was a constant visitor to our kithcen at 8 Main St. & the tales he told of his early days working on the railroads of California often necessitated our mother to direct that we ( the 5 Sheehy boys) continue our ' lessons ' upstairs---as the subject matter of Denis' young manhood was meant for maturer ears than ours. However, Denis did not always modulate his voice, so much regarding ' Dago women ' and other salty snipits migrated up to us boys, leaning over the bannisters straining to make sense of these conversational fragments.

His ? first cousin was the Cleary's Guiney, and I well remember a Rolls Royce parked in front of the pub on Main St. ( possibly early 1950s) when the ' Cleary cousin ' was paying a courtesy visit to Main Street's Denis Guiney.

In preparation for my UCD entry In 1962 I journeyed to Dublin with my aunt Mrs.( Josie) Tom Flynn & I had a letter from Main St. Denis Guiney which I presented to the manager of Cleary's on

O'Connell St., Dublin so as to obtain an over-coat ' on good terms '. It worked!.

I remember well the last time I met Denis---our old neighbour---after his wife died and he was housed in an ' assisted living ' home out the country. It was outside Scully's on Main St., he was well into his 90s, bent over double & remembered me as ' one of Jack Sheehy's boys '. May he RIP.  

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This is a picture from Day 1 of the ploughing championship 2012.  It could be 1912.

I can't resist telling you this true story from Day 1 of this year's ploughing championships. AA Roadwatch were to be broadcasting live from the venue but they couldn't because they were held up in traffic!!!!

This picture is called Bringing home the turf in Kerry.

This one is titled Bringing home the hay.

How times have changed!

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We have Jer Kennelly to thank for these old photos of The Market.

Some loose ends tidied up

Today I will return to a few themes which I have neglected while I was dealing with demand for photos of the ladies on Ladies' Day.

First up is military history. You may remember the Dr. Enright who attended to Con Dee after Gortagleanna. His grand nephew, Liam Enright wrote to me to tell me that this Dr. James Enright had a brother Dr. Thomas Enright who, ironically, was killed in Salonica in 1918 while serving in the British Army. Liam was able to find a photograph of his headstone and the military cemetary where he is buried in Salonika ( now Thessalonika, Greece) on the internet.

In case any other blog followers are interested, Liam was able to find the photos on a website called The War Graves Photographic Project where you can buy these photos for a small fee. You may find pics of your own relations lost in both World Wars. Here is the link

http://twgpp.org/information.php?id=991796

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I heard again from James Scanlon and he sent us this useful link for information on relatives who were active during the war of independence.

"For those who want to research their relatives in more depth this other website gives an excellent guide to the documents which can be got from the military pensions process of the 1920's and 1930's."

http://irishmedals.org/gpage14.html

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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 theathletic field. He has hopes of Helsinki; Leape football nay claim him.

TWENTY - TWO - YEAR - OLD' six-footer Pot- Leone, of Oak-leigh, 13 stone of Irish pluck,must be Victoria's most versatileamateur athlete.

Australian Olympic selectors haveso faP overlooked him, but happy-golucky, curly-haired Pat hasn't given uphope yet.

He's going to make one last do-or-die bidto crash his way into the Helsinki team thismonth. And rugged Pat can do it if anyone

can.

Tomorrow he will .be inthe last stage of the stiffVictorian decathlon cham-pionship - the perfect out-let for his varied and out-standing talents.

Title-holder Leane's besttotal so far has been 5,886points. But he's traininghard daily, and is sure hecan reach the Olympicstandard of 7,000 points,provided he is not ham-pered 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 alsowell up in the football world.A. brilliant centre half-forward,he played with Association clubOakleigh in 1947-48-49, andGolden Point, Ballarat, in '50

FOR recreation he plays

a keen game of tennis,and in his spare time playsthe piano!

A natural athlete, Pat beganpicking up sport trophies as a12-year-old at De La Salle Col-lege, Malvern. He was good atfootball, cricket, and handball,and school champion in the 100and 220 yards, high and broadjumps, and shot put.

He had some early tips fromDe La Salle honorary coach. BobWright, and now gets a littleadvice occasionally from "Pop"Gordon, well-known Universitycoach. Mostly, however, hetrains by himself, and figuresout his own schedules.

"It's more fun that way," he

says. j

Experts believe he has such

terrific potential that If he had |

been coached consistently overthe last 10 years he would nowbe in top international class inany one of his strong events.But Pat, undisturbed, likes tohave a go at everything,although he prefers jumping.

For his decathlon trainingPat Is building up stamina withtwo six-minute miles once aweek, and improving techniqueon five other days.

Pat's future is uncertain. Hisburning ambition is to repre-sent Australia at the OlympicGames. But if he doesn't go toHelsinki, his athletic careermay be cut short.

Pat's engaged to a Ballaratgirl, and a tempting offer hasbeen made for him to play pro-fessional football with NorthMelbourne.

He makes no attempt to dis-guise his love for athletics, butprofessional football would helphim establish a home. It wouldalso immediately disqualify him

as an amateur.

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

"But," says Pat with aProbably they reckon he'dbe a world-beater at thegood old Irish game ofhurley.

grin, "that's one game atwhich I'd draw the line -it's too tough!"

- Alan Trengove

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Another story from down under.

Meanwhile in Sydney, Tadhg is still filming The Gathering. Here he is talking to Barbara, a descendant of Bridget Ryan who left the workhouse in Listowel as a 'famine orphan".

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Clerys during the Civil War