The Arch is restored, Murhur 1982, Springsteen in Slane and a sad poem

St. John's Eve

Yesterday, June 23, was St. John's Eve. I heard of no bonfire in these parts. There was a time when there would be a bonfire at every crossroads.

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The Flags are Out for Féile 2016

Everywhere you look in town this week there are flags. On the street we have the strange sounds of lads in football jerseys speaking with American accents. 

It's all because of Féile Peile na nÓg. This is a competition for players Under 14. There are competitions in hurling, football camogie and handball and they taking place all over Kerry nd Limerick this weekend.

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Listowel Arch is Restored

This little corner of our town is due to undergo big change soon. The arch will be unveiled and the old Neodata building which had been used by Kerry County Council is to be demolished. 

What is coming in its place? 

As soon as I know you'll be the first to find out.

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Murhur Pupils in 1982

Photo with names from Moyvane Village on Facebook

Wonderful photo of 2nd and 3rd class with Mrs. Adams in Murhur NS from 1982.

Front Row: Joanne Shanahan, Sinead McEvoy, Aileen Stack, Esther Foley, Mary Lynch, Michelle Sheehan, Riona Fitzmaurice, Celine Kennelly, Noreen Brosnan, Breda Quinn, Claire McGrath, Margaret Scanlon, Brid Kearney

Middle Row: Paul Hudson, Adrian O’Connell, John Fitzgerald, Marguerite Greaney, Denise Carmody, Yvonne O’Carroll, Mary Brassil, Keith O’Connell, Margaret Enright, Irene Culhane, Kathleen Enright, Michelle Groarke, Aine Kissane, Martin Mulvihill, Liam Roche, DD Hughes, Richard Stack, Johnny Stack

Back Row: Nola Adams, Pat Kearney, Jim Liston, John Cunningham, Roger Mulvihill, James Culhane, Stack, Shane Riordan, Andrew O’Connor Bray, Shane Hughes, Muiris O’Connell, Padraig Kearney, Aidan Stack, Maurice O’Connor, Padraig Horan, John Horan, Maurice Kearney, Conor Walsh, Myles Quinn, Kevin Greaney

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Blast from the Past

This turned up on the internet.

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Omphalos

Mount Carmel Industrial school

(Connie Roberts won the prize for a poetry collection at Listowel Writers Week 2013. This is one of the many powerful poems in that collection)

I have no Mossbawn

to take down from a shelf

and leaf through. No banks of earth

embroidered with ferns and bluebells; 

no rabbits running through the thicket,

no wrens sheltering in the boxwood hedge.

My omphalos is a pigeon-grey orphanage yard

clotted with kids; see-saws, pissy knickers,

a clay filled Kiwi tin on a hopscotch square;

British Bulldog; freckled faces, conkers on

shoelaces, pig-tailed girls twirling twine

jump ropes by Saint Martha's Kitchen.

Jack stones, scabby knees; chinny alley marbles,

and alongside the cloister, two seater barn red swings

We rode like horses till suppertime's holler.

My initiation that summer in '69

galloping from the scullery to

the laundry- my brother riding piggyback-

I tripped. Like dripping solder, globules of blood

fell from my nose to the concrete turf.

My baptism, a brazen call to bear witness?