Phone Boxes

Notice anything missing?

Clue: It used to stand in this corner of The Square.
Yes, it's the public phone box. I never spotted when they took it away.
Maybe we should have kept it as an artefact and worked it into the heritage trail. Remember there is a generation growing up for whom the concept of a public telephone is very hard to get your head around.

As far as I know, these are  the only phoneboxes left in Listowel.

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The late, great John B Keane was a Leader columnist for more than 30 years. This column first appeared in our edition of April 29, 1972

JOE QUAID, formerly of Athea, but now resident in Knockadirreen, Duagh, has just completed his autobiography. The book, which he originally called “Hook, Line and Sinker,” tells of his life and times from his childhood in Athea to his present state.

He has re-titled the book as many patient readers of these columns will be well aware. It is now called “Quaid’s County” and it is at present in the hands of the Mercier Press of Cork where it is being studied with a view to publication.

When I rang the Mercier Press for word of their plans regarding the long manuscript last week the only information they were willing to vouchsafe consisted of two words. These were: “original” and “satisfactory”.

Not bad when one considers all the unfavourable things they might have said. The book consists of twenty chapters and is four hundred pages long. Every townland and parish in North Kerry and West Limerick receives mention and there are some amusing stories about Knocknaboul, Knockadirreen, The Black Stick, the Cot Hole, and other historic fishing pools along the Feale River.

There is a whole chapter devoted to poaching around Abbeyfeale cut for obvious reasons, the names of the poachers are fictitious.

Buckshee Laama

THERE is the story of the famous Buckshee Laama of Duagh. The Buckshee Laama is as mysterious an entity as the Loch Ness Monster. Those who have seen the Buckshee Laama in the wooded depths between Duagh and the Knight of Kerry’s Castle at Woodford insist that it is the ugliest creature in creation.

It is of giant proportions, with the body of a shark or blue whale only more leathery and an unprepossessing off-white in colour. It has a head like a horse. Personally speaking, I have never seen it but Joe Quaid maintains that the creature still lurks in the middle of the Feale.

Could it be that the Buckshee Laama is a relation to that other mythical fish of grand proportions: “The One That Got Away?”

If Joe Quaid fails to find a publisher it will be Ireland’s loss not Joe’s because this is a book about the real people of Ireland from the War of Independence to the present time.

Here is all the poverty and frustration of the starving ‘thirties, the tension of the fighting ‘forties and so on ‘till we come to the long hair of today’s young man.

About long hair Joe has this to say: “Give me anything bar black nails and snotty noses.”

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