Listowel Connection: Kimberley Mikado and Coconut Cream and a chapel at Teampall Bán

Sunset through a celtic cross; Photo Mike Enright

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Someone You Love will Love Some

This story starts here.

This is a new business on the corner of Church Street and The Square. I photographed it during Listowel Races 2018 when it opened and I posted the photo on this blog.

I often take a few photos from the day's blogpost and post them on Facebook with an invitation to read the full story on Listowel Connection.

I know, because they've told me, that many people who read my blog regularly are not on Facebook. Let me tell you, if you are one of these non Facebook people, what happened with this photo.

It started with Liam Murphy (U.S. and Lyreacrompane). Liam/Bill used to live in the flat over this shop many moons ago.

Marguerite Wixted remembered the trips to the shop when it was Leahy's and she remembered especially acts of generosity.

Then Liz Chute and Frankie Chute Phillips went on a ramble down memory lane remembering the biscuits they loved in their Listowel childhood.

Eventually Marie Nelligan Shaw called a halt to the chat as everyone was getting hungry.

Here is a flavour of the reminiscence;

In the early 60’s I roomed at the corner house, second floor overlooking the square. While working on a project with Fitzpatrick Contractor , laying underground cable in the town .

God be with the days I used to get a free packet of Rolos from Mrs. Leahy

Is it still called Leahy's corner?

A nice Italian restaurant was there a few years ago.

Many colours, food rated as good. Hope he is successful. We don't want another derelict building.

When we went home one time, it was a Indian restaurant.

My mum would give me two pennies and I would go buy two Coconut Creams biscuits ( big fluffy biscuits ) from Bridie . There were pink ones and cream ones lol

i remember going into a shop and asking for a pack of Mickie DO wondered why every one was laughing

Sounds delicious. She used to give me free Rolos & then we'd go up to Amadie Crowley & I'd get more free sweets. Bless

the Mikados were the jam down the center. I can only get Bolands here. Not as good as Jacobs. The puffy ones were coconut creams. It was marshmallow covered with coconut. Wouldn’t mind a few now!!!

So, just for you girls, here is the full selection and you can hear the advertising song here;

Kimberley Mikado and Coconut Cream song

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Remembering our Famine Dead

Teampall Bán is a burial ground on the Ballybunion Road near Listowel Town where thousands of North Kerry's famine dead were buried. It has been beautifully restored and maintained by Listowel Tidy Town Committee. John Pierse of the Tidy Town Committee wrote the definitive book on the graveyard and its part in North Kerry's Famine story. I took these photos in the little chapel on the grounds. The chapel is full of pictures and religious items like those I remember from my childhood.

This depiction of Our Lady is new to me. Our Lady of Limerick. It's a very strange picture with children at her feet where we used to see snakes. I went in search of the story and here it is from the Irish Dominicans website.

Our Lady of Limerick

The statue of Our Lady of Limerick first came to that city in 1640 as a gift from Patrick Sarsfield and his wife Eleanor. Patrick had purchased the statue on the continent and gifted the statue in reparation for the martyrdom of Sir John Burke of Brittas, Captain of Clanwilliam. It was Patrick’s uncle, Judge Dominic Sarsfield, who had sentence Sir John to death. Sir John was a member of the Rosary Confraternity connected with the Dominicans of Limerick City. He loved the Order and promoted the Rosary in his family and locality. Each year he invited the Dominicans to celebrate Mass in his ancestral home, Brittas Castle and for having the Holy Mass celebrated in secret, he was condemned to death and his estate confiscated in the Act of Settlement in 1653.

Patrick Sarsfield donated the Statue and a silver chalice dated 1640 to the friars of Limerick and he inscribed it with his wife’s name and his own in reparation for the sin of his Uncle, Judge Dominic Sarsfield. They were presented to Fr. Terence Albert of Brian, O.P. who would later become Bishop of Emly and die for the faith in the city of Limerick on October 30th 1651.

During the siege of Limerick in 1651, the statue of the Virgin was removed and according to tradition was buried alongside the remains of the Martyred Bishop O’Brien.

In 1780 when the days of persecution had passed the Dominicans built a small chapel in Fish Lane to replace an earlier church destroyed by anti-Catholic forces. The statue was recovered from its earthly grave and given a place of honour alongside the main altar. When the Dominicans opened St Saviour’s Church in Perry Square in 1816 the statue was brought in procession and enthroned on its own altar surrounded by images of the Dominican saints. In 1954 the Virgin and Child were crowned with a tiara of gold, pearls and diamonds all donated by the women of Limerick, with the result that rich and poor alike had some share in the graces that flow from the treasury of Our Lady of Limerick. The statue of Our Lady of Limerick is almost life-size. On her arm rests the Infant Jesus; while a long silver rosary, with an ancient tubular cross, stretches from the right hand. Our Lady of the Rosary of Limerick, a gift in reparation for the sins of man, watches over her beloved city and its people to this very day. A Mother’s love never ends, and we pray her intercession over God’s children in this modern and changing world.