Rewilding, Honey Badgers, Jostle Stones and Lawlers Cake Shop

Missing Molly

Molly was with me on her Kerry holidays for the best of last week's weather. I miss her on trips to Ballybunion.

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More Rewilding

This lush vegetation is in Gurtinard Wood.

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Keeping the flowers in Tip Top Shape

Watering the flowers in Listowel Town Square in July 2019

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At Golf View

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It's the Silly Season

From this invaluable book of useless information I have learned that the honey badger is the most aggressive and blood thirsty mammal in the world.

They live in Asia and Africa, (thank God for that) and they are not badgers at all. They just look like badgers. They are an unrelated species of weasel but they do love homey. They love to rip apart beehives and eat as much honey as they can scoff. They are led to the beehives by honeyguide birds. The birds call out to the honey badger when they find a hive. They wait for the honey badger to eat his fill and they are happy with what's left. They are birds after all. They don't have much of an appetite.

Wait for this! The honey badger has few predators because, if attacked from the back, his skin is so loose fitting that he can twist around within his own skin and fight back.

But there's worse! They will eat snakes, hyenas, lions and tigers, tortoises, porcupines, crocodiles and bears  AND  they also eat young honey badgers; only half the cubs survive to adulthood........I have to stop.
This is beyond disgusting!

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Lawlers' Cake Shop

I came to live in Listowel in the mid 1970's and this shop was in it's heyday. I remember seeing buckets, yes buckets, of fresh cream from the Creamery being taken in there. Gigs Sheehy used to call with trays of eggs piled high every morning. By 12.00 noon Lawlers was a feast for the senses as the array of fresh cream cakes were being constantly replenished as they were snapped up by customers. By 4.00p.m. you would be lucky to get anything at all. Nowadays we have lots of shops selling confectionery, but in 1970s Listowel nothing compared to Lawlers.

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Young Tidy Towers 

Lovely to see young people taking pride in their town and helping out with the litter picking.

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Jostle Stones

Look at the two cement bollards at either side of the passageway. These are the obstructions we were talking about yesterday.

Vincent Carmody knew what they were and he wrote;

The stones which Patrick O'Shea referred to were also known as Guard Stones, These were possibly of French origin, they are known  by their French name as Chasse-Roue, translated to, wheel-cheaser. Sometimes instead of stones, parts of obsolete canon barrels were used. 

There are up up to 11 locations in Listowel where these or something similar can be still seen. A blast  (not the canon) from the past.

Nicholas Leonard also knows of these devices for protecting your walls. He wrote;

That stone is an aptly-named Jostle Stone. They were as you say designed to protect entrance walls from the iron-banded wheels of heavy drays and carts. In places, the Jostle Stones were conical-shaped so that any wheel that might ride up on the side of it would immediately be 'jostled' and slip down and outwards from the stone, and the wall it protected. Other stones leant into the wall at a steep angle; this ensured immediate repulsion of intruding dray-wheels, etc.

it seems that Jostle stones were designed and set in place  in such a manner as to bear heavy impacts and to last for a  long time.

There is a great piece on Jostle Stones online - see  Forgotten Stones: Jostle Stones of Ennis by Mary Kearns   

Ennis has many Jostle Stones still in-situ which may be seen online. Cork City is another place where Jostle Stones may be seen. My experience (in the 80s) of Ennis is of dangerous narrow streets, entrances and lane-ways. There were bound to be tight turns and narrow entrances in olden days for carters and dray-men.