Listowel Connection: 1937 folklore

Friday, 27 March 2015

Old Creamery, folklore and a paen to motherhood

Old Creamery

This photo is in Vincent Carmody's book, Snapshots of an Irish Market Town. It is the old McKenna's Creamery in Listowel.

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Listowel Folklore

Here is some more wisdom from the folklore archive gathered by Listowel children in 1937/38

These accounts refer to food.

Peggy’s Leg

Kevin Sheehy of Church St. interviewed Dan Broderick also of Church Street.

Dan remembered a woman called Peggy Carey who used to make a confection called Peggy’s Leg. It was made from sugar and "farmers’ butter." Peggy also sold seagrass. Peggy used to sell her wares at “Listowel Cross out in Newtown”. ( I’m presuming this refers to Moyvane. ) The Peggy’s Leg cost two pence.

Another local confectioner was Bridge Conway. She used to sell penny bars which she made herself.

A man from Moybella, Lisselton whose name was William Diggin used to make porridge from “yellow meal, salt and creamery milk.”

Hand Savage of Lisselton also had a story about William Diggin. Mr. Rice from Moybella had several men digging potatoes. He promised a quarter of tobacco to the man who would produce the biggest potato. William Diggin was one of the men digging the spuds. He dug a big potato and cut it in half. Then he got another potato and quartered it and he tied the two potatoes together with string to make one enormous potato. He won the quarter of tobacco.

It was the custom not to give a workman his breakfast until he had paid for it in work. A labourer often worked for two hours on an empty stomach.

People killed a goose at Michaelmas and on St. Martin’s Eve.

The stories told to the children were full of hearsay and inaccuracies but also laced with gems of wisdom. A D. Bunyan of Market Street wrote what he heard about the Famine. He wrote about a mill on the banks of the river which was full of corn and surrounded by soldiers guarding it. The local people used to go down to try to get the wheat but the soldiers prevented them. Finally the wheat rotted and had to be thrown out.

Sgiath/Sciath

Jim MacMahon set me straight on this one.
He wrote;

"The Sciath was a half moon shaped basket made from scallops . It was originally a shield in olden times , hence the phrase … buailim sciath ..meaning a braggart or one who struck the shield of a chieftain who hung his shield outside his castle thereby calling him out to fight .
Re Tae Lane there used to be a shed there with a curved wall at the right hand side going down. Tim Hannon from Ballybunion told me his father had a cinema there in the very early days of films."

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Celebrating the century

The extended family of Stacks of The Arch Bar now Stack's off licence dressed in period costume on St. Patrick's Day to celebrate their 100th year in business.

These celebrations were tinged with sadness a short week later, with the passing of Mrs. Máiréad O'Connor (née Máiréad McGrath) of Market St., on March 24th. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam dílis.

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Celebrating Mothers

The following was read at masses in Tarbert on Mothers' Day.

This is for the mothers who read The Three Little Pigs, The Billygoats Gruff and Little Red Riding Hood every night for a week. Then a little eye would open and a little voice would ask, “Please Mom, will you read it again?”

This is for mothers who take their children to football matches and basketball games, who sit in the car and watch and wait or stand on the sideline and when your child says," Did you see my goal, mom?"proud as punch you answer, “Of course, love, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

This is for mothers who run car pools and bake birthday cakes and sew Halloween costumes and for mothers who don’t.

This is for mothers whose patience runs out when their two year old wants ice cream before dinner and whose four year old says, "I’m bored. I want to go home.”

This is for mothers who taught their children to tie their shoelaces before they went to school and for mothers who opted for Velcro instead.

And for the mother who bites her lip til it bleeds when her fourteen year old dyes her hair green and puts seven earrings in each ear.

This is for mothers who don’t sleep a wink, wondering and waiting and hoping all will come in. Now all safely home and the lock on the door, she turns over and says., “Thank God for the end of another weekend.”

This is for mothers whose children have gone astray and can’t find words to reach them and all they can do is pray.

This is for all the mothers who cook, launder and clean, wash up all the dishes and never complain,

This is for all the mothers who turn automatically when they hear a little voice say,”Mom” even thought they know their own are safe at home.

This is for the heartbroken mothers who put flowers and teddy bears on the graves of their children, who hold precious and fond memories of times past and wonder today, what they would look like or how tall they would stand.

This is for the mothers who have gone home to Heaven themselves. If we had them today we would treat them and spoil them but instead we pray for them and look forward to meeting them in heaven.

This is for young mothers who are learning and mature mothers who are trying to let go, for working mothers and stay-at-home mothers, for young mothers and old.

Can I say, “Hang in there. We need you. You are rarer than gold. God bless all mothers. May they never grow old.”

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Alexandra Park

Some people live near really beautiful places, e.g. Alexandra Park London

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Darkness into Light, Saturday May 9 2015

Below is the link for online registration if you would like to take part in the first Listowel walk

Pieta House Darkness into Light

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That show on a lovely June day in 1953

John Murphy sent the following

"This is in response to the picture dated June 29,1953.

I believe this is me the seventh person seated from fence on right and I believe Sean Cahill is seated immediately on my left as you view picture and that is Junior Griffin standing to the left and behind Sean Cahill as you view picture.

It sure brings back some great memories of that show.

Keep up the great work you are doing keeping us informed while faraway from lovely “Listowel”.

Yours Truly,

John F. Murphy "

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Listowel Community Centre is planning a refurb and is looking for ideas.

Monday, 23 March 2015

Folklore, Green shoots and Tadhg Kennelly honoured in Sydney

The country has gone rugby mad

Billy Keane's Independent article A Day we'll remember for the rest of our lives and even longer

puts it best.

Together, standing tall

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Folklore

This is the Kerry County Library in Tralee. I was here last week on a mission.

I'll begin at the beginning.

In the school year 1937/38 the Irish Folklore Commission undertook a great project. They got teachers around the country to encourage their pupils to collect lore from their elders. The boys and girls undertook the task with varying degrees of enthusiasm and success. The results of their efforts are now stored in archives around the country. It is no surprise to see that one of the biggest files is the one collected by pupils in Scoil Realt na Maidine, Listowel. Their teacher, Bryan MacMahon had a deep appreciation of the value of this project .

A past pupil of my own, Emma MacElligott, now herself a teacher, alerted me to this rich store of stories, sayings, placenames etc. I visited the archive in the Kerry County Library, Tralee and there the archivist, Michael Lynch introduced me to this treasure trove. I will share with you some of the stories I read there.

One boy wrote about a woman called Madge Shine who lived in The Red Cottages, Cahirdown. Madge used to make baskets from hazel. She used to place the hazel twigs over the fire to soften before weaving them into baskets.

Another local man, Martin Sheehy, made ‘sgiaths” from “scallops”. I’m guessing that sciaths are the kind of flat basket used for gathering flowers or vegetables, which, in English, we call a trug. According to Michael O’Brien of Ashe Street who recorded the story, “he bended the sticks in and through one another until he had his sgiaths made.”

Other basketmakers used rushes.

Before candles were commercially made people used to make their own from “fat.” They used the fat of goats and other animals according to Mary Hickey of O’Connell’s Avenue who was 85 when she told her stories to B. Holyoake of Railway House. According to Mary, they got a mould, put a stick across the top. Attached to the stick were 6 or 7 “cotton threads” These were obviously the wicks. Then they “rendered the fat”.

(I remember well my own mother rendering suet in the days before cooking oil. There was always a bowl of fat at the ready for frying.)

Back to 1937…the hot fat was poured into the mould and left to set overnight. In the morning they had 6 candles. Half penny candles were called “padogues”.