A wireless Concert in 1924, A Good Harvest in 1883 and a Red Squirrel

Photo credit: Poshey Ahern

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Wireless Concert in 1924

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1883 was a good year in Listowel

Pilot 25 August 1883

 

Kerry; Agricultural Prospects in North Kerry.— A correspondent writes from Kerry Aug. 4 The crops never looked more promising than at the present in this quarter. Ail round Listowel, Duagh. Newtown. Lixnaw, Ballybunion, and Abbeydorney, the cereal and potato crops wear a most flourishing appearance. Some of the finest potatoes ever eaten, now selling in the Listowel market at 6d. per stone. The weather has been very fine since the 26th ultimo, with the exception of last Sunday, when several showers kept people from being too confident. There is every prospect, should the weather keep fine, as at present, for the next three weeks of a most abundant harvest. This will be considered on all sides a special blessing, as another season of such scarcity as last year would most seriously affect the people.

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By the Feale

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Book Recommendation

Mattie Lennon says that this is a great read for anyone interested in stories associated with rural electrification

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Looking forward to Molly's Kerry holiday

Thankfully the groomers are back in business so Molly can have a trim before her visit to The Kingdom.

Molly, Macroom, Hidden Treasure and Listowel Drama Group

Molly at Home

I haven't given an update on Molly for a while. Here she is in her happy place with her Christmas toy. She has been to the groomers since and is looking even more handsome these days.

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I was in Macroom, Co Cork

Last week I met a friend in Macroom for lunch. We ate in Granville's and it was lovely, good food, friendly staff and cozy dining room.
I parked in the square just opposite this well named premises. It is truly a golden treasure, a throwback to the days of my childhood.

Once upon a time many shops had bars like these fitted outside their windows. This was in the days when fairs were held on the streets and shopkeepers needed to protect their very expensive plate glass. It's lovely to see this one still in place.

Further down the street in this blue and yellow shop there was another of these fair day protectors. This one was removable but seems to be being left up permanently here.

Back to Golden's and it's old advertising hoardings... This one exhorts us to smoke a brand of cigarettes no longer available.

This place was certainly a general store, a virtual cornucopia judging by the goods displayed in the windows.

Among the mirrors and jugs was a jewish menorah and some various christian imagery.

It was not clear to me if these items were for sale or merely for decoration.

I was fascinated to see an old fashioned ring board and a skipping rope.

The sign inviting musicians to the monthly sessions had been updated since I was last here.

The Guinness toucan was on the wall and in the window was the old Guinness advertising slogan; Guinness is Good for You.  Are we allowed to make unsubstantiated claims like that nowadays?

Is that cctv I see beside the golden finial? The plasterwork depicts the oak leaves and acorns below some sheaves of corn, a rich harvest image for a lovely lovely old bar.

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From the Schools' Folklore Collection

A Hidden Treasure

There was a very old woman who lived in a small little house close to the village of Newtownsandes. She seemed to be very poor and the village people used to give her food. One day the priest said to her, “You seem to be always looking for charity”, and the old woman said, “Sure what else could I do. I haven’t a pig, a goat, or a man”. In a short time after, the old woman grew sick and was ordered to hospital. The neighbours went to her little house. As the ambulance came they were preparing her for the journey, and on no account would she allow them to take off a flannel skirt. So when she got to the hospital the nuns ordered the skirt to be removed, but the old lady screamed aloud and thought to hold on to the skirt. However they succeeded in removing the skirt. The nuns got suspicious and stood by after giving orders to two wardswomen to get a scissors and open up the skirt. To their surprise, there were nineteen sovereigns sewed in a tuck to the skirt. She lived for one week after, and during that time the other patients in the ward could not sleep as the old woman was all the time shouting for the flannel skirt.


Collector- Pat Stack- Informant- Nurse Stack- Age 62 Address, Newtownsandes, Co. Kerry

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Listowel Drama Group

The curtain has come down for the last time on A Daughter from over the Water. This 2020 production by Listowel Drama Group entertained audiences  in the dreary evenings of early March 2020....great cast and excellent set, as usual.

Cast of Listowel Drama Groups production of A Daughter from over the Water

Coco Kids, Kerry Folk Tales, Safe Home Ireland, Aoife Hannon, Milliner and Poor Shorn Molly

1916 Memorial garden and The Dandy Lodge in Listowel's Town Park in August 2019

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One Corner of Town is looking Brighter

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I'm loving this book. As well as myths and legends it has lots of true stories in the best traditions of folklore. It has the story of Gortaglanna, of the evacuation of The Blasket Islands, Roger Casement and plenty more. I see that one of the authors is due at The Storytelling and Folklore Festival taking place at The Kerry Writers Museum this weekend. Luke Eastwood will be in Kerry Writers' Museum tonight, Friday September 6 2019 at 8.00.

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Thinking of Coming Home

Safe Home Ireland

Safe Home Ireland is an emigrant support service. We provide advice, information and housing assistance to people who are thinking of returning or moving to Ireland.

I know many Irish emigrants in the UK are worried about where they stand after Brexit. This is a good website to visit even if you intend staying in Britain.

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Couture Support

Aoife Hannon has a lovely pop up shop in Galvin's these days. Here she shoes her support for the footballers.

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Poor Molly

Molly has been to the groomers and she got a right basser. I hardly recognised my old friend when I met her in Cork recently

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Listowel in Races Prep Mode

Ballybunion, What our Forefathers Ate and some Listowel Premises getting a Facelift

Molly's Back

Trouble -the -House is back for her Kerry holidays. You'll spot us out and about these days as I reintroduce her to her second home.

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Ballybunion is Buzzing

Ballybunion loves a Summer Sunday. The Bunker was full to capacity and overflowing on to the street.

Flash had set up outside the Railway Bar and was entertaining the whole street on Sunday July 7 2019

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Food in Olden Times

from the Dúchas Folklore collection 

(Read to the end. I think he got the bit about the tea wrong.)

In olden times the chief food of the people was potatoes three times a day and sour skim milk and sometimes porridge made from yellow meal for supper and two meals of potatoes. 

Breakfast was usually taken at nine o’clock in the morning so that three hours work was done before breakfast. 

At each meal the table was placed in the centre of the floor and all sat down and commenced eating. In later years meals became more plentiful and bread was made from it by mixing with boiling water and afterwards baked in a griddle. The breakfast consisted then of yellow bread and sour skim milk filled out in wooden mugs. In the morning the bread was often heated in front of the fire before being eaten. In those days very little meat was used but salt mackerel for supper but potatoes were not unusual, supper hour being about nine o’clock. 

Easter Sunday was a feast and each member of the house was allowed as many eggs as he or she could eat. 

Tea was scarcely known until some sixty years ago and was not drank only at Christmas. Then it was made in a parcel and put away until the arrival of Christmas again.

Location: Cappagh, Co. Kerry- Teacher:T.F. Sheehan.

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Running Repairs in Listowel 

Fitzpatrick's iconic bay window in Church Street is being replaced.

Jumbo's is being repainted

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A Trip Back in Time

Dont forget to take a trip on the Lartigue in summer 2019. Open every afternoon.

Michael Guerin, Lartigue Driver. Oxana Sean, Seamus Kyritz from Tampa, Florida. Diane and Robert Moloney from Ennismore Listowel Canada. Pat Walsh Lartigue wayman.

These visitors to the Lartigue on Wednesday are descended from  families who left Listowel for Canada under the Peter Robinson Resttlement Scheme of the 19th century.

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Weekly Guided Walks

This photo was taken before the start of the first guided walking tour of the town on Saturday last. It is planned that these walks will take place every Saturday until the end of August, starting at 11.00a.m.

The cost is €5 and includes tea or coffee and a scone in The Kerry Writers Museum at the end of the walk.

If you are planning on taking the tour tomorrow,  July 13 2019, your volunteer guide will be................me.

Hospice Walk 2019, Rás Mumhan and Molly is in the Doghouse

Calvary in Mallow

I took this photo in the grounds of Mallow church in Holy Week 2019


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Hospice Walk

In glorious weather on Friday April 19 2019 a big crowd turned out to walk the walk. This annual fund raising walk for The Irish Kerry Hospice is organised with the help of the O'Connor family in memory of Eamon O'Connor of Mike the Pies. Each year it goes from strength to strength. Well done all.

Photos from Mike the Pies and Edel O'Connor's Facebook posts

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Tarbert Walk

Big turnout for the Good Friday Hospice Walk in Tarbert too


And they had a soup kitchen too

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Rás Mumhan in Listowel

April 20 2019

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The Dog Who Ate Milkman


You've heard of the dog who ate the homework, the dog who ate the car keys and lots of dogs who eat postmen.

Our Molly would probably eat all of the above but her worst offence in my eyes was she chewed Milkman. This copy of Milkman was not my own. It belongs to the library. It has a long waiting list of readers queueing to borrow it. I was the first person to whom it was issued.

There she is looking all innocent in the protection of one of the people who love her unconditionally.

Milkman is a brilliant book in case you were wondering and this copy is still readable
AND
 Molly is now forgiven.


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