Moloney's. A Letter from Listowel in 1897, Gurtinard Wood and Art in The Square for Listowel Visual Arts Week 2018

Baby deer photo by Chris Grayson

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Moloney's Garage, Market Street

Moloney's of Listowel had the Ford dealership when many Irish people and particularly Munster people drove a Ford. Ford had an assembly plant in Cork.

Same building today

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A Letter from Kerry

This story is brought to us by Deborah Cronin. This is what she wrote;

My great grandfather, John J. Fitzmaurice, was from Listowel.  He was born in 1861 to James Fitzmaurice and Mary Dee.  John J. went to Chicago where he became a police officer and Detective. Eventually John married Deborah McAuliffe of Croughcroneen.   I am attaching a letter from James to son John written in 1897 that I thought you might find interesting.  Also attached are photos of John J. & Deborah.

It tells of a reliance on tillage farming, oats and potato harvest are of concern and there is also that blind faith in God to provide despite the evidence that there are hard times ahead. There seems to be a bit of trouble with a Mrs. Stack but it's not too clear what that is.

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Gurtinard Wood

The walk through the woods is leafy and inviting these days.

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Listowel Visual Arts Week 2018



Listowel Visual Arts Week is a great addition to the plethora of festivals now taking place in Listowel. For one week, everywhere we looked there was Art on display. The festival was blessed with glorious sunshine and doubly blessed with generous artists and art collectors who shared their talents and treasures with us.

Readers of this blog will be familiar with the work of Athea based artist, Jim Dunn. He is responsible for the two enviable murals depicting Athea people and Athea life that adorn the village.

During Listowel Visual Arts Week, not only did we get to see Jim's work, we also saw Jim at work. We saw how he does it and we even got an opportunity to "help" him create a masterpiece.

Jim paints with his right hand and in his left he holds a maul stick as an aid to keeping his hand steady.

You may recognise the local amateur artist painting a piece of the artwork.

I took these photos on day one. The painting went on for three days. So I'll bring you more tomorrow.

Moloney's

Jimmy Moloney shared some more photos from the family album with us.

Gurtinard House

This is a group taken on a pilgrimage to Lourdes in 1954.

Jimmy's grandmother is in the middle of the first row.  I'm not clear if the rest are Listowel people.

This is a De Valera rally. Jimmy is not sure if it is in Listowel but thinks it is. Dev certainly has a lot of support.

This is an old picture of Moloney's garage.

The Big Bridge

The house in white beside the church was later knocked down in order to extend St. Mary's.

An old postcard of the river Feale

A date for the diary:
On Friday next in The Seanchaí NKRO will officially launch our website. Come along and see what we are at. Everyone welcome.

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The mood in town at the weekend was darkened by news of the untimely death of Dr. Louis O'Carroll.

Only one week ago he was one of the stars of this fundraising event for Writers' Week. By all accounts he was in fine voice as he held the audience enthralled with his renditions of  John B. Keane's Sweet Listowel and Bryan MacMahon's haunting My Silver River Feale.

Louis was known for his generosity to his local town. He launched his cd  in St. John's in a fundraising concert for Listowel hospice.

Here is a link to a youtube clip from that event

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiVBUT-oJe4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Go ndéana Dia trócaire air.

Household charges and window tax

Yesterday I paid our household charges. There used to be an old joke about the despot who said "I'll tax everyone who has a thumb and call it a thumb tax."
Rulers have always been inventive at thinking up new ways to raise taxes from Jane citizen.

Hearth tax was introduced to England, Ireland and Wales in 1662. It decreed a 2s payment per year on every hearth in a house. This gives some idea of the size of the house. It was repealed in 1689, but the Scottish Parliament levied a one-off tax of 14 shillings on each hearth in Scotland in 1691. Hearth tax returns list number of hearths by parish and name of occupier.


And then 

Window tax was a property tax based on the number of windows in a house. It was a significant social, cultural, and architectural force in England, France and Scotland during the 18th and 19th centuries. To avoid the tax some houses from the period can be seen to have bricked-up window-spaces (ready to be glazed at a later date), as a result of the tax. (Source Wikipaedia)

Of course Ireland was then part of the United Kingdom and subject to the same laws. These blocked out windows in  Moloney's are testament to that.

Some people believe that the phrase 'daylight robbery" originates from this tax. Sources on the internet would disagree.

Most Irish people did not live in big town houses. Houses with less than 7 windows were exempt from the tax.  I think these following people who lived outside Listowel were safe.

While trawling the internet for a picture to illustrate my post I came upon these very interesting old photos

Collection of Maggie Land Blanck

These quaint postcards come from the very interesting collection of 

Maggie Land Blanck.

Did men then wear their hats indoors or did they dress up for the photo?

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Congratulations to Eileen Moylan formerly of Listowel. She was named among the top 50 new exhibitors at  http://showcaseireland.com/   Ireland's huge craft expo in Dublin at the weekend.

Eileen is a silversmith and her online shop is here

http://www.eileenmoylan.com/2011/05/my-new-online-shop-claddagh-design/