Convent Bell, Opening of The Garden of Europe and NKRO

Canon's Height, Listowel in March 2020

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Convent Bell

The bell from Listowel's Presentation Convent now sits beside St. Mary's Parish Church.

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Official Opening of Garden of Europe

Listowel's Garden of Europe has a strong German presence and that has been so since its opening. The Garden was a project of Listowel Rotary Club and the idea was to have a garden representing each country of the European Union and as well as plants from that country it would have a piece of statutory  representing someone famous who came from the country.  Germany was the only country that responded to a request for a piece of sculpture. They sent us Schiller. So it was decided to make a kind of German Garden of Europe in a gesture of peace and reconciliation.

The photographs below were taken by John (Junior) Griffin and feature Mervyn Taylor a Jewish T.D. who did the honours, members of the Jewish Irish community and members of Listowel Rotary Club.

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October 2011 in The Saddle Bar

This traditional musical event was organised by NKRO (North Kerry Reaching Out). This group was the brainchild of Ger Greaney (in the blue shirt below). It functioned for a few years before eventually folding due to everyone having other commitments and Ger's moving away from Listowel.

Teach Siamsa Finuge, Presentation Convent and an artistic old post box

Bridge Road, Listowel, through the Millennium Arch in March 2020

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The sod was turned for the building of Teach Siamsa in Finuge in 1974

Photo shared on Facebook by Siamsa Tíre

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Presentation Convent Listowel 2007

Presentation Convent Listowel

by the late Tim Griffin 2007

Below is just a snippet of a long article by Tim Griffin R.I.P which he wrote following the closure of the local convent which was so dear to him.

As with all big houses of the 18^th and 19^th centuries, Listowel  Convent had a well in the yard. Up to quite recently, an electric pump was pumping water from that well. It also had a Laundry and a Drying Yard for the clothes lines. There was a big garden and a bountiful orchard. There was a cow-stall and cows, which had to be fed and hand-milked. Extra feed, such as hay, straw, turnips, mangels and potatoes, often had to be bought for them in the Market Yard. 

A number of Domestic Staff were also employed, e.g., carers, cooks, cleaners, nurses, and maids. Richard Mackessy from Glounaphuca would have been one of the first gardeners and farmhands there and his son, Richard (Dick), took over from him and was there until the late 1980s. As the schools got bigger, the cattle had to be sold off. Timmie Walsh worked at the Convent, as a gardener and maintenance person, up to the mid-1990s.

The Convent Sisters used to do visitations to the local hospitals and they recited the Rosary in the nearby funeral home at removals.

Visitors were always made welcome and were provided with refreshments. There was one group of visitors that always called to the Convent – they were, of course, the “Knights of the Road” or more commonly referred to as tramps. Some of them were decent people who had fallen on hard times. One of them I knew was from Wexford, a real gentleman, who told me he would “start his rounds” in early March and finish again in late October. Convents were always in his itinerary as well as B&Bs where he would have been known over the years. A pot of tea and a plate of sandwiches were always forthcoming at the Convent and were graciously received. He told me that the allocation of the Free Travel Pass had made life much easier for him. I have not seen him in the last few years but then don’t we forget the ceaseless toll of time.

The Presentation Convent has ceased to exist in Listowel but Presentation Sisters will still be working in Listowel, continuing the work initiated by their Foundress many years earlier. After being in Listowel for 163 years, it is very sad to see the Convent go. Over that period of time, the Presentation Sisters have made a wonderful contribution to Listowel and its hinterland. The people of North Kerry owe them an enormous debt of gratitude.

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A Double Post-box

Someone who knows how much I love old postboxes sent me this card recently. Isn't it lovely?

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Owen MacMahon needs your help

I have gone through all the Drama Group programmes since 1944, 

a task long put on the long finger.

However, I am missing the following
1961 -Autumn Fire - produced by John O’ Flaherty
1966- Two on a String - produced by Ml Whelan
1967 - a Letter from a General - produced by J O’Flaherty
1970 - The Couple Beggar - produced Bill Kearney

Would you be able to put on a plea on your blog in due course? 

I’ve no doubt there must be copies around somewhere. 

It would be great to a complete collection.

Thanks Owen.

Stained Glass, A Bittling Woman and the Corona Virus

Should he be called Narcissus?  Photo by Bridget O'Connor

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Chapel Windows

When I was photographing progress at Listowel Primary Care Centre, I noticed these windows in the convent chapel. The magnificent stained glass windows were removed when the convent closed and they were given to churches at home and abroad.

Recently I learned that two of the windows were from the Harry Clarke Studios in Dublin. Harry Clarke died in 1931 and these windows were commissioned to celebrate the anniversary of the convent in 1944. They were most likely designed by William Dowling.

The Harry Clarke Studios windows showing St. Michael, the Archangel and St. Patrick

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Corona Virus...A Listowel Connection

Photo and story from Herald.ie

Growing numbers of Irish people enduring lockdown conditions in coronavirus-hit China are frustrated at what they believe is poor communication and support from the Department of Foreign Affairs, it emerged yesterday. 

In Wuhan in Hubei province, the epicentre of the virus, food and medicine shortages are a growing concern.

Meanwhile, Greg McDonough, a native of Listowel in Co Kerry, who lives in the neighbouring Anhui province, said the Department of Foreign Affairs is providing them with little information other than to "check our website".

The department's website earlier this week asked Irish people still in China to consider leaving, and to go to a travel agent if their presence was not essential, due to the coronavirus threat.

However, Mr McDonough, who is mostly confined to his home with his wife Wang Xuan and son Joseph (2), said a large Irish group in China who are in contact through WhatsApp want the Irish Embassy to do more.

"Restrictions are getting worse. Only one person a day from a house is allowed out to go to a supermarket," he said.

"The website recommended going to a travel agency, but that is unrealistic because of the lockdown."

He said a key concern for Irish people with Chinese partners is that they be allowed to travel with them should they decide to leave China.

"They do not want to leave them behind. The embassy needs to secure an agreement with Chinese authorities to permit them to travel," he said.

They also want the Irish officials to plan for repatriation if the situation deteriorates and if a plane was sent to Shanghai, it might be possible for Irish people in neighbouring provinces to travel there.

Mr McDonough said the roads out of the town where he is are currently blocked off.

The Chinese Spring Festival was extended for a second week and the hope is that the roads will reopen on Monday.

However, the future continues to remain deeply uncertain, as deaths from the virus near 500 in China with no sign of slowdown in its spread.

A Foreign Affairs spokesman in Dublin said its embassy has been liaising with other countries on options for supporting Irish citizens in China.

It is in contact with remaining Irish people in China.

Separately, two Irish passengers who were on a luxury cruise face two weeks of quarantine and confinement to their cabins after an outbreak of the coronavirus on board.

They are among thousands of passengers who have been ordered to stay in their cabins aboard the Diamond Princess, docked off Japan, after 10 people tested positive for coronavirus.

The virus, which has infected more than 24,300 globally, continues to cause major disruption and havoc across the world.

Meanwhile, another patient suspected of having the virus was placed in isolation in University Hospital Kerry yesterday.

The person - understood to be a woman who may have been in contact with people who travelled to China recently - presented at the hospital with respiratory problems.

As a precautionary measure, the woman was immediately placed in isolation.

The Department of Health yesterday declined to say if she was cleared of risk, but said that nobody in Ireland had tested positive for the virus.

China's Juneyao Airlines has opted to postpone the March 29 launch of its service from Dublin to Shanghai amid the ongoing concerns over the virus.

The route - announced in late November - was a major coup for Dublin Airport following the decision by Chinese carrier Hainan Airlines to axe its six-month-old route to Shenzhen last August, and put its Dublin-Beijing service on ice until this year.

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The Bittling Woman

From Rathea school in The Schools' Folklore Collection

About sixty years ago this bittling woman was going on from six a clock on a Summer's evening to ten at night. She used to be heard on the little glosha that is separating Glanderry from Rathea especially behind at Browne's bridge. When we used to be going the road from Glanderry up to Knocknaclare we used to be running from her. She used to be bittling as fast as her hands could do it. Brown William used to come listening to her. I often heard her from my own door at ten oclock in the night when there was nothing to be heard but herself for the night was too still. 

One night Brown William was listening to her at the bridge and he tried to catch her. He chased her from place to place trying to catch her but when he'd land to the place where he heard her she was gone to another place. He held at it until it was twelve oclock. When he was going home he met the servant boy who asked him where he was and he said I was listening to the bittling woman." As they were going home he met on the path the finest cow he had dead.

Has anyone any idea what bittling is? I cant find it in a dictionary.

Listowel June 2017, the convent and Listowel Celtic Under 12s in 1990

Church Street June 2017

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Gurtinard Wood

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Down Memory Lane with The Advertiser

This photo appeared recently in The Advertiser. Apart from Bunny Dalton at one end and Roly Chute at the other I dont recognise any other men.

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The Steady Decline of the Convent and Chapel

June 2017

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Listowel Celtic Under 12 team 1990/91

I posted this picture with no names back in 2013. Now Kevin Donovan (front left in the photo) has given me these names. Can anyone supply the few that are missing?  The trainer is Henry Molyneaux.

Back row L-R

Donald Griffin

Don't Know

Enda Galvin

Simon Adams

Noel Kennelly

Don't Know

Ger Galvin

Front Row L-R

Don't Know

Maurice Carmody

Taigh Kennelly

Kieran O'Sullivan

Don't Know

Connor Hayes

Kevin Donovan

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A Thought provoking poem for you

“Pity the nation whose people are sheep,
and whose shepherds mislead them.
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced,
and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice,
except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero
and aims to rule the world with force and by torture.
Pity the nation that knows no other language but its own
and no other culture but its own.
Pity the nation whose breath is money
and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.
Pity the nation — oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away.
My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty.”

― Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Listowel, Winter Sundays and a school extension in 1884

Hello Listowel

The town is looking lovely these days. There are flowers everywhere. I'm sure the international judges  for Communities in Bloom are loving us.

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Tidy Town Seat

 The Tidy Town Committee is constantly reinvesting in the town. This seat is a very welcome addition to Listowel's street furniture.

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Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden

This is a lovely poem of tribute to all hard working unappreciated fathers

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School extension

With both the covent secondary and St. Michael's extending I thought you might like to see how extensions were reported in 1884.

Kerry Sentinel, Tuesday, May 27, 1884

THE LISTOWEL CONVENT SCHOOL. The good nuns of the Listowel Convent, no longer having sufficient School accommodation for the female youth of this Parish determined some time since, to make an addition to the existing School buildings. With this object in view, the sisters under the direction of the zealous Mother Austin, set to work about twelve months ago, and now a beautiful house, which will be ample for its intended object, is in rapid course of erection. The date of the Bazaar, which it was intended to be held on the 19th and 20th August, to help to clear the debt, has been  changed to the 29th and 30th .July next.

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Any Help with Names here would be appreciated

Photo shared by Conor O'Sullivan on Facebook