Monica Garner, A Strange Souvenir of the Papal Visit and some of the colour of Listowel Races 2019

Raceweek 2019

Huge crowd on Wednesday for The Kerry National

 There were all kinds of modes of transport employed for The Races. I went to the course on shanks mare.

You could run into local people and famous people on The Island.

Speaking of transport, apparently, in other nearby countries, you can customise your numberplate to make any kind of statement about yourself.

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Oneday

This is NOT fake news. This award wining play is coming to St. John's on next Thursday , Sept 19 2019 at 8.00p.m.

Richard Walsh is from Ballybunion. Come out and support one of our own.

Nominated for Best Performance & Best Production, Dublin Fringe 2018

Do you believe everything you read in the news? Are you a sceptic? A conspiracy theorist? Gullible? Did you come down in the last shower? 

When there are more than 3 million articles written about the events of any single day worldwide, how do we begin to know which of them to trust? And should we challenge authority? Can doing so lead us closer to the truth, or farther away?Join a performer, a drummer, and a writer as they attempt to uncover the real events of one day that were reported in the local, national and international news. 

If knowledge is power, then why do we now, with more access than ever before to information, feel less in control? Oneday is a high energy performance that playfully examines our unraveling and chaotic relationship with the news. 

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Does Anyone remember the Mackessy family?

Monica Garner has been in touch and I'm hoping someone can help her with photos or stories of her parents and grandparents.

I love reading the emails that you produce, they bring back happy memories for me too, even though I have lived in England nearly all my life, I'm now 66 years old.

My Mum was Mary Mackessy before she married my Dad John Ryan in Listowel in 1951.  Dad was from Tipperary

I can always remember going on holidays to visit my grandparents Michael and Catherine Mackessy , they lived in a small house on Convent Street just across the river from the racecourse.  My Grandmothers name was Catherine Patt before she married and went on to have 8 children although sadly 3 of them died.  

My Mum, Mary was the eldest and  worked at the convent until she married, then moved to live in England with my Dad. Then came Josie who worked in the offices of the local haberdashery shop. After marring Andrew Hartnett they also  moved to England and settled here until my uncle died at a young age.  Josie then moved back to Listowel and lived in Charles Street with her 4 children.

The next sibling was Christie who lived with his parents and worked as a carpenter making the wooden traps that went behind the pony and traps.  He worked in a large shed in the garden overlooking the river - such happy memories.   Richard was the next child (known as Dick).  He worked at the Covent and became the head gardener after his Father died. He always lived in the family house on Convent Street, having never married.

The youngest child was Margaret (known as Peg) she went on to marry Sean Kirby, also from Listowel.  They moved to England and had 2 children.  Eventually they moved back surprise, surprise  to Listowel where they opened a bed & breakfast on Convent Street, living there until they passed away.

My grandad worked at the convent and was the head gardener until my uncle (Dick) took over after his death.  My grandmother worked at the convent as a cook.  I can also remember an uncle (John Martin) who lived opposite my grandparents, I think he was the brother of Michael, my grandfather.  I can also remember an Aunt Alice (O'Conner) who lived in O'Connell Road/Avenue.

While typing this it has brought back so many happy childhood memories.  

My daughter is composing a family tree for my Grandsons and it would be great if anyone can give me anymore information about these wonderful people.

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Believe or Believe it Not

"Papal Visit Loo Seat. This is a memento of Pope John Paul ll's visit to the Phoenix Park in September, 1979. The week before the big day, we went with my father to see how the preparations were going. The new Papal Cross was impressive but as teenagers we were far more intrigued with the construction of rows and rows of long drop toilets by teams of carpenters. No portaloos back then! Oval shapes were cut at regular intervals from plywood benches large enough for a bottom, but not so large as to lose a small child. Plywood walls were erected to form cubicles and doors were added later. We took home this oval cut out and it has been used ever since as a breadboard or pot stand, not lavished with care but well used and certainly a family treasure. On the day of the papal mass in 1979, we revisited the toilets. The queues were massive, but we were very relieved with the facilities."

Thanks to Helen Bacon

Like this post? Well you will love the National Treasures book!!! Order it now by by visiting: www.nationaltreasures.ie/shop

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Newsflash.........Newsflash

This is me receiving the final draft of my new book from Paul Shannon at Listowel Printing Works.

My new book you ask?

Yes, it's called A Minute of Your Time and it's a collection of my reflections as broadcast in the Just a Thought slot on Radio Kerry. The reflections are accompanied by photographs.

It's a lovely full colour hard back book which will be launched in St. John's, Listowel on Saturday October 19 2019. You are all welcome.

If you can't get to St. John's you can pre-order it by contacting me at listowelconnection@gmail.com

Nuns, The Opening of the Lartigue and Ballybunion public phone boxes

Another Great Shot by Healyracing photographers

Ruby Walsh was walking the course at Clonmel when this prize shot was taken.

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A First Hand Account of the official opening of the Lartigue

Vincent Carmody alerted me to a chapter on The Lartigue in Joseph O’Connor’s Hostage to Fortune. Joseph O’Connor is an almost forgotten Listowel writer. Vincent endeavours to keep his work alive by always including him in his walks around town.

I’m going to reproduce here most of that chapter.  The author's  father worked on the railway and they lived in Listowel before his father took up his job in Dingle.

 This is his account of the official opening of the Listowel and Ballybunion Railway better known as The Lartigue.

It was Jubilee Year in celebration of Victoria’s fifty years on the throne, and her loyal Protestant lieges who owned and exploited her realm in Ireland, decided to turn the opening ceremony into a miniature jubilation and make the infant railway pay for it. They ordered their tenants to fly Union Jacks from their upstairs windows; their wives frequented the schools to teach the children God Save the Queen for the ceremony, and they sent to France for the great Monsieur Lartigue, so that they might have a central figure to justify the extraordinary display.

Alas! Like the forty ducks, the function fell flat. The tenants hummed and hawed but flew no flags. The schoolchildren got the croup and the whitewash man was so slow on the town walls that the streets were cluttered with ladders and buckets all through the day. But Monsieur Lartigue played up like a man and so did the Crown Forces both civil and military.

All this excitement got into Patsy the Cottoner’s blood. Patsy was the town reprobate, the only son, on the wrong side of the blanket, of a darling old lady whose natural goodness had long since retrieved her one and only fall from grace. Patsy had reached his fiftieth year without reaching the age of reason, He had a double squint, a string-halt in his left leg and a scurrilous tongue and yet, the town loved him. He was unique, he was honest, and, above all, he stood to his given word.

Patsy would sell his mother for a pint, but would wade through fire and water to carry out a promise he had given to get that pint. The bright boys of the town knew that and often played on it. They got him to kiss Minnie Lyons, the town beauty, coming out from the crowded twelve o’clock mass on Easter Sunday, and bribed him with a quart of Guinness to welcome the judge of the Assizes on the steps of the courthouse on the morning of a packed trial of political prisoners. This antic reduced the proceedings to ridicule and got Patsy a month in jail for contempt. But the triumphal reception on his return and a gallon of stout in eight pint glasses was ample recompense for all. The bright boys kept Patsy in mind for Lartigue Day.

It was a great day. From noon onwars, coaches, broughams and landaus issued from the mansions of the county families within easy reach of Listowel. They brought Sandes and Dennys and Kitcheners, Crosbys and Hares and Gunns, brilliant in army red and navy blue, their chests full of medals and their sleeves full of chevrons. Monsieur Lartigue  and Madame had a carriage all to themselves, just behind the brougham reserved for the Chief Secretary, who did not come and sent an Equerry to deputise for him. Balfour had tired of his practical joke and feared, perhaps, that the intractable natives might return the compliment, if he appeared in person.

I got myself a good view of the proceedings from the top of the engine shed and watched the celebrities take their places in order of precedence. The Frenchman and his wife, a man in a top hat sat in the front row beside the equerry, saying little and bowing a lot. There was a great to-do when the Tralee Garrison Artillery band played God Save the Queen. The notables rose and stood self-consciously to attention, but the scrabble of townsmen whom circumstances had forced to be there looked on with blank faces and heads covered until the alien anthem was finished. Then the proceedings began.

Brindsley Fitzgerald, a descendant of The Vesey, who “out of his bounty built a bridge at the expense of the county,” spoke first. Then the Equerry introduced Monsieur Lartigue in the effete public school English which sounded so washy beside our own strong home-made speech. The Frenchman got a rousing welcome from the townsmen. It was enough that he was French and the French had a fine military record against the English. No one cared if he looked small, podgy and foreign with his needle moustache and his little goatee on his chin. He was a godsent to release the holiday feeling without boosting the lordlings who brought him there.

Lartigue’s speech was short. No-one knew whether he spoke in English or French and we only knew he was finished when he bowed himself backwards and bumped into the man in the top hat who had sat with him. Tophat raised his head for the first time and limped his way to the edge of the platform. Waving the hat on high, he yelled The Cottoner’s well known cry-‘ haha dee, haha dee.” The crowd craned forward, doubting their eyes and their ears. Patsy gave them no time to burst into cheers, but went on to declaim the verse of doggerel the playboys had drilled into him.

“Good neighbours all, of the County Kerry,

Where’s the cause to be bright and merry?

Balfour sent ye th…the…the..

The Cottoneer forgot his lines and improvised “Ah to hell with Balfour and Mary Collins and the whole bloody lot of ‘em.  God save Ireland!” He scrambled down into the crowd and was bustled away to safety.

The Lartigue Railway was a weird contraption. The tracks ran on triangular trestles, four feet high and six feet apart, the main track on top of the balancing tracks on each side.The general appearance of the line was of a low roof of interminable length. On this the carriages rode astride just like young boys riding a gate. The passengers sat back to back, as on the Irish jaunting car, but with a wooden partition between each half compartment. Their ears, being within six inches  of the top driving wheels, were deafened by the rumble so that conversation was almost impossible. Nevertheless, its curiosity value made it popular during the holiday season.

But it couldn’t last. The journey was too short and when the original rolling stock called for replacement, there was none to be got. France was far off, Lartigue was dead and the British had other notions and preoccupations to bother with a freak child of theirs. It closed down and was sold as scrap to Wards of Leeds. Nothing remains but a memory and a few abutments and idle bridges to worry antiquarians of future generations.

I think O'Connor would be surprised to see the beautifully restored replica which is soon to open to tourists for the 2017 season.

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Kerry Nuns

When I posted this photo a few weeks ago I captioned it Listowel sisters. Well that set some people thinking and naming. Margaret Dillon was the first to spot that the good sisters were not Presentation nuns at all but Mercy. This set us thinking in terms of the hospital although some felt that there were far too many sisters with his lordship, Bishop Moynihan to be from the hospital. 

Then came a voice from Dubai to clear up all confusion. Alan Stack recognised a face beneath a wimple.

He wrote;

Greetings from Dubai. With regard to your recent posting of the photograph "Listowel Nuns" - the sister on the far right is Sr. Maria Stack, my aunt, who died last September. She taught in school in Ballybunion and I believe this photo may have taken outside the front steps of the adjacent convent, so these may be Ballybunion nuns as opposed to Listowel? 

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Kiosks still standing Empty

In Ballybunion Eir have removed the phones but left behind the phoneboxes. Will they be put to good use?

Meanwhile in Athea;

We are delighted to announce that we have decided to go ahead with the Defibrillator project for the village in conjunction with Athea Community First Responders Group which will be known as 'Heart of Athea Project' or 'Croílár Ath an tSleibhe'. This will be a fantastic project for our community and one that will demonstrate our commitment towards the health and wellbeing of our community. This will be the first of its kind for the county but it is hoped that there will be a national rollout of defibrillator phone boxes in the coming years. This will make the locations of the boxes instantly recognisable and has the potential to save many lives. Anyone interested in training on how to use a defibrillator, please contact any member of the Community First Responders. We have secured the support from local Councillors - Browne, Galvin, Sheehan and Collins for the project but we are also left with a shortfall of funds to raise. Anyone interested in supporting this project and having your name/ business mentioned on the phone box, please get in touch.

Source; Athea Tidy Towns on Facebook

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Wisdom from my Calendar

In a matter of principle, stand like a rock, in a matter of taste, swim with the current.

A picture paints a thousand words.

 Left to right; Helen Walsh, Grainne Keane Stack, Danny Hannon, Jed Chute, Norella Moriarty, Noreen O Mahoney in The Square during Writers Week 2010.

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Knockanure girls….no year

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John McGrath

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Lovely photo of three of the four surviving MacMahon brothers, Bryan, Owen and Jim

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The Feale Rangers team who went on to win their first league title

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Rivals on the racetrack; friends in the weigh room.

Another good one from Pat Healy: Davy Russell, Ruby Walsh and A.P McCoy enjoy a chat and a cuppa.

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Jesse Owens of the US salutes his country's flag on the podium after winning gold at the 1936 Olympics which were held in Nazi Germany.

Santa in Knockanure in the 1980s

Thirty years ago in Knockanure...

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In Navan on Sunday last

Ruby Walsh and Willie Mullins notch up another win.

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Jer found this Listowel born priest in Belsen

Fr. Michael Morrison describing Belsen Concentration Camp, 11 May 1945

Fr. Michael Morrision, SJ 185228 (born. 5 October 1908, Listowel, county Kerry  died 7 April 1973, Dublin).
Born in Listowel, Michael Morrison grew up in Ballysimon, Limerick where he attended C.B.S, Sexton Street before finishing his schooling at Mungret College. He entered the Jesuits in 1925.
Series of letters from Fr. Michael Morrision, SJ to Fr. John MacMahon, Irish Jesuit Provincial, April - May 1945, document his involvement in the liberation of Belsen concentration camp and the trauma witnessed there. Fr. Morrison was the first priest to enter the camp.
Service Record: 
1941: September: 2/5th Battalion, The Welch Regiment: Sussex, Dorset
1942: October: Middle East Forces (M.E.F.), location unknown
November: Convalescent Depot, location unknown
1943: September: No. 13 General Hospital, M.E.F. (until April)
1944: August: 2/8 Lancashire Fusiliers: Derry, Northern Ireland
December: 1/4th Battalion, The South Lancashire Regiment: Castlewellan, Co. Down
1945: April: 32 (Br.) Casualty Clearing Station, [British Liberation Army?] (B.L.A.): Belsen Concentration Camp
May: 121 (Br.) General Hospital, B.L.A.
[November]: 601 Regiment, R.A., British Army of the Rhine (B.A.O.R.)
1946: February: 113 L.A.A. Regiment, R.A., B.A.O.R.
Letters to the Provincial from Michael Morrison, S.J. include: written while serving as a chaplain with 2/5th Bn. Welch Regiment in Sussex; M.E.F. (in a Convalescent Depot, unknown location); No. 13 General Hospital, M.E.F.; 2/8 Lancashire Fusiliers in Derry; 1/4th The South Lancashire Regiment in Castlewellan, Co. Down; 32 (Br.) Casualty Clearing Station, B.L.A. ; 121 (Br.) General Hospital, B.L.A.; 601 Regiment, Royal Artillery, B.A.O.R. and 113 Light Anti-Aircraft, R.A., B.A.O.R..
Link to BBC article: www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/37/a3953937.shtml
CHP2-29-41

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Jim Moloney, from Listowel and now living in Arizona sent us this link to WW2 planes at a veterans' display near his home. Thank you Jim.

http://vimeo.com/18135369

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Above is the pledge of the Vigilence Committee Dublin 1912.
I have just learned, to my horror, that our young people  have a modern day vigilance committee. They engage in what is now known as "slut shaming"

"Slut shaming (also hyphenated, as slut-shaming) is defined as the act of making someone, usually a woman, feel guilty or inferior, for engaging in certain sexual behaviors that violate traditional gender expectations. These include using sex as a form of power or control and depending on culture, having a large number of sex partners, having sexual relations outside marriage, having casual sexual relations, or acting or dressing in a way that is deemed excessively sexual. This is often done by name calling (often using the word "slut" itself) as well as covert shaming."  (Wikipaedia definition)

Apparently today's young people engage in this activity on Facebook via nasty comments on young girl's photographs.  Be warned!

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Jer. sent me a bit more on St. Ita

ST.  ITA
Íte ingen Chinn Fhalad (d. 570/577), also known as Ita, Ida or Ides, was an early Irish nun and patron saint of Killeedy (Cluain Credhail). Her feast day is 15 January.

Ida, called the "Brigid of Munster", was born in the present County Waterford. She became a nun, settling down at Cluain Credhail, a place-name that has ever since been known as Killeedy - Cill Íde, the church of Ita in west Limerick.

There, she was the head of a community of women. That group seems to have had a school for little boys where they were taught "Faith in God with purity of heart; simplicity of life with religion; generosity with love". Her pupils are said to have included Saint Brendan.

Her legend places a great deal of emphasis on her austerity, as told by St. Cuimin of County Down, and numerous miracles are recorded of her. She was said to be the source of an Irish lullaby for the infant Jesus. She was also endowed with the gift of prophecy and was held in great veneration by a large number of contemporary saints, men as well as women. When she felt her end approaching she sent for her community of nuns, and invoked the blessing of heaven on the clergy and laity of the district around Kileedy.

Not alone was St. Ita a saint, but she was the foster-mother of many saints, including St. Brendan the Navigator, St. Pulcherius (Mochoemog) and Cummian.

At the request of Bishop Butler of Limerick, Pope Pius IX granted a special Office and Mass for the feast of St. Ita, for 15th January. Kilmeedy (In Irish - Cill m'Ide, or church of my Ita) has links with the saint as well - having first set up a church in Kilmeedy before the one in Killeedy.

Shrove and Bikers

Today is Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras. In places Shrove is celebrated with a carnival. The words carn and vale mean farewell to the flesh.  Shrove Tuesday is the last day before Lent, traditionally a time for abstinence from all the pleasures of the flesh.

A rule in christiandom since the middle ages forbade people to eat meat or any dairy products including eggs during Lent. This was a very harsh deprivation for Irish people whose diet was heavily reliant on milk and eggs.

On Shrove Tuesday any surplus milk eggs and butter were used up in the making of pancakes. This was a last fling before the austerity of Lent.

Shrove, in ancient Ireland, was the time to get married. It was considered one's civic duty to marry and raise a family and unmarried people had no status and were horribly bullied in 17th and 18th century Ireland. Some of these reprehensible customs even continued in parts of Kerry into the 19th and early 20th. century.

Since one could not marry during Lent there was always a rush to marry during Shrove. Nearly every parish in Ireland had at least one wedding on Shrove Tuesday. Some of us remember that Peig Sayers got married on Shrove Tuesday and she mentions in her autobiography that there were "alán póstaí eile ar an mBuailtín" on the same day.

Those who did not marry and were considered of marriageable age had their names put on the Skelligs List. There was a tradition that Lent began a week later on Skellig so people who missed the boat in Kerry were shipped off to Skellig where they had another week to find a mate.

According to Kevin Danaher in "The Year in Ireland" Shrove Tuesday was a time when "practical jokes on hardened bachelors were allowed by custom". He says that in Tralee delinquent bachelors were serenaded with 'music' on buckets and tin cans. We can only suppose that this horrid custom was also practised in Listowel.

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After my lesson in social history I have a few photos for you.

I took this photo on Saturday last. North Kerry and west Limerick bikers were gathered at The New Kingdom in Church St. for their annual poker run in aid of Nano Nagle school.

A great day out was had by the bikers and much needed funds were raised for the school. Well done everyone!

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How's this for parking? Photo taken in Listowel on Saturday week.

Yes, I am reliably informed that this car was parked!

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The governor of Montana is to visit Ireland. Read more here

  http://www.irishcentral.com/roots/Montana-governor-to-visit-Ireland--to-celebrate-Irish-ties-and-history-139687333.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

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Finally here is a link to a recipe for a Michelin star pancake

http://www.rte.ie/news/morningireland/index.html

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P.S. If you are going to back anything at Cheltenham listen to Ruby first. Here's the link,

http://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/racing/ruby-tips-bob-for-festival-glory-184479.html