Mosaic Artist, A Listowel Style Icon and a Hurricane in 1961 Remembered

Schiller in Listowel's Garden of Europe, July 2019

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Because I'm Worth it.......

I bought myself this absolutely gorgeous mosaic piece from a visiting artist in residence in Olive Stack's Gallery. The artist is Diane Mendelson and here we are, happy customer and happy artist.

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Listowel Writers' Week Bids Goodbye to Máire Logue

It's not really goodbye. More like,  "See you in a minute." Máire's new job is across the Square in St. John's. The vibrant Listowel Arts scene is not losing this massive talent at all.

July is not a good time of year for farewell parties. Despite so many people being on holidays, a goodly crew turned out in The New Kingdom on Friday evening, July 26 2019 to give our darling girl a great send off.

The lighting wasn't very good for photographs but here are a few that look half okay.

A final hug from Catherine Moylan, Chair of Listowel Writers' Week for departing Festival Manager, Máire Logue.

David Browne had many kind words to say in praise of Máire

Eilish Wren and Normalla Moriarty

John McGrath

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In The Small Square

All of Listowel's people seem to pass through the Small Square at some time during any given day. I met Damien Stack and Christy Walshe there one morning last week.

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Stylish Eilish Living up to her nickname

Eilish, looking gorgeous as always stepped outside her place of work for my photo.

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Hurricane Debbie

Vincent Doyle, formerly of Listowel, wrote;

Hi Mary,

               With your knowledge and connections of Listowel I wonder if you know anyone who remembers Hurricane Debbie that hit Ireland in 1961.I was working in Maloneys garage in Market St.when it hit Listowel ,I remember the back wall of the garage was blown down and slates flying off the roofs of the shops opposite. It was scary at the time as we never witnessed anything like that before.

                            Hope you can find someone with a better  memory than me as I was only 17 then.        I also want to thank you once again for your wonderful blog.

                         All my best wishes.        Vincent Doyle.

I decided to write to Kay Caball (formerly Moloney of Moloney's garage ) to see if she could shed any light on this destructive weather event.

Kay replied;

Mary, I only vaguely remember it myself, looking out the window at it.  Didnt know anything about the garage but I would say Vincent Doyle is right.  It was Saturday 16th Sept 1961 and 16 people were killed (none in Kerry)  according to the Kerryman 23 Sept 1961.  See the snips from that Kerryman attached.  

Garden of Europe, Quarter Days and the opening of the St. Vincent de Paul Day Centre

Garden of Europe in January 2019

The Garden looks very bare, pruned and cut back in anticipation of Spring. Daffodils are springing up everywhere.

Below are some photographs Junior Griffin took on the day of the official opening. Have you ever wondered why, in a garden dedicated to all of Europe there is such a heavy German and specifically German Jewish presence. Well, I have been told the answer because that question puzzled me for a while too.

The Garden of Europe on the site of the old town landfill  was the brainchild of Paddy and Carmel Fitzgibbon. This marvellous idea got wholehearted backing from Listowel Rotary Club. That club did most of the hard work to get this project to completion. The original idea was to have a piece of artwork in each country's garden. But only one embassy responded to the request for the piece of sculpture. Germany gave the magnificent Schiller bust. It was thoroughly appropriate to send a bust of their greatest poet to a town renowned for its poets and writers. So thus evolved the idea to make it into a peace garden to include a commemorative art installation remembering Europe's darkest days and so the Holocaust memorial came to be part of the garden

These are some of the local Rotary Club members and some of the dignitaries who attended the opening.

The centre of attention here is Mervyn Taylor T'D. I think he was invited to represent the government because he was Jewish.

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Quarter Days

Many of my readers will have never heard of quarter days. Let me tell you they were once the most important dates in the calendar.

Before we had the Gregorian calendar in 1752 we had the Regency calendar. Ordinary people didn't have calendars so all they worried about were the seasons. The seasons were marked by quarter days. The year began on the first of these quarter days, Lady Day, on March 25. The other quarters were based on religious feast days making it easy for the peasants to remember. These were, Midsummer Day, Michaelmas Day and Christmas Day. All rents and other debts fell due on these quarter days. The following account from the Knockanure blog hits the nail on the head here.

Lady Day in Knockenure

The Christmas festivities were hardly over, when the general topic of the day in this parish, from fifty to a hundred years ago, was who would be evicted this Lady Day no one dared to ask the estate bailiff. Batt and his undermen, the rent-warner too was not asked so the whole thing remained a mystery until the day arrived. But the timid folk had already made their ground sure that they would not be among the evicted ones by making presents to the estate bailiff. The fiery sons of the soil, too proud to bend the knee waited for the day like caged lions and were it not for sheer dread on the part of Batt and Co many of them would be homeless. The funny thing about it was not sufficient to pay the half-gale rent the tenant should also give over possession this was done by taking a wisp of thatch from over the door and handing it to the estate bailiff then if he had any friend of his own for the place the unfortunate tenant was evicted. Some farmers got possession through these happenings.

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Were you There?

Junior Griffin took these photos at the blessing and official opening of the St. Vincent de Paul day centre. I have no date but maybe someone reading this remembers the day and will tell us all about it. The Day Centre is located behind The Plaza and it is from here that the meals on wheels service works.

A Morning walk in The Garden of Europe, Listowel, Co. Kerry

I often walk in the Garden of Europe and I often post pictures of it here. I took it for granted that everyone knew what I was talking about. That is until Joan Quilter contacted me and alerted me to a whole swathe of my readership who have never been to Listowel let alone to this particular beautiful corner of our fair town. So this is for you, Joan and everyone who loves Listowel from a distance.

This is the Tarbert Road out of town. I usually walk to the Garden from this side. You can also access it from the Bridge Road side.

Pass the Topaz Garage on your left.

The local Emmets Clubhouse and grounds is on your right.

Next is St. Michael's College, the alma mater of so many famous Listowel men.

After St. Michael's you take the next right turn into Gurtinard.

Straight in front of you is the entrance to the old golf course.

Turn right here into the road behind St. Michael's and the graveyard.

You are now in Gurtinard Wood.

Listowel Tidy Town Committee have done a great job of laying out trails for us to explore.

At this junction we choose to go left because that way lies our destination, The Garden of Europe.

If we were to go right we would eventually get to the town park and the pitch and putt course.

When we turn left, straightaway we have a choice again. Right leads to the park and left leads to the Garden of Europe.

This is the entrance.

At either side of the entrance some people have been given permission to plant a tree to commemorate a loved one.
Below is the link to the little video I made. (Yes I do know that an acorn grows into an oak and a conker is the fruit of the horse chestnut tree. I wasn't prepared to do the whole video again because of a slip of the tongue.)

October walk through the Garden of Europe

The Holocaust memorial

The garden is a delightful public tree filled space filled with peace, tranquility and birdsong. Listowel owes a huge debt of gratitude to Paddy and Carmel Fitzgibbon who worked so hard to get this beautiful place up and running. This was once the town of Listowel's rubbish tip.

When you leave the garden, you may turn left into the path to the river.

This is the entrance to the garden from the Bridge Road side.

We are now beside the River Feale.

The river on a lovely crisp October morning.

Listowel people often refer to this as The Big Bridge.

This tree is magnificent.

The old handball alley is here too.

Beside the ball alley is the area under development by The Tidy Towns people as a community fruit and nut garden.

Then we come to the Millennium Arch, through which we can see Bridge Road.

The path leads us to the Square. Ignore the horrid building on the right (pictured below). That is the old Neodata building which was used for a while by Kerry County Council but is now lying unused. It is earmarked for demolition.

The houses on Bridge Road have a touch of old world splendour about them.

The Town Park is more correctly known as Childers' Park. It is on our right as we walk up Bridge Road. Kay Caball told me its history and I told you before, so you'll have to look it up if you want to know all about it and why some local people still call it The Cows' Lawn.

On our left is the presbytery and St. Mary's

And now we are back into Listowel Town Square.