TV reception in Listowel in 1970, Listowel artists in Newcastlewest, a last concert in The Tinteán, Ballybunion and Coolard school memories

T.J. MacSweeney

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The Kerryman 1970

This TV critic wasn't afraid to tell it like it is… I think she was a Listowel viewer.

What's My Line is not having very auspicious beginnings on R.T.E. The
formula is old, tried and true and more than likely it's currently
doing the rounds of world television stations. The two men who devised
and copywrited the idea have probably  made a small fortune out of it.
All that has been proven, however, is that the formula can be a
success but, to bring it to life, it needs a panel brimming with
contrasting personalities and a chairman to match. 

What we've got is a
chairman, Larry Gogan, who rushes the programme though like a man
trying to finish a pint in a minute to closing time; a  panel which
for the most part is  trying so hard to be bright that, it's painful;
and competitors with such way out occupations that one would have to
be a mind-reader to even get started on them. If everyone calmed

down, and stopped trying so hard, the programme might get off the
ground. 

sevent

By the way I've only just discovered, that viewers in Listowel
who use a Cork aerial, are blessed with a second, channel which is not
of their own choosing. This is caused, by the radio-telephone which
operates, between, the hospital and the ambulance. It, comes over loud
and clear on these sets and is so powerful that it actually cuts out
the programme completely. Not alone is the ambulance driver alerted
but the curate who is on duty in the presbytery also gets timely
warning of a possible sick-call. Nobody I have asked seemed to be able
to explain away this extraordinary happening but, happen it.
does.—I've seen, and heard it!

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Now and Then

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Art at The Red Door

Listowel was well represented among the artists and attendees at the Red Door Gallery in Newcastlewest on Thursday March 3 2016.

Billy Keane performed the official opening of Colourful Spirits'  Show and he took us on an impromptu tour of the pictures and sculptures.

Billy posed for me with his very artistic former William Street neighbour, Rebecca O'Carroll. He reminded those present that it was Rebecca's father who produced the first and best stage performance of Sive.

Liam Brennan, formerly of Listowel and his wife, Maura had some of their artwork on display.

Lisa Fingleton is not from Listowel but she spends a lot of her time here so we can claim her as our own.

Jim Dunn is the man among the ladies here. Jim's artwork will be familiar to followers of this blog as he is the artist responsible for Athea's  much admired murals. He is not from Listowel either but he is chair of the Art committee of Listowel Writers' Week so that makes him an honorary Listowel man.
On the far left is Maggie Donald of Duagh whose ceramics are selling like hot cakes in Craftshop na Méar.
Next to Jim is his wife, Elizabeth Dunn, chair of Listowel Writers' Week and, on the right, is my good friend, Helen Moylan of Listowel.

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Goodbye to The Tinteán

The magnificent Tinteán theatre in Ballybunion is closing at the end of the month and the furnishing and fittings are to be sold off.

photos from Facebook

This was the stage on Friday evening last, March 4 2016 as we gathered for a fundraising concert for Lisselton School. The concert was organized by Claire Keane Fennell, a past pupil of the school and she was joined on the night by past pupils Bryan Carr, Anna Connolly and the Foley Family. Her friends from John B.s, Mickey MacConnell and Paddy MacElligott also did a turn and Billy Keane was the very entertaining M.C.

Marc OSé made a special guest appearance and there was much banter about local star, Jason Foley taking his place on the Kerry team, a move that appeared to be popular with the local audience.

 Claire and Anna on stage

 Bryan Carr

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Coolard Memories

At the launch of Maurice O'Mahony's book on the history of Coolard National School, Joe Murphy, past pupil of Coolard and administrator of St. Johns for the past 26 years, relived for us some of his memories of his education there and in St. Michael's, Listowel

Cáit Baker, his former teacher, was in the audience with her husband Tomás and her friend, Sr. Margaret  to hear Joe tell us of her valiant efforts to teach him to sing "Kelly the Boy from Killane" despite his being a préachán.

Joe remembered the days bringing in the turf to the school and the hours spent 'weeding the grotto". This, he told us was a task you could stretch to a whole afternoon by the simple ruse of taking the handful of weeds across the road to the glasha and bringing them back again rather than throwing them in.

Only one other pupil from Coolard went on to St. Michael's with Joe and he described the secondary school in the 1960s as a very intimidating place for a country boy. When the results of the Christmas test were posted he gained in confidence as he saw that he was smarter than many of the townies who were so vocal in class.

Joe, like me and many more who were present on the night of the book launch, did his Primary Cert in Irish, English, Arithmetic and Mental Arithmetic. I was transported back to my old classroom in Kanturk and the daily mental arithmetic tests.

To much laughter, Joe reminisced about the man who went to town and spent half his money in one shop, a quarter of what he had left in another and he came home with 1/6. The question was how much did he have leaving home.
It was no laughing matter back then!

Four generations of the Murphy family have attended Coolard National School. Joe remembered the numbers and makes of the teachers' cars and he remembered the makes of all the various tractors he could see through the school window. Happy days!

One man present recorded Joe's speech;

Joe Murphy remembers his school days

Old photos while I am at the endodontist

This is where I am today. So I am leaving you with a few old photos to entertain you while I have my root canal treatment.

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Old photos I collected on a visit to Listowel Active Retirement Group

This is some local team taken at the sports field. Some of the names are Seamus Buckley, Jimmy Deveraux, Jimmy Moore, Johnny Buckley, Eamon Stack, P.J. Maher and Thomas Grogan.

This photo was displayed in the window of The Man's Shop at its closing. 

This photo also I took through the window of Sean O'Sullivan's

William St. people. The names are printed at the top. This photo is framed and displayed in St. Patrick's Hall.

This photo was taken on the stage at an early Wren Boys night. The people identified are John B. Keane, Siobhán Cahill and Dan Maher.

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 63 years ago yesterday Ireland became a Republic & left the British Commonwealth when the Republic of Ireland Act 1948 came into force. The Act repealed the External Relations Act of 1936 & ended the constitutional role of the British monarchy in relation to the Republic and vested those powers in the Irish President. President Seán T. O'Kelly is pictured signing the Act.

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Jimmy Moloney's picture of the Wednesday clean up group

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What a photo!

Fresh duck!  Paul Hughes took this at Grand Canal Dock yesterday.

Update from town

This is the colorful Mc Auliffe's Gift Shop and Little Secret Ladies clothes shop on Church St.

A few doors down Listowel Printing Works, soon to be Easons, is nearing completion. I peeped in. It looks huge.

 

A little further down the street is Ladbrokes. This is the building that was ACC Bank, then Bruce Betting and now Ladbrokes. In a previous existence it was a school and before that a hatchery. What tales these old walls could tell!

Only a few days left!

Update on my update; I just received the following clarification from Vincent. I bow to his superior knowledge of Listowel. But I do know a bit more about Fitzpatricks than he does.  Fitzpatricks hail from Kanturk, which is my home town. In fact I worked for a summer in Fitzpatrick's Hatchery in Percival Street in Kanturk and have very happy memories of my time there.

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It does not give me any great joy, however I must correct you, what is now Ladrokes was not a hatchery, the house above it, now a closed clothes shop, belonging to the Scully family, a business  was ran here for years by the Fitzpatricks of I think Kantoher (right or wrong spelling), County Cork. This place operated as a fowl and egg store, not a hatchery.Prior to this they also had a store above in the backway at the back of my place. Among those who worked at Fitzpatricks were Johnny Riordan, Kevin Sheehy, father of the present Kevin (the eggman) and most famous of all, during his early fowl buying days, our own, the late and great John B.

Now Mary I hope you don't have egg on your face.

The Man's Shop

Above are  ads from this week's Advertiser.

After 150 years of dressing the men of North Kerry and West Limerick The Man's Shop is closing its doors at the end of next month.

Ned, who is the fourth generation of his family to trade in Listowel is retiring.  His four sons  have taken different career paths. The tradition of the next generation taking over the family business  is being broken in this as in many other businesses in town.

The O'Sullivan's began business in Listowel in Upper William Street in the 1860s. Ned's great-grandfather, Michael O'Sullivan from Ardoughter in Ballyduff began a tailoring business in Pound Lane, now Upper William St.  Ned's grandfather, also Ned, moved the business to Market St. to a new premises near where  Tarrant's Garage is today. The business was thriving. Eight full time tailors were employed there at one time. Ned's father, Seán, took over the business in the 1960s and he made the move away from tailoring and into off -the- peg and general menswear. The Man's Shop moved into its present location in 1962. Ned left teaching in 1989 and went into the family business. In recent years, as his political commitments became more onerous, the shop has been run by Mark Loughnane.

Mark takes a delivery from postman, Pat Hickey, at the door of The Man's Shop

How will this street scape look in a few year's time?


On a completely different note, 2 stories from the weekend's papers.

Two Listowel men caused a bit of an upset at a rugby match in England. According to The Kerryman, David Fitzmaurice and his friend and fellow Munster supporter, Mike Brosnan, lost their way on the way back to their seats at the Munster v. Northhampton match. They found themselves in the Northhampton booth, where they were less than welcome. The Northhampton coach, Jim Mallinder, cleared the boys back to the Munster section. The incident was caught on Sky sports.

Sunday's Independent had an account of a tribute concert to the legendary Pecker Dunne. Pecker Dunne, it is said, played at more Munster finals than Cork. He is now in poor health and his friend, Mannix Flynn was organizing Sunday night's event to help him out.
There are lots of enjoyable video clips of Pecker on youtube.

Corner Boys

This picture of Listowel Celtic footballers yesterday evoked,for Vincent Carmody, this memory of other very different lads on that same corner in bygone days.

"The boys at the corner are a throwback to former years when the corner house , then owned by two eccentric Dillon sisters, was a haunt for pals on their homeward journey from their nocturnal public house visit. A motley, porter fuelled crowd, standing at the corner, laughing, talking, belching and of course sometimes far..ng used draw the wrath of the sisters, and armed with the previous night’s chamber pot, the sisters would send its contents flowing out of an opened window, down on the unsuspecting heads of the revellers below."  

A cornerboy was usually a term of insult and these boys, unlike our soccer players,  were often of the not so law-abiding ilk.

The paper sellers who sold the Kerryman on the streets in Tralee had a peculiar cry, "Kerryman, Kerryman, court and all in it". A corner boy featured in the edition of 1909.

 It also has an advertisement from St Brendan's in Killarney who had scholarships of £10 raising to £15 in the second year. It states that a student who has a good knowledge of Irish and Mathematics can hardly fail to receive a scholarship.

 Other items in the paper include the sale of creamery plant and machinery at Derrico near Ballyduff on Sept. 2nd 1909; GAA Tournament, Football and hurling in aid of Ballyheigue Church on Sept. 5th 1909; Suffragettes had a meeting at Hudson's Bridge in Dingle, Mrs Cousins Treasurer of the Irish Women's Franchise League spoke for 45 minutes; Editorial in the Kerryman remarked on the lack of amusements at our health resorts. 

Kerryman of 25th Sept. 1909 reports murder of water bailiff, there is a second murder in the October edition; Pierce Mahony a former member of the Irish Parliamentary Party was accused of evicting a Kerry tenant, but it was his son  who did the deed; District Inspector McAuley who was retiring was described by Mr McElligott as one of natures gentlemen; 

Listowel court, Mathew James a corner boy was fined 10s 6d for abusive language, Mary Mournane fined 2/6 for abusive language, Jer Galvin of Ballyhennessy summonsed for assault, case dismissed, Gowran of Knocknacrohy failed to pay rent.

But the best account of corner boys was left to us by John B. Keane who made a study of the species.

This article, although rather longer than my usual posts is well worth a read. It also features a reference to The Man's Shop which is soon to close forever.

A Christmas Disappearance

Love is always worth waiting for, and can change the countenance of the most unlikely of characters, writes John B Keane, in this seasonal tale.

WHEN I was young and more observant, I spent some of my spare time studying the corner across the street from this very room where I write at present.

I also studied the denizens of the area and when my room window was partly open, I would often catch fragments of conversation.

The corner had one resident Boy by the name of Johnny Muller. Passers-by would sometimes stop and endeavour to begin conversations with him. He never responded even when asked for the location of a bank or the post office.

If he was in talkative mood, he might sometimes acknowledge the weather assessments of an old lady who passed down every morning and up every evening. "'Tis soft," she might say.

"Soft enough," he might reply.

Once she asked him if the weather would hold. "Could," he replied.

Lay people do not understand the function of a corner boy. He is not obliged to respond to questions or make observations. His function is to be there, to maintain his corner no matter what. Johnny Muller took his job seriously and this is the reason why he never smiled.

From my vantage point at the upstairs window, I occasionally examined his face. There were no wrinkles and no blemishes. There were no repulsive aspects and no scars. I could never deduce whether he was grey-haired or bald because of the peaked cap which he always wore.

I suppose the fairest thing to say would be that it was a good enough face as faces go. It certainly wasn't distinguished but neither was it forgettable. Some said that it was a face without character but there would be no way of confirming this until he was put to the test. As a rule, when put to the test, corner boys vanish from the scene or surrender their attention to distant vistas unseen by the laymen's eye.

It took me several years to discover that Johnny Muller's face was incomplete, as indeed are the faces of most corner boys. In Johnny's case, it was clear that none of the great emotions had ever tampered with it. It seemed to me that it was awaiting alteration. His facial disposition was drab. His throat clearances and coughs were run-of-the-mill, as were his rare utterances.

Only his sneezes had colour. Unfailingly they were highly explosive and when they erupted in close continuity, they shook him to his very foundations. Otherwise there was hardly anything to him but we should be forewarned that things change just when it seems that they will never change.

Johnny Muller was a resolute corner boy. He spent that part of his life which he didn't spend in bed, at his corner. When he first took over, after the previous incumbent had expired in the wake of a one-sided contest with a carelessly-discarded banana skin, he foolishly believed that he would have little to do save pass the time and be mindful of his protectorate. It wasn't long before he learned that his responsibilities were legion.

Dogs had to be chastised and moved on. Querimonious and uppity passers-by had to be studiously ignored. Patrolling Civic Guards who stopped to rest up awhile had to be hummed and hawed upon their constitutional way. There were other duties too numerous to mention.

When he arrived at his chosen corner at nine o'clock each morning, he would first look up the street and then look down. He would then address his attention to the adjoining street and, satisfying himself that all was as it should be, would thrust his hands deep into his trousers pockets and submit himself to a comprehensive bout of scratching. He would withdraw his hand after a while and draw upon the lobes of his ears, the point of his chin and the end of his nose. He would rub his shoulder blades and his behind against the wall at his rear. Finally he would scratch his ankles and his heels with their corresponding ankles and heels. Then and only then would he relax and enter into a period of meditation. He would be roused after a half hour or so by the chiming of the parish clock.

HE was about to return once more to his reflections when he beheld, out of the corner of his eye, a most uncommonly attractive creature coming his way.

As she passed by, a wonderful fragrance assailed his senses. Johnny noticed the elegant figure, the glamorous eyelashes and the beautiful blonde hair which fell gracefully over her slender shoulders.

"No chicken!" he whispered to himself as he roused himself totally to concentrate the better upon this enchanting apparition. "But then," he concluded as he finished his initial survey, "no old maid either."

By his reckoning she would be a young 60. By my mother's, I discovered later, she would be nearer to 80 than 70.

When the visitor turned on her heel and retraced her steps Johnny Muller gave her the nod of friendly salutation and also the nod of absolute approval. An almost imperceptible smile appeared on her angelic features. From the look on Johnny's face it was clear that he was smitten. He was overcome by an unfamiliar giddiness. It was the kind of giddiness that overwhelms characters of Johnny Muller's ilk once in a lifetime. He had, up until this time, been fond of saying to himself "I wouldn't give tuppence for a woman, any kind of woman" when an attractive member of the opposite sex passed his corner.

Suddenly she had stopped and was looking straight into his eyes. A sparkling smile had now spread itself across her heavily made-up face. She had noticed him before, not once but several times and always from a distance. She was certain that he had not seen her. He would have reacted if he had. Now that it was Christmas, she would make the most of her chance.

"What do you do here all day?" she asked gently. It was the way she said it that hastened the melting process which had already begun in the underworked furnace of his heart.

Normally he would never answer when a strange female addressed him but now his reply was warm and instant.

"I keeps an eye on things," he told her. A puzzled frown appeared for a moment on her shining visage. Johnny was quick to notice that perplexity added to her allure.

"You sort of watch over things?" she suggested. Johnny nodded eagerly and then, to give substance to his role, his features assumed a deadly seriousness as he looked up and down and hither and thither, as he scanned the faces of passers-by in search of evildoers. Satisfying himself that his bailiwick was secure, he favoured her with a smile of unconditional reassurance.

"Do you watch over me?" Her voice quivered as though she would burst into tears.

"You above all," Johnny found himself saying.

"Me above all!" She repeated the words as though they were the last line of a prayer. Johnny nodded reassuringly as they sought to solve the mysteries in each other's eyes. Her next move was to take him by the hand. He followed without a word until they reached the entrance to a clothier's called The Man's Shop.

After they had entered, some female onlookers, his mother among them, commented on the incident. The conclusions they drew were interesting. Johnny Muller always had an untouched look about him. It was certain that he had never been touched by a woman's hand, at least not since his infancy when he submitted himself to his mother's ministrations.

"That woman's search is over," my mother spoke with assurance. "She always knew what she wanted and she's found it at last."

When the happy pair emerged from The Man's Shop, there were gasps from the onlookers. Gone were the shabby clothes, the greasy cap and the worn shoes. Resplendent in his new outfit, Johnny Muller took his fiancee's hand and led her across the road where he bade goodbye to his corner of 40 years.

What the onlookers would remember most was Johnny's face. It was the complete product at last. For her part, she radiated happiness. Her new partner was a far cry from the shop-soiled assortment she had put through her hands over a lifetime.

Neither of the happy pair was seen again in the locality but the locals evinced no surprise.

"It's that kind of town," my mother would announce modestly whenever Christmas came round and the subject of the disappearance was drawn down

Another shop closure

This corner of town is about to see a big change. The Man's Shop, an

iconic establishment, is about to close its doors. Ned O'Sullivan's with

its colorful and inviting shopfront is one of the first sights one gets on

approaching town from the Ballybunion side.

This is the shop window today.

My photo taken a few yeas ago shows Mark Loughnane chatting to Jerry Ryan at the door of the shop.

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Congratulations to Jimmy Deenihan on this award.

     18 Jan 2012

     Minister Deenihan is Kerry Person of the Year

     Minister Jimmy Deenihan has been selected as this year's Kerry

Person of the Year by the Kerry Association in Dublin.

     The association's cathaoirleach Maura Hughes made the announcement at a reception in Dublin's Royal College of Physicians last night.

     Ms Hughes said Minister Deenihan had made a vast contribution to

sporting and cultural life as well as to the promotion of Kerry industry.