Mount Brandon, Reading, Fishing, washing and a tale of a lost boy

On the Top of Mount Brandon

Faha Ridge

Our intrepid photographer is Catherine Moylan who braved the elements to climb Mount Brandon two weeks ago. I think you'll agree she got some great photographs.

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Oh The Joys of Reading

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Fishing from the beach in Ballybunion is popular. Bridget O'Connor took the photo.

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Good drying

Photo: Facebook

Do you remember when everyone had a long washing line and it always sagged in the middle? A housewife's Monday was made is there was 'good drying'.

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Signs on Courthouse Road

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In Search of an Evacuee

These photographs were taken in Ballybunion one day in 1945. The little boy and the little girl had just made their First Holy Communion.

He is Hurst Hess, a German boy evacuated to Ireland during WW2. He stayed with the family of the little girl's cousins. She is Eily Mai Kissane.

The first  old photographs was discovered by Bridget O'Connor as she was trawling through boxes of old photographs to give to the family historian, Eily Walsh who is compiling another photographic exhibition of the Kissanes of Kilcox, Lisselton. Eily had the photograph of her aunt, Eily Mai.

The photographs were taken in Beazley's in Ballybunion.

Eily is now busily trying to track down Hurst or his descendants. The Kissane family were very fond of him and missed him when he returned home to Germany. But they never heard of him again.

Eily would love to share this part of their family history with Hurst's German family.

German boys were also evacuated to Listowel and surrounding areas. I wonder does anyone remember any of these. Wouldn't it be nice to bring them all back to the place that was their home for over 2 years during a very troubled time own their country's history.

Fishing in the 1950s, Fealeside Players, Arkhangel and Chinese New Year in Scoil Realt na Maidine

Carrantuathail February 2016

Stephanie Johnson on Facebook

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Fishing as a Livelihood in Times Gone By

Photo: Liam OHainnín


From Shannonside Annual 1956

 A Beale Fisherman by Mikie Hannon

“Beale Bar Herrings! Beale Bar Herrings!- at one time the tune of most fishmongers in Kerry. The Beale Bar herring was to Kerry what the Dublin Bay catch is to the Dublin Market. It  is, however a maxim that is heard no more, for that quiet little country place on the last bend in The Shannon as it meets the sea, is losing the fish that made it famous and its fishermen too.

Beale Bar, that dreaded reef known to mariners the world over, has gripped many a ship in its granite teeth, from the days of the frail Thetis to the grand Oceanis of a few years ago. It was here the Beale fisherman steered his currach.

The middle of the last century saw the fishermen of the Beale coast reaping a profitable harvest from those waves, and up to The Boathouse came many a laden curragh. Those curraghs handed down from generation to generation, their origin lost in time, have been known to brave many a stormy night. For the Beale fisherman often rowed far from home into the night, his fishing grounds bounded by Ballybunion in the west, Limerick city in the east and then the Clare coast, Kilcreduan to Clonderla Bay. He could tick off in an instant for you all those placenames in the tongue his fathers spoke; Poll na mBó, Bun na Clugga, Portín, Poll Shuilleabháin, Barr na hArd. This was the fishing ground of his fathers and their fathers for centuries.

And the names of those who rowed the Shannon remained constant too from generation to generation – as constant as the placenames themselves; Carmodys, Mulvihills, Hennessys, Kennellys and Hannons.

About six in the evening you would see them converging on The Boathouse. There the nets were mended, the boats repaired and everything got ready for the night. While they mended their nets, they talked the fisherman’s talk. They were in time for the “flood time’, a quick flowing ebb current off the Beale shore. The location of the herring shoals and the prospects for the night were discussed. There, around the boathouse lay from eight to ten curraghs, face downward on the sand or on their wooden stands. The Boathouse took its name from the Guards boathouse which was near at hand.

The curraghs are lifted to the water in the traditional manner on the shoulders of the fishermen, nets are put on board and fishermen row to their various fishing grounds. Luck may be with them tonight. Old men tell of seeing forty curraghs fishing the Shannon long years ago in the dusk of a harvest evening.

The boatmen shoot their nets, one man pulling out the net, the other rowing. Various hauls are made in different directions as tide and counter tide ebb and flow. Sometimes the luck is good and money is made: Weeks, however, may go by without a salmon striking. Here is the real test of patience and tenacity. Often was an old seasoned fisherman been heard to say, after a bad season, “I’ll never go out again.”  But wait till next season comes round. He’ll be there again. Fishing is in his blood and he must go.

The salmon has been fished extensively in Beale for well over 100 years. The drft net was first introduced there by a Scotsman, who also had three stake weirs on Beale Strand. The salmon fishing has followed a pattern much the same as the herring. Years ago the local fisherman did well and in their season from February to July they earned enough in addition to a little home industry to give them a comfortable living. Today a visitor to Beale strand during the fishing season will find one curragh and a crew of two men. Once there were eight or  ten curraghs and twenty families of fishing folk.

The fisher boats are coming in out of the night to the tune of the seagulls call and the slow steady lap of the oars. It has been a fair-good night. The tired fishermen are happy. Their wives and families are waiting for them in the sandhills around the shore. The curraghs are carried on weary shoulders to The Boathouse. The Boathouse has memories for the aged fisherman as he thinks of the bustle he saw around here in his boyhood, the men he knew and worked with down the years, the storms braved- old times gone like the wreck seaweed on the ebbing tide. The seagulls float overhead and give their weird calls as if calling on time that were. And as the fishermen trudge their way homeward, their footsteps trace a pattern on the timeless sands. So it has been for centuries.

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                    Date for the diary

"Fealeside Players present "WIDOWS PARADISE" for 6 nights commencing on Tuesday the 23rd of February 2016 to Sunday the 28th of February 2016. Tickets available from St. John's Theatre Listowel on tel no. 068 22566.
Ticket Pricing €12 and Concession price €10."

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Then and Now

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The Year of The Monkey

Photo: Scoil Realt na Maidine on Facebook

Scoil Realt na Maidine invited a local family to come into school and talk to them about the Chinese New Year. The boys learned about Chinese culture and they learned a few words of the language.

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Another Win for Clodagh

Thirteen year old Clodagh Murphy won a silver medal in the Under 16 Scór competition at the weekend.

Casette Tapes, Fishing in Béal, Cinderella and some festive shop windows

What a shot!    photo by Thomas Healy

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Today's Blast from the Part

photo; Irish Abroad

Do you know the relationship?

You used the pencil to rewind the tape when it got pulled out or snaggled in the cassette tape player. These were great recorders. You could mix your own music and record messages for friends. There was a little stopper that you could pull out and your recording would last forever…or until technology overtook it and there was no longer any machine to play it on.

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That was Then: This is Now

Both these photographs were taken by Ita Hannon of Beal. The first shows Michael Hannon fishing in Beal, using a naomhóg and a small net. He was carrying on a fishing tradition that has been in his family for generations.

The second photo was taken by Ita recently. It shows two trawlers with big nets fishing the same waters.

The irony is that the small fisherman was stopped from fishing here some years back, allegedly out of fears for the depletion of fish stock.

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Panto Time

The lines are learned, the costume making is complete, now it's time to book your tickets. They are on sale now from the charities listed in the poster below.

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It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas