Moriartys, Handball Memories , Pres. memories and Listowel Brownies

Spring 2019

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Then and Now on William Street

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Down Memory Lane to the Ball Alley

A man called Enda Timoney is compiling a history of handball in Ireland. His research brought him to Listowel Connection and Junior Griffin's account of hand balling in Listowel in the 1940s and 50s.

Here is another memory from Junior;

"By all means Mr. Timoney can use my few words, in fact I would feel honoured. I think it is great that he is contemplating  writing a history on the handball alleys.  There was a time when we literally had nothing in our pockets and handball was our main sporting outlet as it really cost us nothing. 

In fact as young boys during the war years some of us in the Bridge Road made a bit of money out of the handball.

On a Sunday morning the alley was packed with many young, and not too young, men awaiting their game of handball.  No emigration.  A few of us budding  entrepreneurs from the Bridge Road would have picked up one old penny somewhere, when there was 240 pence to the old pound, and we would make our way to  lovely old lady named Mrs Dowling about a mile outside Listowel and buy apples from her and then go back to the alley and sell our apples. Our aim was to make a profit of 3 old pence, 2 pence for the Sunday matinee and the one penny left would buy us 2 squares of the old Cleeves slab toffee. Our week was made, we wanted nothing else. The two squares were joined together and we would break them by hitting them against the metal leg of our seat in the local cinema. More than likely a square, or maybe both, would hit the ground, but the word hygiene was not on our dictionary in those days. What a lovely, carefree life it was.

The end of the war changed all that, as most of the hand ball young men of that era emigrated to different corners of the world. As I got older I played a lot of handball myself and gave many years as secretary of the local club.. The game of handball meant a lot to us in those days and I honestly believe that as young boys and then as young men it kept us out of harm’s way as the game of handball was such a brilliant game to play."

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I can't Imagine for what this was prescribed

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A Facebook Memory

This photo was shared by Anne Marie Healy and Gillian Finucane on Facebook.

First class , Presentation Primary, Listowel in 1970. I think someone did a spot of colouring!

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Another One for the Girls

I think the year is 1982

Murhur School, Corn Dollies and Organ Donation

Murhur School in the late Eighties

 Photo from Moyvane Village on Facebook

Teachers in Murhur NS in the late eighties. 

Marie O'Callaghan, Ena O'Leary, Patricia Houlihan, Gabriel Fitzmaurice.
Mary Madden, Nola Adams and Anne Prendiville

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Listowel Handball Alley as it looks nowadays

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A Corn Dolly

The late Seamus Heaney knew these corn dollies well. In his childhood he saw them being made in his native Mossbawn. He captures the memories and associations of these ancient amulets better than anyone else.

As you plaited the harvest bow

You implicated the mellowed silence in you

In wheat that does not rust

But brightens as it tightens twist by twist

Into a knowable corona,

A throwaway love-knot of straw.

Hands that aged round ashplants and cane sticks

And lapped the spurs on a lifetime of game cocks

Harked to their gift and worked with fine intent

Until your fingers moved somnambulant:

I tell and finger it like braille,

Gleaning the unsaid off the palpable,

And if I spy into its golden loops

I see us walk between the railway slopes

Into an evening of long grass and midges,

Blue smoke straight up, old beds and ploughs in hedges,

An auction notice on an outhouse wall—

You with a harvest bow in your lapel,

Me with the fishing rod, already homesick

For the big lift of these evenings, as your stick

Whacking the tips off weeds and bushes

Beats out of time, and beats, but flushes

Nothing: that original townland

Still tongue-tied in the straw tied by your hand.

The end of art is peace

Could be the motto of this frail device

That I have pinned up on our deal dresser—

Like a drawn snare

Slipped lately by the spirit of the corn

Yet burnished by its passage, and still warm.

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Ladies' Day Just got Better

This is the bus the kind folk on Listowel Race Committee is going to hire to take ladies to The Island on the Friday of the Races. I'm not sure if you can avail of it if you are not wearing high heels and if you would just like a lift.

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A Sermon and a story for you

While I was in Asdee church I picked up their August 2016 newsletter and I read this story. I'm cutting it short here but it is attributed in the newsletter to Tom Cox;

In 2013 a Brazilian millionaire announced that he was going to be like the Egyptian pharaohs and bury his treasure with him. His greatest treasure was his Bentley.

He was lambasted in the media for this ostentatious show of wealth and foolishness so he called a press conference at his house. The media turned up in big numbers to see if he would really carry out his promise. Diggers were at work in the garden digging a big car sized hole.

But Mr. Scarpa didn't bury his beloved car.

Instead Mr. Scarpa delivered this message, "I didn't bury my car, but everyone thought it was absurd when I said I would. What is more absurd is burying your organs, which can save many lives. Nothing is more valuable than life. Be a donor and tell your family."

Now the story

Regular readers will know that my only sister died in 1964 of kidney failure. She had been ill for a year before she died and she was in and out of hospital frequently. Her best friend was a girl called Marion and they were thick as thieves. If kidney donation was an option, they would have given one another a kidney in a heartbeat. For that year while they were apart they wrote regular letters to one another and they invented a secret code to write private things about boys just in case the letters fell into the wrong hands. All very innocent girly stuff. They were only 15.

Marion kept all the letters and has treasured them all these years. Her friend's death had a profound effect on her and she has never forgotten her. 

Recently she took one of these letters to a tattoo parlour and the tattoo artist scanned my sister's signature along with the coded message and Marion had it tattooed on her forearm.

Emigration, Bunny Dalton and the final chapter of the handball history

These figures tell a sad story.

Many of their descendants now are out there looking for their roots and they are learning these 5 golden rules of genealogy:

#1 Leave no stone unturned, unless it is a headstone.

#2 Handwriting legibility is inversely proportionate to a document's importance.

#3 The further away a cemetery or library is, the more awkward the opening hours will be.

#4 The relative you most need to talk with is the one whose funeral you are currently attending.

#5 Wherever you find two or more siblings, there also will you find two or more surname spellings.

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http://homealoneinireland.wordpress.com/2012/07/16/lets-talk-about-emigration/

Good blog about emigration "by the last guy left".

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 It was not unusual for newspapers in far flung places to report a bit of Irish news. The above comes from New Zealand Tablet, June 5 1855.

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The book that everyone is talking about!

This is how the 2 sequels were displayed in Dubray Books in Dublin.

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An old picture from Ballybunion of the Bunny Dalton Band.

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Handball...the final installment

Membership dropped over the following years but there was one notable development

 that took place roughly around 1969/1970.

The committee were approached by Mr. Bill Kearney who asked would the club allow

a few pitch and putt holes to be placed in the Alley ground. He wanted a base in

which to commence a pitch and putt club for the town.

Mr. Kearney himself acted as secretary, Mr. John Joe Kenny as Chairman and Mr. Jnr

Griffin as treasurer.  

It proved to be dangerous area for pitch and putt as many golf balls were struck

over the wall on to the main road.  If the traffic then was as heavy as it is now, serious

damage could have been done.

However, Mr. Kearney used this to his advantage when he approached the Town

Council to include a pitch and putt course in the Town Park (Cows Lawn). A nine hole course was granted to  Mr. Kearney  and thus, the Listowel Pitch and Putt Club was formed. Indeed, two men, John Joe Kenny and Kevin Sheehy who were stalwarts of the handball club for years gave wonderful service to the Pitch and Putt Club for

many years to follow.

A new generation off handball lovers came on the scene including the likes of Denny

O’Connor, Eddie and Mike Broderick, Charlie Nolan, Tony Stack, Jerh Loughnane,

Con Gorman, Tony O’Neill, Jimmy Canty and others  but the building of the new

community centre in the town park in the mid eighties “drew” away from the old

Alley and handball ceased to be played there.

The new centre which had an enclosed 40ft by 20 ft handball alley did cater for

handball enthusiasts  but as there was no structure of a club it never really took

off so both the handball and squash courts were utilised for other purposes.

In the years of 2008-2009, John Griffin (Junior), being the only surviving trustee,

 and with no handball committee formed for many years, and following the  advice

from former members, decided to sign over the alley ground, which was purchased

by the handball committee in 1962, to the safe keeping of the Listowel Town

Council.  This was done through the good offices of Pierse-Fitzgibbon, Market

Street, Listowel with the one request that if at any time in future years the

handball club will be reformed that the Council will facilitate the committee in

every way possible if they are looking for a site to build a new handball alley. 

Strangely, though the Alley ground was legally signed over to the Town Council three

or four years ago, this transaction has still to be acknowledged by the Council or the

Council office

John (Junior) Griffin)

The above is a brief history of the Listowel Handball Club. As I was engaged in

compiling the history of another sporting organisation over the past two years I

had not the time to research as much as I would have liked to of the Listowel

Handball Club.

My sincere apologies if I have omitted names of people who would have given

their time to the club, before or after my years.

As mentioned there was but the one minute book available which happened to be in

my own possession.

Just to advise that I have all the above saved and if anyone can add more to the club’s

history please feel free to contact me.

Hopefully, the wonderful game of handball will return again in all it’s glory to the

town of Listowel.

Junior

 Our very sincere thanks is due to Junior for compiling this history and for sharing it with us. I know that many people enjoyed it  and would love to hear more. If any reader has any stories about handball or indeed about anything else of interest to people with a Listowel connection I would only be too delighted to post it here. 

Colin O'Donoghue, Lacrosse and handball

Lacrosse and the Listowel connection from Jim Horgan in Pittsburg

Lacrosse is one of the oldest team sports in the world. Native Americans from the north of America used lacrosse to prepare for war or resolve conflicts between rivaling tribes. In 1640 the game was named lacrosse when French missionaries saw Indians play the game. In 1856 Dr. William George Beers established the first lacrosse club in the world: The Montreal lacrosse Club. In 1867 he created the ground rules by which lacrosse is still played today.

Lacrosse is a team sport of Native American origin played using a small rubber ball and a long-handled stick called a crosse or lacrosse stick, mainly played in the United States and Canada. Lacrosse is played with 10 players per team (men's lacrosse), 12 players (women's lacrosse) or 6 players (box lacrosse). It is a contact sport which requires padding. The head of the lacrosse stick is strung with loose mesh designed to catch and hold the lacrosse ball. Offensively, the objective of the game is to score by shooting the ball into an opponent's goal, using the lacrosse stick to catch, carry, and pass the ball to do so. Defensively, the objective is to keep the opposing team from scoring and to dispossess them of the ball through the use of stick checking and body contact or positioning. The sport has four major types: men's field lacrosse, women's lacrosse, box lacrosse and intercrosse.

Here is the link to the Irish Lacrosse website:

http://www.irelandlacrosse.ie/home/?page_id=212

Colin O’Donoghue is the grandson of the late Tom O’Donoghue of Tannavalla.  Tom emigrated to Pittsburgh in the 1950’s  and was a dedicated GAA man for years, heading up the Roger Casement Football Club in Pittsburgh, PA. Tom was chairman of the North American County Board for a number of years in the late 1970’s and early 19080’s.  His restaurant “The Blarney Stone” in Pittsburgh was a well-known center for Irish sport and culture in Pittsburgh.  Colin’s father Jack played for the Pittsburgh teams as well during the 1980’s and 1990’s and is still a big supporter of the GAA in Pittsburgh.

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This photo with a  suggestion for some enterprising Listowel publican was sent to us by Marty Sheehy.

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Good article here on Limerick's bacon factories

http://limerickslife.com/limerick-bacon-factories/

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Please don't do this!

This is the next worst thing to parking across the dished part of the pavement. For some reason that I can never fathom some people always park their bikes ON the footpath. It is an appallingly inconsiderate practice. As well as blocking up the pavement for pedestrians, they are making life so difficult for wheelchair users.

The proliferation of street furniture is another bugbear. But I'll leave that rant for another day.

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Now more handball

At the Club A.G.M. held on Tues March 31^st 1964 the Chairman Mr. Kenny paid

tribute to the club members who had won Listowel’s first ever County Championship

titles during the past season. This was the County Novice Championships and were

played in Listowel for the first time ever. Brendan Murphy won the minor singles and

partnered Richard Galvin to win the minor doubles and Tom Enright and Junior

Griffin had won the senior doubles title.  

1.  

The last recorded minutes in the minute book were of the A.G.M. held on April 19^th

1965. The outgoing Chairman, Mr. John Joe Kenny presided.

The following officers and committee were elected;

 Hon. President; Mr. Michael Keane

Vice-Presidents; Rev. Fr. O’Brien c.c., Rev Fr. Kieron O’Shea, M/s Bryan McMahon

Louis Murphy, Brendan Macauley, Andy Molyneaux, Jack Fitzgibbon, Con J. Keane,

Tim Shanahan, Pat Sugrue.

Chairman; Mr. John Joe Kenny

Vice-chairman; Mr John Keane

Hon Sec; Mr. John (Junior) Griffin

Hon. Treasurers; Mr. Tom Enright and Mr. Dermot Buckley;

Committee; Richard Galvin, Kieron Murphy, Ml. O’Sullivan, Buddy Scanlan,

Jimmy O’Sullivan, Seamus Browne and Jimmy Bunyan.

In his address to the meeting Mr. Kenny paid tribute to all who had helped the club

during the year and congratulated the winners of the various tournaments. He paid

special tribute to Aidan Murphy for the efficient manner in which he ran the National

School tournament.

Even though the above were the last recorded minutes in the minute book notes have

have come to hand of the A.G.M of 1996 in which Mr. Kenny stood down as

Chairman. Elected at that meeting were;

President; Ml. Keane

Vice-Presidents; Rev. Fr. O’Brien c.c., Rev Fr. Kieron O’Shea, M/s Bryan McMahon

Louis Murphy, Brendan Macauley, Andy Molyneaux, Jack Fitzgibbon, Con J. Keane,

Tim Shanahan, Pat Sugrue.

Chairman; Aidan Keane

Vice chairman; Dermot Buckley

Hon Secretary; Junior Griffin;

 Hon Treasurers; Tom Enright and Junior Griffin

Committee; Andy Molyneaux, Timmy Daly, Seamus Browne, Richard Galvin,

Jimmy O’Sullivan, Liam Browne, D. Browne.

At this meeting arrangements were put in place to run a town league Tournament,

Teams entered were; The Bridge Road, E.S.B., Garda, The Boro, The Gleann.

To be continued.... 

Blogging, Fred Chute and handball

I want to explain something about how my blog works.
I usually compose the bones of a post a day or two ahead of publication. I leave it in draft mode until the night before. Then I tweak it a bit, add a photo or two or sometimes something that I have found on the internet or something that has been sent to me by email. I then schedule the post to upload the next morning at 7.30 a.m. People who check into my blog anytime from 7.30 on see this latest blogpost.
BUT
Niall, the techie who set up the NKRO website added a feature to my blog. This feature is called Google feed burner. It is a facility that invites interested people to sign up with an email address in order to receive my posts by email. 120 of my"followers" have done this. These are not the 49 who appear as followers on the right hand panel. Now here's the rub. People who receive my posts by email get them a day late,
I have learned from talking to people that many of you read the email and never visit the actual blog,
http://listowelconnection.blogspot.ie/
If you are one of these people, you probably then delete the email. This means that you are not alerted if I modify the content (I very rarely do unless I have made a big mistake and it is pointed out to me) or if someone posts a reply ( again this only happens rarely as most people have difficulty with the reply facility in Blogger).

All of this is by way of explaining why I am posting these next two pieces that came in as comments:

"was following the irish lacrosse team in the european championship as my sons wife brother-in-law Tim Weir is one of the coaches.They were in the top10 in the world before the final and this should push them up.I checked all week during the tournament for results but not a line in any irish paper.The team is made up of irish born and of irish decent.One name caught my eye was a ODonoghue kid from pittsburgh and Listowel conections.If i remember years ago a ODonoghue family from Tanavalla left for pittsburgh and were involved in the bar business there. "


"really enjoyed reading about the handball alley and the wonderful people that played there.I remember playing in a tournament during my 2 yrs. at St.michaels and the one match i won was against i think Bernie Murphy or bernie Buckley.that is as far as i advanced.My story about the ball alley is at the tender age of 16 i was selected to be the goalkeeper for the listowel senior hurlers against Abbeydorney in a curtainraiser to Kerry V Roscommon at Sheehy park in 1961.Off i went to the ball alley for 2 weeks practicing hitting a ball up against the wall and catching it with the bare hand.Now trained to perfection and ready for the big day and big crowd.Well the first ball that came to me was a high ball and with my backline of Renie Farrell,lyons and Rohan keeping the forwards at back put up my hand to catch the ball as i had done hundreds of time in the ball alley in secret training I swung at the ball instead.Big Mistake.missed the ball,Goal.15 minutes and 4 more goals later got the call from the sideline from Guard Healy,Sheehy off Tony Barrett on.I remember one of the umpires saying to me after the 5th.goal i should have stopped that goal,my answer was i should have stopped all the(----__)goals.I wonder we had 4 goals Barrett should i be called 5goals Sheehy.Just a thought.Thanks vincent Carmody for the program of that day which i will treasure. "


Both of the comments came from Mike Sheehy in NY and formerly of Main St. Listowel. Thank you Mike. Your stories are welcome anytime.

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An Irish man has made history by becoming the first person in the world to complete the Oceans 7 Challenge.

46 year old Steve Redmond  from Ballydehob in West Cork  crossed the 20 kilometre Tsugaru Strait in Japan yesterday evening in a time of 14 hours 24 minutes.

The endurance swimmer  had to abandon previous attampts to take the Strait in June when he was defeated by strong currents.

It joins his other epic swims in Hawaii, New Zealand, California, the English Channel, the Strait of Gibraltar and the Irish Sea.

He’s the first person ever to complete this  grueling challenge – which is considered to be the equivalent to climbing the seven summits in open water swimming.

Mighty man indeed!

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Fred Chute painting the new sign on O'Farrell's shoe shop on Church St.

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Handball continued

A special meeting was held on Wed. Feb. 14^th at which the chairman reported that the

sub-committee had met with M/s McMahon, O’Hanlon and Ml Keane who had

approached Mr. Joe O’Mahony, the local representive for Lord Listowel. Mr.

O’Mahony informed the deputation that the Listowel Handball Club had no legal right

to the land in question which was the property of Lord Listowel.

He had in turn received an offer for the ground and it could be possibly be sold by

4pm the following day. He would, however, give the Handball Club the first choice

if they wished to purchase the property. The members present decided to purchase the

handball site at £140.

At subsequent meetings 5 trustees were elected as legal advice was received from

Mr. Paddy Fitzgibbons (senior) who advised that a club as a body had no legal

standing and had also advised on the role of the trustees. The five trustees appointed

were M/s  Tom Enright, Andy Molyneaux, Ml. Keane, Brendan Macauley and John

Griffin (Jnr).

At a following meeting Mr. Enright withdrew his name from the trustees and for

personal reasons Mr. Fitzgibbons retired as chairman and was replaced by Mr. John

Joe Kenny.

At the 1963 A.G.M. the chairman, Mr. John Joe Kenny paid tribute to the club

President, Mr Joe James who had died during the year.  Mr. Kenny said that Mr.

James had been a founder member of the Listowel Handball Club and had at all times been available to give advice to committee members and players, and had always taken a special interest in the juveniles

.  On the proposition of the secretary it was decided to purchase a shield

for the minor championships and call it after Mr. James.

Mr. Kenny also paid tribute to former Club vice-president Mr. Frank Sheehy who

also had died during the year.

The club tournaments were still the main-stay of the club and great interest was

 still generated in these. At a meeting held on Sat. Nov. 16^th1963 the draws were

made for both the novice doubles tournament and for the senior singles tournament for the Gaelic weekly Shield.  Novice doubles draw as follows; J.O’Sullivan &

 J.Ryan v A. Molyneaux & P. O’Flaherty; C.Chute &. J.Nolan v M.O’Shea & T.

Keane.

The Senior singles tournament was played on a handicap basis for 40 aces. Draw;

C. Chute (plus 21) v J. Keane (plus 15); T. Enright (6) v D. Carroll (26)

J. Coady (20) v M.O’Shea (23); J.O’Halloran (9) v J. O’Sullivan (28)

D. Buckley (8) v S. Guerin (23); J. Griffin (scr) v J.J.Kenny (18)

Unfortunately, the results of the tournaments have not been recorded.