Progress in church renovations; flowers in Listowel and Electricity; the early days

St. Mary's early last week

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Listowel looking lovely

We do not have the same amount of flower displays in Listowel as we used to. Some businesses do a great job and the town looks so much better with a bit of colour to brighten our days.

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The Good old days

Photographer, Eric Luke, found some old negatives from his days photographing Slane concerts. The top photo is Mike Jagger in the 1980s and the lower one is of Security at Slane in the 1980s.

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Electricity & Telephone Development in Listowel  (Michael Guerin)

Old lamp outside the Horseshoe in Lower William St.

Listowel was connected with the national telephone service in

1908.

Electricity was brought to the town early in 1913 when a

privately-run generating station was established behind the then

Temperance Hall. It was named The Listowel Electric Light and Power Company, (also called the Listowel & Cahersiveen Electric Light Co.) It was owned by a Mr. Cantwell who also operated the Ballybunion Electric Company.  Most of these generated Direct Current.

 It operated until September 1929 when its functions were taken over by the E.S.B.

Street lighting by electricity began in mid-1913, replacing the

paraffin-oil lamps which had supplied light in some of the

main streets, especially The Square, since the turn of the century.

This was twenty-one years after the erection of the first electric lighting plant in Kerry which had been installed by the Commercial Cable Company in its station at Waterville in May 1892 (Kerry Evening Post 28 May 1892).

These lamps were set on top of ornamental standards and were lit at nightfall by Michael (Mick) Lynch of Tea (Tay) Lane, Listowel's Iamplighter.

(information from John (Jack) Leahy, Ballygologue).

            The first ESB Area Supervisor was Jack O Connor followed by Walter Doyle.  Jackie Buckley and Connie Healy were absorbed into the ESB from the private companies. Tom Connolly- Gene Moriarty – Mick O Connor – Jack O Shea was the early ESB staff.

            Jackie Connolly joined in 1954 with various groups recruited for rural electrification in the 50s, such as Jerry O Keeffe, Paul Kennelly, Patsy Culhane the Carey Brothers in Rathea.

            The Rural Electrification Scheme commenced after the second world war in 1946, when the supply of materials were very scarce. Trees for the timber ESB poles could only be sourced in Finland at a reasonable and reliable price. Shipped to Limerick where they were treated with creosote to preserve them. Poles were then redistributed to small sea ports along the coast for rural electrification.

            In O’Connell’s Avenue (built 1933 to 40) electricity was not metered until around 1957 according to Paul Kennelly. Up to then electricity consumption was controlled by a Current Limiter. This was adjusted to allow from 0.45 to 0.75 amps of supply, allowing a few lights and an electric kettle. The ESB had an inspector out at night monitoring the lights on in each house. It was known that these Limiters were tampered with.

            Early plug and sockets were the German 2 pin and earth type followed by the 15amp 3 pin to be replaced by the British 13amp plug and socket we use today This was developed during the war with ring main to save copper wire.

            The Sacred Heart lamp was the first priority of householders in getting electricity. Rural electrification was part of The Quiet Revolution of the Irish Countryside bringing running water, lighting, heating, milking machines for the farmer and the electric kettle, irons and washing machines later and, of course, the wireless.

            This is only a brief account of the coming of Electricity to Listowel which will be researched and developed, but one good story to finish with is; Tom from Rathea went to visit his sisters Mary’s house near Listowel which had just got connected to electricity. Mary, very proud of new electric kettle, offered him a cup of tea from a whistling boiling kettle.

“No way,” said Tom, am I drinking any of that ELECTRIFIED WATER!

She had no option but to proceed with boiling a kettle of water on the TURF FIRE.

© This is only a brief account Michael Guerin 16/06/2014

Jim Cogan R.I.P.

June 23 2014

Jim and Mary Cogan July 26 1975

Enduring love is a two way street. People looked at us and saw Jim, an invalid, and Mary, a carer. They did not see the true picture.

Jim Cogan cared for me in so many ways. He bolstered my faltering self esteem and gave me the self belief to be proud of what I can do. Jim was a great encourager. He encouraged me in all my efforts. Without Jim I would never have had the confidence to produce a book or to write a blog.

Ironically, being confined to Listowel so much gave me the interest and the time to get to know and love the town and its history. This knowledge and love informs all of my creative output nowadays.

From his first diagnosis in 1973,  Jim was never alone in his struggle with M.S. I stood at his side and watched every stage of his slow decline for over 40 years. I remember the first day he couldn't do his shirt buttons, the phone calls from school to say he had fallen, the nights he couldn't sleep and the fatigue that left him exhausted by 4.00p.m. I remember the walking stick, the crutches, a succession of motorized scooters and eventually a chin controlled wheelchair. I heard his voice decline and weaken until he could no longer teach. His hands had long since failed him until he couldn't even scratch an itch on his face.

Together we picked ourselves up after every fall and found a way round every new obstacle. In the early days we tried every new fad and treatment. We both read voraciously about the disease that was slowly crippling Jim. We were prey to every quack and charlatan who might offer a hope of a cure. The medical profession seemed to have none.  We went to Knock and Lourdes. We tried everything.

We were lucky to have supportive families. We had three children. We tried to shield them as much as possible but they lived with M.S. and no doubt they saw the decline and worried.

Our greatest ally was always Listowel and the community in which we found ourselves. Cherrytree Drive neighbours and in particular the Moylan family have carried us for years. They are still carrying me now that Jim is gone. Emotionally, practically and at times physically, Eddie and Helen lifted and carried their ailing neighbours.

St. Michael's College was good to Jim. Fr. Diarmuid OSuilleabháin assured Jim, when he was first diagnosed, that, for as long as he could do it, there was a job in St. Michael's for him. That promise meant a lot to a young couple facing an uncertain future. Every successive principal, without exception, looked after and accommodated Jim's needs. Ramps were built, his room moved downstairs and an emergency evacuation plan put in place to facilitate him. The boys too rose to the challenge. Jim often had to ask for help and he usually got it without question.

Jim made good friends among his teaching colleagues. Joan ORegan came to visit him frequently right up to his last hours. After his retirement, Jim missed the buzz of the staffroom but his colleagues called often and eased the transition for him.

Over the years, as our interaction with health care providers increased, we met constantly with support and kindness. Dr. Billy O'Conor supported us in trying every new treatment and maintenance regime. He treated Jim through numerous chest infections, bladder cancer, respiratory failure, heart failure and all the twists and turns of M.S. along the way.

Nurses Mary MacMahon, Denise McKenna, Catherine Kirby and all of the other community nurses were kind and caring to Jim. Aileen O'Carroll and the various physiotherapists from her practice stretched and flexed and manipulated stiffening muscles into keeping going a little longer.

Jim's illness brought out the best in every one. So many people went that extra mile for him. Dan Carmody, Ear Nose and Throat specialist, drove from Tralee to make a house visit to deal with an intractable ear infection, Seán Moriarty, dentist, treated Jim after hours and often at short notice. His previous dentist, Mr. Kennelly built a ramp for Jim to access his surgery.  John Doyle, John O'Carroll and later, Pete Spink were incredibly patient and attentive to Jim's technology problems. A past pupil, James Carr, sourced for Jim an ingenious little programme that allowed him to turn on and off the computer by voice.

Jim was lucky to find in Helena Moore a neurologist with whom he hit it off from the start. Jim enjoyed his interchanges with her. Jim felt cared for and he respected the honest and forthright way she dealt with him. He appreciated the sensitivity with which she allowed him to make the "Do not resuscitate" decision for himself. She knew his wishes and she carried them out to the end.

As well as Helena Moore, Jim had many friends in The Bon Secours hospital in Tralee. He had been going there for nearly 30 years and he always felt he was among friends in St. Patrick's. Betty, Phil, Maureen, Nancy, Margaret, Mary, Bríd, Catherine and all the other nurses and staff whose names I have so soon forgotten looked after Jim better than I could myself on so many visits. They saw him up and down, once or twice at death's door, and they restored him to health and to me.

When it became obvious that I needed help to look after Jim, the decision to take strangers into our home to help in the caring role was taken with some difficulty. It was a decision that we delayed too long. Beginning with Christina Enright, Jim welcomed a succession of carers, all of whom became his friends. Eileen Hanrahan was Jim's last carer. For years she looked after Jim with professionalism and great gentleness.  Jim looked forward to her daily visits and to the banter with her or with one of her many subs.

Jim loved all of his girls in The Twilight Service. He looked forward to his nighttime routine and the welcome interaction with all of these lovely women. Cathy Corps was like a angel bringing blessings to us continually.

Given the level of his disability, Jim had a good life and he knew it.  He harnessed an amazing array of technologies to give him as much independence as possible. He accepted what life threw at him and he always endeavored to look on the bright side. He was lovable and well loved. Twelve months on, I miss him out of every corner of my life. Family, blogging, our old friends and my new friends in the craftshop and in Writers' Week have all helped and distracted me but there is no escaping the fact that, for me, life has changed, changed utterly.

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Kindness       (Naomi Shihab Nye)

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,

you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing,

you must wake up with sorrow,

you must speak it till your voice

catches the thread of all sorrows

and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,

only kindness that ties your shoes

and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,

only kindness that raises its head

from the crowd of the world to say

It is I that you have been looking for,

and then goes with you everywhere

like a shadow or a friend.

Sundown in Ballybunion and beautiful Athea

Mike Enright took this photo of a fantastically peaceful Ballybunion sunset earlier this week. We are lucky to have someone like Mike with his knowledge of the weather and the tides to bring us views of Ballybunion that us landlubbers rarely get to witness.

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Early morning in Ballyb

Another photo from Ballybunion Prints Beach of the dolphins at play

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Beautiful Athea

When I was away with the fairies in Athea a few weeks ago I missed these  beautiful sights. These photographs are from Athea Tidy Town's website. What talent and community commitment they have in this little place. The village is a credit to everyone concerned.

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This rhododendron forrest in Tipperary looks beautiful but it is practically impenetrable. Two very experienced mountaineers got  trapped here last Sunday. The South Eastern Mountain Rescue Association had great difficulty in reaching them to free them.   Avoid!
(Photo; SEMRA via Facebook)

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I was a bit surprised to run into these two gentlemen as I was walking the streets to get away from the World Cup. I suppose even mad soccer fans have to get away from it sometimes.



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Beach weather

The children are still in school but the beach is still busy these days (photo Ballybunion Prints Beach)


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2009 At Listowel Races on Friday was Listowel races Secretary Brendan Daly and Assistant Secretary Brenda Daly. Picture: Eamonn Keogh (MacMonagle, Killarney) —

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Hymns at a former Redemptorist retreat in Limerick

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3fPG_4jMkE&feature=youtu.be

…………..

Photographs from the interior of the Redemptorist Church, Limerick

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG5Y-fXNLco&feature=youtu.be

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All you who sleep tonight

Vikram Seth

All you who sleep tonight
Far from the one you love
No hand to left or right
And emptiness above

Know that you aren't alone,
The whole world shares your tears
Some for two nights or one
And some for all their years.

Fitzgerald's Park, Cork and the Sky Garden and an emigrant's tribute to his Kerry father

Here comes summer!

Last weekend I took a trip to the real capitol. I took in a gymnastics display, a trip to Fitzgerald's Park and a day out in Fota.

The display was in the hall of the local Ballincollig Gym club. Over 100 young people gave a world class display.

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One of my favourite topics this summer is the Diarmuid Gavin designed Sky Garden in Fitzgerald's Park, Cork. My regular followers will remember that I was there for the grand opening. I visited again a week later and found that the precious garden had become a playground and all the plants were trampled by children climbing on to the stainless steel globes.

 Now, not even a month after the fanfare that attended the official opening, we have bare earth where plants used to be and we have the big silver globe removed and replaced with a semi globe. 

You have probably noticed that there are no children playing in that space anymore. That is because the steel was hot enough to fry an egg on Saturday last.

In another part of the garden stands this feature.

That's my granddaughter in front of it trying out her hurling skills. Last weekend there was a lot of talk of hurling in Cork. The three lovely and extremely talented young men from my home town, Kanturk, accounted well for themselves in Cork's win against their old rivals, Clare.

 When in Rome…..even Rory McIlroy tried his hand at a spot of hurling while he was in Fota for the golf.  (photo; Indosport)

The sky pod of the original design has become a river pod and is very popular with young and old.

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Last Sunday was Fathers' Day. Niall O'Dowd of Irish Central wrote a lovely essay to his own father to mark the day.

The last time I saw him was from the railway line that spanned the Boyne River in Drogheda. thirty miles from Dublin. The year was 1978.

He was a speck in the distance, standing in our small garden waving goodbye for the last time.

He was not an emotive man, but incredibly protective of his children and the loss of another would go hard on him. He would not cry, but go quiet, withdrawn for several days.

Moments later the train swept me away to America, first to Dublin then an Aer Lingus plane across an ocean to a new world.

I wasn’t lonely, I was full of life and piss and vinegar and anxious to get going. Life’s vista was opening up and I was in a hurry to blaze my trail.

Like millions before America was calling. His wish for me to stay home, stick to a teaching job, marry and settle down, could never compete.

Now I wonder how he felt that long ago fine June morning as he watched his third son disappear in the distance, losing another son to emigration. He knew what it was to say goodbye.

He had grown up one of fourteen in a three-room house on a small holding in Gaelic-speaking West Kerry. The kids had scattered to the four winds as soon as they were able, but he had stayed home and become a teacher.

He raised seven kids with my mother and at one time five were away, scattered like his own family before him.

We spoke only once after I left before he died. It was frustrating,he was quite deaf, and I knew he could hardly hear what I was saying.

A few weeks after I left he was dead of a heart attack, I was on a Greyhound bus to California at the time, unaware, stopping off in many American towns on the way on a long mazy trip across country.

The year was 1978 and there were no cell phones, only old-style landlines in Greyhound bus stations where calling Ireland was impossible. I was uncontactable.

I reached a fork in the road in Salt Lake City bus station. Los Angeles was one bus destination, San Francisco the other. I felt him urging me to take San Francisco. It was the night he died.

Was he with me on that long journey across the salt lakes, to the Nevada Mountains and beyond?

I like to think he was. He loved the stories of the old West and here I was landing in the self-same territory inspired with the same version of the American dream that drove so many Irish before me.

Back home he had followed my progress west on a map, living it vicariously. I wrote to him about Cheyenne, Wyoming, the badlands and Tombstone City, places that fired his childhood imagination. He did not live to see the letters.

He was a writer too, I took so much from him, and today am lucky I can still hear his voice reading his short stories in Gaelic on the radio long ago.

This Father’s Day I will put on one of those CDs and for a moment the years will roll back as that powerful Kerry accent and beautiful lilting Gaelic can be heard again.

Then I will raise a glass to the old man, with the granddaughter he never knew and for a moment the world will be full again.

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Beautiful, beautiful Ballybunion

Sunset captured by John Kelliher…awesome!

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Solved!

Thanks to everyone who helped identify the people in this old photo. The man playing the harmonica is Jackie Faulkner and the boy is the late Ned Walsh. The photo was taken on the day before the first Fleadh Cheoil in Listowel in the 1970s. The place is Freezers. Ned Walsh passed away in 1989.

The photo stirred a good few memories. Thanks everyone.

Gurtinard walk and new tour guides' office at Listowel Castle

Signs of summer

Dolphins playing near the shoreline in Ballybunion yesterday  (photo; Ballybunion Prints Beach)

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The woods at Gurtinard

One day last week I took an early morning stroll in the woods at Gurtinard. It's a beautiful peaceful place full of birdsong.

This is a pedestrian gate at the entrance to Listowel Golf Club.

This is a path among the trees, one of the many recently developed ones.

The woodland path is now tarred and very welcoming for walkers and runners.

Another new path into the wood.

One of the many nesting boxes

Growth is luxuriant after the recent heavy rainfall.

Cut off tree stump, just the place to rest your weary bones.

You never know who you might run into.

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This charming house always reminds me of the house in which my mother grew up and where I spend many happy holidays in my youth.

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Relocation, relocation, relocation

 Castle tour guides, Annette MacAuliffe and Mike Moriarty in the new tour booth at the front of the castle.

Diane Nolan is the other tour guide. She was not on duty on the day of the taking of this photograph.

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World Cup in Brazil

Brazil watches football! The Esplanade of Ministry in Brasilia two hours before and during today's game

Changes at An Post in Listowel

Postal  staff in Listowel, Lyreacrompane, Lixnaw, Lisselton, Ballybunion, Asdee, Ballylongford, Tarbert and Moyvane have moved to the new Listowel Delivery Service Unit at Caherdown.

The unit formerly housed the Imperial Stag factory.

The new facility includes a purpose fitted mails processing operation.

An Post says the move was fully agreed at national level by the company and union representing staff and is a common feature of An Post mails operations around the country.

The new Listowel Delivery Service Unit will house thirty postal staff.

This includes eighteen who were formerly based in Listowel, two each from Moyvane, Lixnaw, Ballybunion, and Tarbert and one each from Asdee, Ballylongford, Lisselton, and Lyreacrompane.

Undelivered mail and parcels will still be collected at those local post offices.

An Post says these custom-designed Delivery Offices enable it to provide a better quality and more efficient service for customers.

(information from Radio Kerry website)

When I called to Cahirdown to bring you news and photos, I was greeted by my former pupil and erstwhile postwoman, the lovely Claire Sweeney. She introduced me to her new boss, Jer.

The fine new airy spacious building is super wheelchair friendly. 

Well done, An Post

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Postboxes, old and new

Postbox at the new facility in Cahirdown

Postboxes at the post office

This is now; that was then

There is a post box at Convent Cross. It dates from another era in our country's history.

You can just make out the words Post office under the many layers of paint.

This is the postbox at Leahy's Corner.

The old ones were certainly more attractive looking and add something to the streets cape. The new ones are merely functional.

Post bikes in for running repairs at iBike

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The caption on this one says "Man playing the harmonica and boy playing the spoons at a pub in Kerry in 1974."

Any ideas?

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