Chute's Bar, Lixnaw 1888, XL Challenge and Moll

Work had begun on Chute's Bar

Lower Church St. Easter Sunday 2013

Easter Monday

Neo Georgian features now all gone



Danny Russell has bought this premises and converting it into a stylish and profitable shop is his project for 2013. I'll keep you posted on progress.




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Some old ads taken from Tom O'Connor's GAA commemorative programme for the reopening of the sports field.

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Jer Kennelly found these following in The Marlborough Express of 24 April 1888
Earl of Listowel from Evening Post 11 August 1945.

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Willie Keane sent me an account of this year's XL Challenge

The XL Challenge 2013 which takes place on Saturday 6^th April based at the Silvermines village, Nenagh, Co. Tipperary.  This years Challenge is in support of ‘Living Links’ who provide outreach support to the suicide bereaved through its fifteen branches nationwide. 

This years’ Challenge consists of four levels of hikes from the ‘super’ fit to those who just want a gentle 2 hours stroll. 

For the super fit there is the XX Challenge which is a 6 to 7 hour hike over tough terrain and is only suitable for very experienced hill walkers.   There is an option to do this as a self guided hike as a map and co-ordinates will be given on registration.  Registration for this Challenge is at 9.30 am at ‘Hickey’s Pub’ Silvermines, Nenagh.  Walk Leader is Annaroi Milner 086-0723818.

Hike A is a 5 to 6 hour trek starting from Killoscully village and climbing Keeper Hill, the highest point in North Tipperary.  Descending to remote valley of Glenculloo, up across the Silvermine Mountains before descending to finish at the Silvermines village.

Registration  9.00am at ‘Hickey’s Pub’ Silvermines Nenagh.  Bus departs for Killoscully village at 9.30am.  Walk Leader is Aiden Dillon 087-9836750.

Hike B  is a 3 to 4 hr hike and will start and finish at the Silvermines village.  It will include a hike through the old mining area before we climb to the highest point in the Silvermine mountains where there are fine views over the surrounding countryside.   

Walk Leader Bill Condon 087-9445773

History Walk is a leisurely 2 hour walk through the Silvermine mining sites with local Historian Eamonn De Stafford.  Walk Leader Pat Delaney 085-1741411.  Registration 11.30am at ‘Hickey’s Pub’ Silvermines village.

That evening at the Abbey Court Hotel, Nenagh, at 7pm – Noel O’Meara  an XL Challenger 2012 will give a presentation on his trip to Tanzania January 2013 with an update on the school and clinic projects.  We will also present the Itinerary for XL Challenge 2014 trip to Tanzania.

Also on the evening of the 6^th April there will be a dinner and dance for those participating in the XL Challenge 2013 with a guest speaker.  Dinner and dance will be €25.  The hotel has offered a special rate of €52 D/B/B.  Majella O’Donnell (wife of Daniel and patron of ‘Living Links’) has been invited as guest singer for the occasion.

In conjunction with the XL Challenge – ‘Living Links’ will host their first National Conference at the Abbey Court Hotel, on April 5^th. .

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If you are looking for somewhere to go next week, how about this play in St. Johns. The cause is a very good one too.

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I tried to post this yesterday but the gremlins thwarted me. Donal Óg Cusack's article from Irish Central on the Pope Francis. I predict that Donal Óg has a great future as a writer.

The mother is delighted with the new pope. Great man. He gets the bus. He pays his hotel bills. He cracks little jokes. He talks about love. One Direction for the arthritis gang.
 
Very unpopey yet you couldn’t knit yourself a better pope. He’s no George Clooney but at seventy-six, he’s just a spring chicken. The life in your pope is as important as the pope in your life. And!  There’s no faint smell of Nazi off him. No taint of child abuse cover up. Ok. He was at the back of the bus gazing out the window when the junta in Buenos Aires started disappearing some of his Jesuit colleagues but look, when the Smart Boy Wanted sign goes up in the Vatican window you don’t expect to find the perfect candidate.

The point is that when the mother and her old friends get down on their hands and knees to clean the church across the road they’re pleased with the new boss. When they are washing the floor and shining the brass and polishing the wood and shifting their aching limbs about to do a job that nobody thanks them for they are happy that the man with the hat gets the bus from time to time. He’s humble. Humility is a good thing for the church to have these days. Humility and love.

We don’t talk much about the pope or his business when I call to the house of an evening.  We talk about what’s going on in our mad little village and we talk about hurling. I was recently decommissioned from the Cork senior hurling squad after more than a decade and a half of good times and turbulence.  The disappointment at how it was ended. That’s what we talk about.  And how the club will go. In our house the pope might get his picture stuck to the fridge but Christy Ring was the only man we knew to be infallible and hurling has always been the one true faith.

Still. I’d like to know someday about how the mother feels about the fact that her son whom she loves won’t ever be allowed to get married in the church that she cleans in the village she has always lived in.  The pope who gets the bus and talks about love is against gay marriage. He’s never been to Cloyne by bus or by car but he’s one of the last people on earth who cares that I am gay. If I find somebody I love  the Pope  won’t be letting me celebrate that relationship in the church which baptised me, gave me my communion, confirmed me and which will probably seize my body for burial if I let it. If I find somebody I love and we settle down and want to share our home with a child who needs loving parents the pope will have an actual hissy fit. Gay adoption, he says, is child abuse. That’s a pretty big steaming slice of ignorance for any badged rep of Catholic Church Inc. to be offering to the customers in this day and age.  

In his new job the man from the Buenos Aires omnibus is in the perfect place to learn a little bit about the realities of child abuse. By the time he is finished reading all the reports in his in tray he may conclude that it would be best to keep priests away from churches and places in the community. Then he might go out (he has the outfits) and meet some real gay men and women and educate himself beyond the stereotype.

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I had a great response to my request for help with a Corridan connection. I have passed all the information along and I think that Terry will be delighted. Thanks everyone.

Listowel F Coy FCA, Travellers, Ciarán MacMahúna and Listowel Bridge

End of an era for the FCA in Listowel at the Sluagh Hall on Easter Saturday 2013.

The caption says it all. This and other moving and valuable pictures of the final day in the hall can be viewed and purchased from  John Kelliher

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John Kelliher's stunning photo of Listowel Bridge at night.

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A group of Travellers on their way to Puck Fair in 1954. Life then was a far cry from the lifestyle depicted in My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. Hardship, cold, poverty and struggle and early death were the lot of the Traveller back then.

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Shoeing a horse

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This photograph was taken in Athea and not today nor yesterday.

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“Rashers and Sausages Music”

Memories of Ciaran MacMathuna

By George Lee

“Rashers and Sausages Music” was what it was called in our house though purists knew it as “The Lark in the Clear Air” but it was that piece and Ciaran’s distinctive voice that announced Sunday morning.

We felt we had a hold on him, he grew up 5 doors down the Edwardian Terraced Cul de Sac, he had gone to the same school as us, and some of the old people in the Avenue remembered the McMahons in number 14. I recollect the excitement of the RTE Camera Crew coming some time in the 1970’s with him to do a biographical programme on his life and my father even possessed a copy of his wife Dolly’s song “The Hills of Connemara

The music still elicits all sorts of memory pictures of getting up early to serve Mass in the nearby Cathedral and of Spring sunshine catching the dust particles in its beam as it reflected off the kitchen floor. It was atmospheric and indicative of a time when life was slower and certainly less complicated and more innocent. My Dad got home from work for his breakfast some Sunday mornings and if you were lucky you shared his rashers and the soundtrack was always Ciaran’s voice and music.

Occasionally he would make a reference to Limerick, his upbringing or his family and that made him more “ours” and though his life was in a very distant Dublin (where we went to the Zoo) we always felt that in some way his ties were to his homeplace.

Of course I now understand that Ciaran’s work was so much more than just that radio programme and that as a nation we owe a great debt to him and the others who travelled the country recording a disappearing culture and preserving it. This was done in the days when recording devices were cumbersome and travel was difficult but his “Job of Journeywork”, as he styled it, has laid the foundations for much of the music and the Irish Cultural Revival that has happened over the past 40 years.

He often spoke of West Clare, of Fleadh’s and Mrs Crotty from Kilrush, of Tulla and Kilfenora, of Micko Russell and Willie Clancy, and of flutes and fiddles, all of the familiar things that meant something to a young man whose extended world encompassed his home place and the annual holiday in Kilkee.

We grew up with his slow measured bass voice and as it got older and early Sunday Morning rises gave way to long lie ins after late nights we parted company for a number of years. But as if to mark the passage of time when our own children arrived and woke with the dawn Ciaran’s voice once again anchored us reassuringly and the Rashers and Sausages music took on a new meaning.

And so it was that I was privileged to be the one despatched to collect him from Limerick Station to assist in the launch of a charity album. We drove up Mulgrave Street that dark wet Friday night and that Sunday morning voice was now in my car regaling me with stories of his youth and enquiring about old neighbours. I had a million questions to ask him but I sat and listened immersing myself in the voice and understanding just what a formative place his home was in his view of life. I realised that our upbringing in that same place though 50 years apart were almost identical and I learned from him that his passion for his trade was undimmed by the years and that my childhood Sunday Morning influence was as real in person as he was through the speakers of the radio in the kitchen

Ciaran finally no longer finished his programme with the line “go dtí an céad uair eile” in 2005 and went to his eternal reward in December 2009 and Sunday mornings have never been the same. For me the smell of Rashers and Sausages or the music of Geraldine O’Grady always reminds me of Ciarán MacMathuna.

 The above was posted on Limerick Life's blog

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Donal Óg Cusack is no stranger to controversy. In his very well written article in Irish Central he gives us his views on Pope Francis.

Athea Drama at 21, flood in Feale and some Corridans

This is Chris Hadfield. He is currently tweeting from his space station. Yesterday he was letting his followers into a secret.  He had bought Easter eggs for his crew. 

Has he a Listowel connection?

 Not that I know of but he has an Irish one. At Christmas he sent the first tweet as Gaeilge from space. His daughter is a student in TCD and he has a cúpla focal.

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Pathé News footage from 1949 of the proclamation of the Irish Republic

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/irish-republic-proclaimed/query/McBride

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Athea Drama Group celebrates 21 years of acting in 2013, with a production of John B Keane's Many Young Men of Twenty. It was also their first production 21 years ago.
They have lost Mary and Jimmy Dee and John Joe O Connor who have passed away.
Theresa O Halloran is the only  actor from the original cast among the 2013 cast.

The 2013 production is directed by Theresa O Halloran.

Cast, Annette O Donnell, Margaret Reidy, Tommy Denihan, Donal Woulfe, Oliver McGrath, Hannah Mai Collins, Tom Enright, Roger Ryan, Theresa O Halloran, Carol O Connor, Kevin O Keeffe, Tom O Keeffe, Jack Denihan, Lal Browne, Lorcan McAuliffe, Saoirse Redmond, Box Player Kieran Flavin,Set, Noel Ambrose and Martin Dalton. Backstage, Amina Parkes and Damien Ahern. Makeup Joan Griffin. Front of house, Sean Barrett, Mary Kelly, Francie Flavin and Dan Griffin. Lights/ Sound, Declan O Carroll.

Cast of 1992 Production, Director Oliver McGrath; Cast, Lillian O Carroll, Theresa Mullane, Mick Ahern, Donal de Barra, Con Fitzgerald, Betty Murphy, Raymond Enright, Jimmy Dee, Christina Brouder, Mike Sheahan, Theresa O Halloran, Pat Brosnan, Teddy Murphy, Joan Griffin, Patricia Quinn, J J O Connor and Box Player Francie Flavin.

Productions;  Many Young Men of Twenty 1992, Sive, ’93, Buds of Ballybunion ’94, The Field ’95, Nano ’96, I Do Not Like Thee Dr. Fell ’97, The Factory Girls ’98, Big Maggie ’99, The Year of the Hiker ‘2000, The Chastitute ‘’02, The Cripple of Innishmaan ’03, Moll ’06, The Country Boy ’07, The Cobweb’s Glory ’08, The Curse of Josie Ward ’09, Unforgiven ’10, The Man From Clare ’11, 

Lovely Leitrim ’12.

Jer sent me this news and a little video clip to illustrate it:

http://youtu.be/VawZZ6xqw9U

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Big Flood at the Racecourse Footbridge

This was the big flood on November 19^th 2009.  The height of this flood was approximately 4 metres and the width of the bridge is 86 metres.  One can safely assume that 20,000 cubic metres of water were flowing under the bridge every minute while the flood was at its peak.  Other big floods that brought havoc to North Kerry and West Limerick over the years were, June 1926, November 1941, August 1946, December 1^st 1973 and August 11th 1986, until the building of the Richard Griffith designed Big Bridge in 1829 which has stood the test of time.  Several of the previous bridges which were built on that site were washed away by big floods.

            Both the 1973 and 1986 floods were both 7 metre floods and were it not for the River Drainage Scheme in the 1950’s, North Kerry would have been devastated by them. 

(photo and text by the late Tim Griffin )

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Lovely photo of a Dublin drayman and horse

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I had an email from Paul Corridan concerning a Corridan who contacted him but does not belong on his family tree.

Terry Corridan lives  in Greece.She knows very little about her family only that her father was from Listowel.

"Terry Corridan was one of six children born to Thomas Corridan and Annie Connolly in Dublin. Thomas along with his brother Seamus were reared in Convent St, Listowel. Both boys attended Listowel National School. Thomas (c.1920)went to Dublin and worked in the Civil Service. Seamus(c.1922) went to London and married a Listowel Lady. He came home in his latter years and lived back in Convent Street. The boys father they think may have been Patrick and he died when they were in infancy. Their mother was Eleanora or Nell Connor or O' Connor probably from Convent St also.

 If anyone could  shed a little more light on their family relatives they would be most grateful" 

Drop me a line and I will pass it on.

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Good news story from The Limerick Leader

By Gerard Fitzgibbon
Published on 31/03/2013 12:00

FOR NEARLY 200 years, the Harrods department store in London has been a byword for luxury products at luxury prices. But last week, the Knightsbridge store’s exclusive array of goods received an unlikely addition – cheese produced in a family-owned factory outside Newcastle West.

Cahill’s Cheeses have become an increasingly popular treat for shoppers across Ireland, and now the award-winning produce has gained a highly sought after spot in the Harrods fromagerie counter.

Helen Cahill, who has spent the last few months criss-crossing the globe bringing her family’s artisan cheese to new customers, said that getting their wares behind the counter in Harrods was fantastic.

“It was lovely. But it’s back to reality this week, back in the white coat and wellingtons! It was a great experience, and our cheese was very well received. We won gold at the British Cheese Awards and gold in the Blas na hEireann awards in 2012. There is certainly a sense that if you’re good enough for Harrods, you are doing something right”.

Cahill’s Cheese traces its roots back to the early 1980s when it was set up by Newcastle West dairy farmer, David Cahill, and his wife Marian.

Today, its speciality cheeses incorporate a host of unique flavours, such as porter, chilli and chives, and can be found in a number of Irish supermarkets.

In the past two years, the company’s profile overseas has continued to grow and grow. In 2011, David Cahill received the unique honour of giving the keynote lecture at the Princess Grace Irish Library in Monaco, in the company of Prince Albert.

Last year, the company exported its produce to seventeen countries worldwide, and is continuing its push to reach even more new markets.

Earlier this year, Helen travelled to America to promote their cheeses, which are now sold in the Trader Joe’s speciality grocery chain, which has outlets in California, New York, Massachusetts and a host of other states.

“It is very exciting for us when someone finds our cheese in their local cheese market or delicatessen in America and sends us a photograph. We’re very proud of our product”, Helen said.

“My brother Dan and I are constantly looking for fresh opportunities in new and existing markets.

“The reputation of Ireland’s dairy produce is growing with each year”, Helen added