An August 2015 Thursday in John B.'s and another win for Sonny Bill

Pub Theatre in John B.'s

My father died when I was seven. My mother wore no colour but black for a full year. The radio was only turned on to hear the news and weather forecast. We had no television. There was no music in the house. We went to town only for shopping once a week and to go to mass on Sundays. Laughter and shouting or halooing was discouraged. Anything by way of enjoyment was absent from our lives for a long 12 months.

Thank God things have changed and we now know that keeping the lost loved one's spirit alive and present to us is much more healthy than constantly reminding ourselves of an absence. We are now encouraged to remember the loved one and to live, laugh and enjoy ourselves as normal.

In the week of his mother's death, Billy Keane put on the "shop face" and "hoored it out" as best he could on Thursday night last. Thursday night is pub theatre night in John B.s. Billy banned any sad talk but inevitably the night was tinged with sorrow for the lady of the house.

I was there on Thursday evening with Fran Blyth and her family. Fran is the great granddaughter of the poet Thade Gouran.  Michael, Alexis and Sean are his great great grandchildren. They had come from England to connect with the homeland of their ancestors and to sample life in North Kerry.

 They were all thrilled to pose with Billy and even more thrilled when he recited The Yorkshire Pig, one of Thade Gowran's better known works.

Billy brought a chair from the kitchen and placed it in the bar and asked us to leave it free for "someone" who would be with us in spirit tonight. She was with us alright and we all felt her gentle soul was still close to home.

Mickey MacConnell opened the night with his new version of the Ballad of John B. He has tweaked his original lament for John B. to now include Mary.

Billy read a lovely love poem his dad wrote for his mam in the first flush of their young love.

Fran was delighted to learn that Gabriel Fitzmaurice, who was in to read some of his poems, has a Thade Gowran ballad, The Dawning of the Day, in this repertoire. If he had had his guitar he would have sung it.

David O'Sullivan was a convincing bishop. In an extract from The Field he exhorted us, under threat of interdict, to reveal to the police everything we knew about the murder. By the end of the sermon we were all ready to sing like canaries.

Claire Keane Fennell sang Kielty and later Over the Rainbow.

The English visitors were enthralled.

Another Keane was making his own record of the proceedings.

Billy's good friend, Con, sang his song accompanied by Mickey MacConnell. 

We all joined hands and sang the John B. Keane anthem, The Black Hills of Dakota.

Billy gave a big build up to another young man who sang a different anthem.

Billy did his best to remember the words of Thade Gowran's Yorkshire Pig as he introduced Thade's great great grandson to sing the anthem from Les Miserables.

Sean's singing coupled with his boy band good looks won him quite a few fans on the night.

My video of Sean singing is HERE The quality of the video is fairly poor. The quality of the singing was never in doubt.

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Framed Posters in Behans

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A Kerry Football Cup in Pittsburg

The U.S. Midwest division of the GAA had a great stalwart in Tom O'Donoghue of Listowel. They honored his many years of dedicated service in the promotion of Gaelic Games in Pittsburg by awarding the Tom O'Donoghue Memorial Cup to the winners of the Midwest Division Football Championship. The cup was played for on Aug 8th and 9th. 2015 and Tom's eldest son, Thomas, presented the cup to the winners

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R.I.P. Robert Moloney

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Sonny Bill's latest triumph

First in his class and reserve champion at Limerick Show on Sunday last…..Good Boy, Sonny Bill!

Living Literature at The Seanchaí, a Football Team at The Six Crosses in 1954 and Ballybunion in the 70s

Living Literature at The Seanchaí

Last week I took the Living Literature Tour of the Seanchaí. It was brilliantly entertaining and informative. Heritage Week 2015 would be a good time to visit if you have not done so already.

We were lucky to have Denis Hobson as our guide. He is an excellent interpreter of the playwrights and poets of North Kerry. Here he is in the John B. Keane room playing John B.'s Chastitute. He had stories and memories of the late John B. and everything was delivered with great appreciation and respect for the work of the writer.

Here is Denis in the Bryan MacMahon room. He painted Mac Mahon as a man of enormous learning  who loved learning for its own sake. Denis once came upon him in a snug in Listowel having a conversation with 2 friends in classical Greek. Apparently to keep their Greek from growing rusty they used to choose a topic for next week and then prepare what they wanted to say  on the matter.
Bryan MacMahon was comparable to Frank O'Connor as a short story writer, he was a great collector of folklore and worked hard to preserve Shelta, the Traveller language, now lost except for words like pavee and buffer. But locally it was as a teacher that MacMahon left his great legacy, nurturing young imaginations and always encouraging creativity in all its forms.

This is the great Maurice Walsh who wrote the story of The Quiet Man. Denis read from his works and no doubt he had a great way with the English language. He lived in relative luxury in Dublin. He is now almost forgotten. It was good to hear about this writer whom we all know so little about.

George Fitzmaurice is depicted looking out over The Square. He had the strangest back story of them all, one of 12 children, none of whom had issue. He died in poverty in Dublin despite having had a run of several successful plays at The Abbey. Some of his plays are strange and enigmatic, but The Country Dressmaker and The Magic Glasses are still relevant today.

We took the 12.00 noon tour on Thursday and Denis took a well earned break before his next tour at 2.00 p.m.

The Living Literature Tours take place at 12.00 and 2.00 on Wednesdays Thursdays and Fridays. I'd highly recommend it. Great value at €5.



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Six Crosses Football 1954

Jack O'Donoghue from Pittsburg found this photo among his father, Tom O'Donoghue's possessions. He obviously treasured it all his life. Tom's brother Mick is also in the photo and ironically it was taken in the year that Tom emigrated to the U.S. 

Could the Six Crosses field a football team today, I wonder?

Jack also sent me all the names of the young men in this 1954 photo;

Back Row left to right:

T. McKenna, V. Carey, B. Browne, M. Barry, D. Broderick

Middle Row:

T. Fitzgerald, B. Quinlan, M. O’Donoghue, G. Joy, M. O’Connell

Front Row:

M. Browne, T. O’Donoghue, P. McKenna, G. Browne, G. Fitzgerald

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Ballybunion Church

St. John's church in Ballybunion is a lovely building, recently restored to its former glory.

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Ballybunion in the Seventies

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am a great fan of Jason of Ballybunion Print's photos. He photographs Ballybunion daily and posts his beautiful shots on Facebook. 

This photograph is a departure from his usual work. A friend sent him this photo of the beach in the 1970s. Bring back memories?

Do you remember the changing huts?

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Louise Galvin, Great athlete and One of Our Own

photos: Irish Examiner


Louise Galvin of Finuge is in the news because she is a star of the Ireland Sevens Ladies Rugby team. Since I knew her as a pupil in Pres. Listowel, Louise has learned many life lessons in the school of hard knocks.
She was the subject of The Big Interview in Saturday's Irish Examiner. Read and admire this exceptional young lady.

People at the Fleadh in Listowel in 1986 and Crazy Golf in Ballybunion in 2015

Sunset in Ballybunion

(Photo; Ballybunion Prints)

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1986

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Crazy Days with the Grandchildren

I had a great day out a few  weeks ago with my two lovely boyeens at Ballybunion Crazy Golf

Ballybunion Crazy Golf is situated on the road to the real golf course in the grounds of Ballybunion Holiday Homes.

Despite a few arguments, the boys enjoyed playing Shane Lowry and Rory McIlroy for an hour or more.

The "course" is beautiful, featuring many well known Ballybunion landmarks. Here the boys are resting on a feature modeled on a Ballybunion street scene.

When they tired of golf they played a game of chess, outdoors and with giant chessmen.

I do not know the rules of chess so I could settle no arguments but there were surprisingly few in the boys' game.

The little café on the site is called Checkers. You can see why.

The boys enjoyed the picnic we brought. This recharged the batteries for the next activity.

This is Football Pool. There is a big outdoor pool table/ pitch. The boys knew the rules of pool and these are the same for this game except instead of poking the balls into the pockets with a cue, you stand on the "table" and kick the football to hit the coloured balls.

The boys had a great few hours entertainment in Ballybunion Crazy Golf. I would definitely recommend it. It is also surprisingly inexpensive.

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Meanwhile in Dublin

John Relihan and his mother MaryAnn from Duagh were enjoying the very successful Big Grill in Herbert Park. John was one of the headline chefs at this food festival and his proud mother was enjoying the festival.

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Still Painting

Emily  and Kerry are still manning Olive Stack's gallery in Main Street.

 One of their new best friends is Mary O'Flaherty of Chic. She was in the gallery when I called and I persuaded her to pose with her portrait painted by Emily (on left)

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Heritage Week

This is Heritage Week so a great time to visit Listowel Castle or to take a tour of the writers' museum at The Seanchaí.