Listening in Listowel

Jean's Journal with Jean Farrell

"Bring them ones out to your father,” the country woman told her ten-year-old daughter. “See does he want them ones.” I loved her beautiful Kerry accent.

It was 5.40pm and I was sitting in a shoe shop, trying on sandals. The young girl left the shop, returning almost immediately. “He wants black ones,” she told her mother. Out the child went again, out onto the street, with a black pair. “Mícheál wants ones with no laces,” she said, coming back, within seconds.

Just outside the front door of the shop, a man was standing, along with a boy, aged about 17, Mícheál, I presumed. Why were they not coming into the shop, I wondered. Were they barred? However, they didn’t look like they would cause any trouble. Over and back to the door, the child went, for a good ten minutes. The teenage boy was fussier than his father. After seven pairs of shoes, all size ten, were carried in and out, for young Mícheál’s inspection, he finally settled on a pair.

During the whole transaction neither man set one foot over the threshold of the shop’s door. They just stood outside, inspecting the shoes brought out to them by the child. Eventually, the woman paid the patient shop-owner for the two pair of shoes and they all left.

I was aware it was now after six o’clock and the shop should be closed. I had decided to buy a comfortable pair of sandals and, as I paid for them, I couldn’t resist asked the shopkeeper, a friendly man, why the two fellows wouldn’t come into his shop.

I learnt that there is a logical explanation for everything!

“The two of them are hardworking farmers,” he told me. “They’ve been working since dawn, at silage and slurry, until twenty minutes ago. Their uncle Mike is being buried here tomorrow morning and they need new shoes for the funeral. They hadn’t time to wash themselves. The two of them told me that they wouldn’t come into my shop ‘cos they stink. They’re gone home now for hot baths.”

The following morning, as I strolled around the square in lovely Listowel, I passed the church. I went in to thank God for my health, for the sunshine and more. I realised that their uncle Mike’s funeral Mass was just coming to an end. A relation was speaking about the quiet good-living unassuming man he was. These words struck me. “What mattered to Mike most was that he was once chosen, by the canon, to be a canopy-bearer.”

Now, I’d say, no-one reading this, under 50 years of age, will know what a canopy-bearer is. During every procession we ever walked in four ‘important’ men (NEVER a woman – perish the thought!!)) carried a canopy over the priest, who carried the monstrance. It was considered a great honour to be invited to do so.

More listening in Listowel. Two friends and I, all aspiring writers, were there for the wonderful Listowel Writers’ Festival. We decided to go on a guided walk of the town. Our guide was a local politician.

Well, from beginning to end, it was a scream! He’d be in full flow when some local would walk past. “This is where John B Keane was born…How’ya Seamus, how’s it goin?” he’d shout to the passer-by. To us, he’d say, “That fella is a second cousin of Brendan Kennelly's .... John B was born in….. How’ya Francis. How’s she cuttin’?” Francis, is the seanchaí Eamon Kelly’s second cousin twice removed.…. John B Keane’s bar is famous……. Ah, there’s Con. How’ya Con.” To us he added, “His poor wife was taken into hospital yesterday. She’s Bryan McMahon’s mother-in-law’s third cousin.” Shouting very loudly, he roared across at Con. “How did she get the night?” A Polish woman, also on our tour, was taking notes. Very puzzled she asked me “What does ‘how did she get the night’ mean?”

All the way, along the streets of Listowel, our guide/political was as busy saluting neighbours as he was in informing us of the town’s history. And every resident we met seemed to be related to one or other of the famous Kerry writers in the photo above. It was the funniest tour I was ever on!

In a lovely antique shop I saw that the owner had some old bank notes on sale. These were displayed under glass, on the counter. They were the notes we remember from our youth – old money, with the picture of Lady Lavery on them. The £100 notes were absolutely huge and I commented that they would never fit into a wallet and that I had never seen one in my young life. “I’ll tell you who had heaps of those,” said another customer. “Cattle dealers! And they had no need for wallets, no! They’d have wads of them, rolled up, in the big pockets of their smelly overcoats.”

I learnt lots in Listowel, in the local shops as well at The Writers’ Festival there.

I’m very proud to say that my book ‘The Six Marys’ was officially launched at this prestigious festival, on June 1.

My book contains the full script, the diaries from my play ‘The Six Marys.’

The book is on sale in The Athlone bookshop, at the back of Burgess in Lloyds Lane, or by contacting me at jeanfarrell@live.ie