Mike Healy and the ‘Moss Tommy’ Schools Project
Who decorates that butterfly The silkworm and the moth? What artist claims the wings that fly To the sweet forget-me-not? – M J Reidy[1] Mike Healy of Glenlarehan, Cordal, Castleisland was about twelve years old when he first became properly acquainted with his neighbour and lifelong friend, Maurice J Reidy (‘Moss Tommy’), the Cordal poet.[2] […]
Buried in Oblivion: ‘Unknown Scholars’ from Castleisland
In 1935, a youthful John Francis (‘Jack’) MacMahon (1908-1963), son of Patrick MacMahon and Kilkenny-born school teacher Joanna (née Caughlin) MacMahon, and brother of playwright Bryan MacMahon (1909-1998), sought information from the public about old Gaelic poets from Kerry.[1] He explained that he had been studying and annotating poetry of 18th and 19th century […]
Literary Kerry: Recent Donations to Castleisland District Heritage
Collected Essays of Con Houlihan More than a game Selected sporting essays (2003), which includes the article ‘Knocknagoshel has its own Place in Racing History,’ and A Harvest New, rare and uncollected essays (2005, 2007) by Castleisland’s Con Houlihan number among recent literary donations to Castleisland District Heritage.[1] The books contain reproductions of […]
‘Go to bed, you fools!’ – A Tribute to Fr Patrick Joseph Hartigan (1878-1952)[1]
‘He is the right settler’s poet. If he has not yet been called the Australian Kipling, he will be’ – Montrose Standard, 1922[2] This year (2021) marks the centenary of Around the Boree Log, a collection of verse by Irish-Australian poet Fr Patrick Joseph Hartigan (1878-1952) parish priest of Narrandera, New South Wales, whose […]
Tears and Smiles: Killarney Memoir has Castleisland links
Big Boys Don’t Cry, a book by Ted O’Shea of Muckross, Co Kerry, has just been added to the archive of Castleisland District Heritage.[1] The work provides information on O’Shea genealogy with interesting links to the Ahern family of Castleisland. It traces how the author’s great grandfather, James O’Shea, went as a teenager to […]
Stinking Soup and Sausages: Life in a Kerry Seminary in the 1960s
Urinating in the priests’ milk jug in the early hours of the morning shows a certain level of bravado among the male boarders of St Andrew’s seminary, the subject of the short, succinct Sausages for Tuesday. It also displays, however, an inordinate level of resentment. Sausages for Tuesday, a book by Patrick Kennelly, schoolteacher […]
Céad Míle Fáilte Penang: A 1970s Cultural Exchange
In one of his collections of essays and poetry, Rays of Cheer (1978), Castleisland’s M J Reidy – otherwise Moss Tommy – gave space to an essay by one of his supporters and admirers, educationalist and music composer, Puan Katijah Tan Guat Bee, of Penang, an island off the coast of Malaysia. Katijah’s essay, […]
Romantic Hidden Kerry
Michael O’Donohoe studied T F O’Sullivan’s Romantic Hidden Kerry (1931), a rare find on the second-hand bookshelves today, and wrote his own useful index to its content. In this document are entries such as Ginkle besieging Limerick in 1691, and Capt John Zouche at Dun an Oir in 1580. The collection also contains a small number […]
Kerry Historian: T M Donovan
Michael’s collection contains many references to A Popular History of East Kerry (1931) by T M Donovan and includes Michael’s own handwritten index thereto (IE MOD-74-74.2), notes on the content of the book, genealogical notes on Donovan and a copy of an article by Donovan (IE MOD-74-74.5) published in the Westminster Review in 1902. It is clear Michael […]
Kerry Historian: Jeremiah King
As a researcher of Kerry history, Michael O’Donohoe took a natural interest in those of like mind who preceded him, including Kerryman Jeremiah King (1868-1927) or Diarmat Mac Conroi of Catair Conroi as he preferred to style himself. Michael’s collection includes notes on Jeremiah King’s book, County Kerry Past & Present which he studied […]
