Literary and Historical Tour

Listowel Writer's Week is a great event, but we only participated in one thing - the bus tour. Carolyn Gouge Critcher was with us that week - you'll see and hear more about her in subsequent posts. We all enjoyed the tour and learned a lot.

The first stop was a monument - we had to trek over hill and dale to get to it. It is the site of an atrocity in 1921 - the British Black & Tans murdered (we take the Irish perspective) some IRA men in cold blood - a fifth man escaped. Amazingly, the father of a man with us on the tour was the one who found and rescued the survivor - talk about first person!! A priest (shown in the group shot) gave a little history about the event.

The tale: On the 12th of May 1921,four members of the North Kerry flying column met at Gortaglanna.Con Dee,Paddy Dalton,Paddy Walsh and Jerry Lyons talked at the bridge for about half an hour when they were surprised by a Black and Tan patrol of three lorries.
They were searched for arms but they were all found to be unarmed.Con Dee was accused of having shot sir Arthur Vicars.All four volunteers were interrogated and badly beaten with rifles.
Dee,Walsh,Lyons and Dalton were lined up against a fence with a Tan in front of each of them.The Tan in front of Con Dee hesitated and the Ballylongford man jumped the fence and ran.He was shot in the thigh but still managed to escape. Con Dee stayed true to the Republican cause and fought against the Free State in the Civil War. (By the way, Con Dee emigrated to the US and died in the '60's in Chicago).

We continued to the village of Knockanure and visit the unique church, designed by one of Ireland’s most distinguished architects, Michael Scott. This is a very modern church - unusual in Ireland. We had a concert - gorgeous a Capella singing by Sean Ahern, brother of Pat Ahern who founded Siamsa Tire, the traditional Irish theatre in Tralee as well as several other musicians.

Our tour took us through the village of Moyvane, home of writers’ Gabriel Fitzmaurice and John Moriarty and the townland of Lenamore to the village of Ballylongford, where we visited Carrigafoyle Castle. This is a very well-preserved and interesting castle at the mouth of the Shannon - the owners made a good living confiscating goods from boats that could not pay the duty as they entered the Shannon. We had a concert by the traditional music group who had played at the church - very nice in the castle! Carolyn and I ventured up (6 or 7 stories)!We finished our tour in Finucane’s Bar, Ballylongford where we had refreshments and were entertained by our same musicians and dancers. A nice side-light - we met a young man who is married and lives in Limerick - he is from Tulsa! His father was visiting from Claremore! This picture is the 2 of them with their son/grandson - and I wasn't really giving him Guinness - in fact it wasn't even mine- I drank tea!