The Place Book of North Kerry

Hi there. You have just arrived in Ballyduff, at rush hour. Starting from here, this site will take you on unforgettable journeys all over North Kerry.

This website is part of a much larger conglomeration of linked sites - all social networks or blogs - which explores North Kerry through music, photography, paintings, text, and video.

http.//www.bobscottnorthkerry.com

(Back to "Start Here")

(Back to Home page)

(Contact the Gallery)

Places of Pilgrimages, Shrines, and Holy Wells

This section gathers together places out of doors that are visited and held in special regard for religious reasons. They are place of peace and quiet where people gather together to pray on special occasions.


The first is an old graveyard. Although no longer in use, an outdoor mass is said every year to remember those buried here.




For me this is the most poignant place of all. Known as a Killeen, it is a place where unbaptised babies and unidentified fishermen drowned at sea were buried. The belief that these two groups could not be buried in a normal cemetery seems strange to us, but we have to understand it the context of the belief of people of their time, and in fact it was an act of love, not rejection.



The graveyard lies on the edge of the strand, at Kilmore, just north of Ballyduff, windswept and washed by the tide, the remote feeling adding to the sense of mystery, appropriate to a meeting point with the infinite.



For similar reasons towers point upwards, to a world beyond which is impossible to fully understand. This superb example of a round tower, at Rattoo, is only half a mile to the south of Ballyduff. For the monks who lived worked and prayed here, the tower was both a place of protection and refuge, and a symbol of faith.



A roadside shrine to Our Lady, at a place called Raheela Cross, also very close to my house, placed here like many others to commemorate the Eucharistic Congress.



One of the projects for the Millennium year, 2000, was the placing of this Pieta, based on the famous sculpture by Michaelangelo, in the gravyard at Raheela.



This shrine is situated at a Holy Well, in a road called Ladies' Walk, half a mile to the east of Ballyduff


As with most of the places shown here, an annual mass is celebrated.



Tuber Leis is a another holy well, said to have been visited by St. Bridget.




The well is a few yards in front of the statue, crucifix, and grotto, on the other side of the road.

(Back to "Start Here")

(Back to Home page)

(Contact the Gallery)

Tree sculptures - Listowel

The main town of North Kerry is Listowel, about nine miles from Ballyduff. One of its hidden gems, is this group of sculptures, put here by someone as a memorial to a loved relative. The place is accessible to the public, near the golf course, but unless you know where they are, you won't find them except by a lucky accident. Maybe that was the idea.

Time for a game of golf

(Back to "Start Here")

(Back to Home page)

(Contact the Gallery)

Listowel Town

Listowel, about nine miles from Ballyduff, is the only town in North Kerry (north of Tralee) . It is full of fine examples of the local building styles and has many colourful shop fronts, famous for their painted plaster decorations. Surrounded by small villages, it is interesting to compare these styles with the domestic architecture of the rest of the area. Listowel would have been the venue for the whole area for shopping and market-day until recently.

Entering the town from the north



Brian McMahon, a teacher and writer, was the principal author whose work established Listowel as a literary centre, still celebrated in the annual Listowel Writer's Week.



The church in the centre of the town, St. John's. This was the Church of Ireland building, but is now a flourishing arts centre, with a full programme of plays, concerts and exhibitions. The Roman Catholic Church is just a few yards away, behind it. For years the four faces of the clock showed different times. Sadly this has now been rectified.


The most exciting thing to do in Listowel is to climb to the top of the castle. Before it was restored, this was only undertaken by small boys, as a "dare", but there are now stairs all the way up to the top, and as you go up you can visit all the rooms behind the wall, in the two towers.



The town square



John B. Keane, the town's most famous author and playwright




A street in sunshine



A shop front



The Listowel races are such an important event that no work goes on in the town for their duration, as everybody is there. A distant view of the whole town can be seen over the heads of the punters.



They have run their race, fought the good fight, and the town of Listowel looks on.

(Back to "Start Here")

(Back to Home page)

(Contact the Gallery)

The Garden of Europe, Listowel

One of the big surprises in the small country town of Listowel is that a few years ago it created a "Garden of Europe" to affirm its commitment to belonging to the greater community of Europe. The garden consists of bays with different flower plantings to represent the countries that were members of what was then the E.E.C. There are also a number of important sculptures.

The best way to approach the Garden of Europe is from the path beside the river Feale, from the town bridge and the park.



A sign points out the way to go.




And here it is



The sunshine casts dappled shadows on a flight of steps




and a curving path brings us out into the open air.




An appropriately "dramatic" interpretation of the playwright John B. Keane




A commemoration of the victims of the holocaust




A monument to Schiller, the author of the "Ode to Freedom", which was used by Beethoven in his Ninth Symphony. The final movement of this work has become the anthem of the European Union




Schiller's affirmation if the universality of mankind





(Back to "Start Here")

(Back to Home page)

(Contact the Gallery)

Ropes and nets - Cashen village

The village that lies on the south bank of the river Cashen, just north of Ballyduff, used to have a thriving fishing industry. That has all but gone now, but a few men keep it going and it still has the trappings of a fishing harbour. Having already featured lobster pots, when covering the other small fishing village, Paddock, which nestles beside the quay at Meenegohane, a few miles to the south, I tried to focus more on ropes, nets, and other fishing related objects, but my obsession with lobster pots shows through, and this small collection begins and ends with them.

#
#







(Back to "Start Here")

(Back to Home page)

(Contact the Gallery)