A portrait of the county from the

A major exhibition at

IRELAND’S MUSEUM OF THE YEAR 2009 ADRAIG KENNELLY reckons that such a response. As a historian I was used to the census in he and his late wife Joan Over the years of toing and froing to a 19th-century context, where detachment photographed a quarter of the Kerry’s Eye, the newspaper that Padraig from the figures is easy because the people population of Kerry between the and Joan created in the 1970s, I was aware they represent are safely dead in the far P1950s and the 1970s. The enormous of their collection of negatives and knew distant past. Here, I myself and all response to the images since they went that the great project of digitising and belonging to me were represented in the online in 2009 suggests that the figure is cataloguing it had been started by the figures, all very much alive, and so no such actually much higher than this. next generation of camera-happy hands-off attitude was possible. All of life is here, from the formal events Kennellys. The first major shock was to discover the that mark big days like weddings and As time went on I caught more glimpses lack of basic facilities in Kerry even as late christenings, to news stories, sporting of the photographs as they were being as 1971. The enormous project of bringing The demise of the goose

occasions, festivals, famous visitors, right processed, and I began to realise that they electricity to Irish homes had begun in the down to casual, everyday scenes. People could form the basis of a fascinating (and other late 1940s, and by 1961 electricity had didn’t have their pictures taken that often exhibition. Rounded out with some arrived in almost all of urban Kerry and in back then, and so the appearance of this contextual information, the images would nearly three-quarters of rural homes. young couple with a camera offering to give a really full and rich impression of changes in At the same time, though, most of rural take a snap of them going about their what life was like in Kerry during those Kerry still did not have running water daily business was a novelty. years. The idea developed into a decision to Kerry life inside the house, nor a bath or any toilet “Half cracked” is how this intrepid pair mount an exhibition at the Museum, using facilities whatsoever. of snappers would have been labelled, and the photographs to explore the social Water had to be fetched and carried rightly so because there is something history of the county. since the from a pump, well or stream, often at a joyously crazy about the extravagant use Fired with enthusiasm, I began my distance from the house. It was regarded as of expensive film on a scene as ordinary as research with the census of population. women’s responsibility and more than someone standing at the sink doing the Because I was born here in the 1960s I had 1950s) anything else contributed to the drudgery washing-up. a pretty good idea of what life was like in of life on the farm. Even though it was the The truth is that they took photographs Kerry in this period, through direct Curator Helen O’Carroll single greatest labour saving like this for the sheer hell of it. Regardless experience and from family lore. Or so I device in the home, piped water of whether they would later print or sell thought. reflects on her personal did not get the same priority as them, they snapped away if something After an hour or two with the census it electricity. caught their fancy when they were out began to dawn on me that all I had were a journey of discovery It was left to the Irish mooching around the county. Instinctively lot of half-formed memories that bore no Countrywomen’s Association while researching the they understood that it’s the little details relation to the world depicted by the to lead the campaign for that often give a greater sense of what figures. This was something I resisted for a background statistics for running water, a battle that faced people are like rather than the large public while, going as far as re-calculating some opposition from the National Farmer’s set pieces like weddings and official of the totals on the off-chance that Kerry County Museum’s Association who feared that it would lead openings. This is why the images are so someone in the Central Statistics Office to higher rates. The situation had only valuable now and why they have evoked had made a mistake all those years ago. latest exhibition slightly improved by 1971, when just over

2 KERRY LIVES 1950-73 KERRY LIVES 1950-73 3 half of rural homes now had running water numbers. in those years, a percentage that sent me new; it had existed since the foundation of inside, but over two-thirds still had no bath Poultry was always a source of income scuttling back to the census to re-calculate the State and, indeed, it continues to this or shower, and incredibly half still had no for the women of the farm, and most farms the rate of emigration to make sure it day. A new spin on an old story is that now toilet facilities whatsoever. It would would have had not only hens but some wasn’t wrong. The majority not only left the State has done its duty by providing take until the early 1980s for ducks, geese and turkeys. As women began the county they also left the country, today’s generation with the educational rural living standards to to leave the land, poultry numbers in Kerry mainly for Britain and for the United skills to get good jobs overseas. match urban. went into free-fall with the hen population States. In the land of denial this is true: the Agog and aghast, I began alone dropping by two-thirds between 1951 Most were still in their teens when they young people today are leaving with to question those around and 1973. There was decimation in the left, boys and girls rather than men and university degrees, rather than the primary me: for my parents’ turkey and duck population, and with a women. In fact, over half of the teenagers school certs of the 1950s and ’60s. generation this did not come 95% drop, geese all but disappeared. in the county left during the 1950s, most of Therefore, in comparison with our as news, but those of my own Horse and pig numbers were also on the them with only a primary school education. predecessors, we have done an excellent age and younger shared my decline, and eventually the cacophony of Before the introduction of free secondary job educating our young people for incredulous reaction. The fact that running sounds on a small farm changed to the emigration. water in the home was an issue for people lonely single note of the cow. within our own lifetimes, not some Women left the land in FOR ONE BRIEF moment during the recent historical time past or our parents’ greater numbers than men, economic boom, emigration was no longer childhood fadó fadó, is something that we increasing the female a key stage in the life cycle of Irish men and have forgotten all about somewhere along population of the towns women, and the current generation in their the line. until it was greater than late teens and early 20s was the first to be Irish society now has more houses than the male, while overall in brought up without it as a reality. That is, we know what to do with and even the the county there were more men than school in 1967 almost 60% of children in until now, and they are waking up to the smallest dwelling is considered incomplete women. By 1971 almost half of the men in Kerry left school at 14. While many went on painful realisation that we as a people without at least two bathrooms. Is this their 30s and 40s in rural Kerry were still to do very well and even flourish, there have always tolerated emigration as a because builders, developers and house single, nearly double that of town men of were some for whom success was a fiction useful solution to our problems. buyers grew up in houses where there the same age. they told at home to hide the truth of a In many ways we are now back at the were none at all? Does this explain why we In previous generations, the son now think it necessary to have a bathroom earmarked to inherit the farm was each for everyone in the house? considered the favourite. Now he was often In the 25 years between 1946 and 1971 The lack of basic facilities played a seen as the unlucky one, on a farm he significant part in the decline in rural couldn’t call his own, struggling at a staggering 39,167 people left Kerry Ireland. In the 1950s over half of the farms subsistence level and caring for his aged in Kerry were below 30 acres, and parents. agriculture accounted for two-thirds of the His chances of attracting a wife were lonely life of exile. In their own ways they same place as the generation in the 1950s, workforce. Teenagers over the age of 14 limited because there were so few women were as trapped as their bachelor farmer with the same sense of economic failure working on the family farm were left of marriageable age. A lonely bachelor brothers. and the same sense of being at a considered to be gainfully occupied in life was his fate, trapped by the central Women emigrated in equal and crossroads. In the 1960s we chose the way agriculture, and officially categorised as tenet of rural life that the family farm must sometimes greater numbers to men. They of a bright, modern, industrialised, “assisting relatives”. But in reality the work be held onto regardless of the cost to the were depicted as flighty featherheads urbanised Ireland. This is the world we live was unpaid and the young began to leave individual. His brothers and sisters influenced by films and magazines to in now only it is no longer so alluring. It is the land to find paid work and better living emigrating to London and Birmingham, harbour unrealistic expectations of life. too late to go back and, in fact, looking conditions elsewhere. Boston and New York must have seemed Presenting emigration as a lifestyle choice closely at it, I for one certainly wouldn’t The labour-intensive small farms which like the lucky ones. rather than a necessity deflected attention want to. There were many things about produced a little bit of everything began to In the 25 years between 1946 and 1971 a away from the economic realities that Ireland in the 1950s that were unjust, change as a result, and that change can be staggering 39,167 people left Kerry. This caused so many young men and women to unfair, and downright frightening. charted through the drop in poultry means that Kerry lost 29% of its population leave. This denial about emigration was not For instance, the interweaving of Church

4 KERRY LIVES 1950-73 KERRY LIVES 1950-73 5 and State, to the extent that it was Joseph’s in for girls and junior myth, it always has been, and deep down existed beyond the realms of fantasy. impossible to see one without the other. boys. While the State funded the schools we’ve always known that. Many struggled to find a basic standard of We can see the weave now, as the and operated an inspection system The adults of the 1950s had known as living in the rural Ireland that actually relationship unravels, but back then the through the Department of Education, in children the practice of the priest reading existed and were relieved to leave it intertwining was so tight that even if one reality it abdicated its responsibility for the from the pulpit the amounts contributed behind. And now the lustre has faded on wanted to, it would have been difficult to children and handed total control to the by each parishioner to the parish dues – an the bright new world that replaced it. know where to unpick it. Church. annual and public reminder of where you With a few honourable exceptions, most Almost the entire population of the Though the harshness of life in the stood on the socio-economic scale. of the exciting new factories that opened county was Catholic in 1971, as it had been schools was generally recognised at the Although that practice had largely died in Kerry during the 1960s have long since twenty years earlier. Attendance at mass time, corporal punishment at home and out by the 1950s, the class divisions that it closed, leaving behind increasingly empty was very nearly universal, and participation school was an accepted part of life and delineated still held. Everyone knew their industrial estates on the edges of our in the rituals of the Church calendar was people enquired no further. They went no place in the pecking order, and towns. We are learning the hard way that an integral part of the fabric of life. further also because it would have meant unfortunately for them, the the announcement of a new An air of excitement and fresh energy challenging the Church’s authority and children in the industrial factory is not the cure-all and arrived with the Second Vatican Council in that authority was felt as absolute at schools were right down at the does not bring the same bottom. promises for the future that it once did. It is time to pause Participation in the rituals of the THANKFULLY the industrial and get our bearings. school system is now long gone, This exhibition of Church calendar was an integral but we cannot congratulate photographs gives us a ourselves that we have slain all chance for reflection. part of the fabric of life of the monsters. These have Given the mess we are all in merely changed shape and our now, it is tempting to 1965. Perhaps its longest-lasting legacy was the time. way of dealing with vulnerable children on sentimentalise them as portraits of a that it encouraged people to think for People took refuge from what they the margins of society has not improved reassuringly safe place where public trust themselves more. This allowed for a more suspected went on in those institutions by very much: it is different but not all that had not been betrayed and everyone still questioning faith than one which had telling themselves that it was the culture much better. believed in the pillars of the State. The previously relied on obedience and of the time and something that everyone As the 1950s wore on it was clear that problem with sentimentality is that it acceptance. It was a gradual but went through to a greater or lesser extent. the country was stagnating and the brings with it a rose-tinted vision of the fundamental shift, and it was only in the The Ryan Report , however, finally exposed economy stalled. The Programme for past and edits out the inconvenient truths. following decades that its full implications this as a fairy tale people told themselves Economic Expansion in 1958, followed by Padraig and Joan Kennelly were not began to be felt. to keep the monsters at bay. Seán Lemass’s accession as Taoiseach in working for the John Hinde Company; they In the meantime, respect for and In relentless detail it revealed a system 1959, kick-started a process of were not taking photographs of an deference to the authority of the clerical of sadistic brutality and sexual abuse transformation. idealised, picture-postcard land of thatched authority remained steadfast, buttressed inflicted on children in industrial schools Free trade and the active encouragement cottages and cute red-haired children. by a State unwilling to disentangle itself that was way beyond the accepted norms of foreign investment Instead they took photographs of the from the Curch. The dark side of this of any civilised society. The monsters, it opened the country up world around them, one in the midst of symbiotic relationship is still casting a turned out, were far worse than anyone and got the economy profound change, and one abounding with shadow, with the appalling revelations could have imagined. going again. There inconvenient truths. about the industrial school system The children in the industrial schools had was a very real sense To appreciate the real value of these articulated officially in the Ryan Report of the misfortune to be born into families of the country moving wonderful images we need to understand May 2009. that were at the lowest tier of a society from the rural idyll envisaged the world depicted in them. Otherwise we Children on the margins of society found structured on class division. We have by Eamon de Valera to a modern, urban will see them only as snapshots from an themselves incarcerated in industrial always liked to think of ourselves as a world. But that simple rural society of cosy almost exotic time and place that has schools, such as St Joseph’s for boys and classless society and that the only divisions home-steads, sturdy children, athletic nothing to do with our lives today. Nazareth House for girls in , and St are between rural and urban, but this is a youths and comely maidens had never – HELEN O’CARROLL 2010

6 KERRY LIVES 1950-73 KERRY LIVES 1950-73 7 The green, green grass of home…

In the 1950s, life in Kerry was defined by farming, as it had been for A touch of glamour at the Ploughing generations. The fundamental belief central to this rural society was that the Championships – family farm must be held onto, regardless of the cost to the individual. But January 1956 Ireland’s agriculture-based economy was running out of steam, and young men and women saw no future in a world characterised by rural poverty and frugal living. They left in their thousands to build lives off the land.

Labour intensive small farms, with a little bit of everything, began to decline

1950 1973

FARMS 25%

AGRICULTURAL WORKERS 50%

DAIRY COWS 50% The land no longer BULLS 50% “can support the same population and the SHEEP 50% surplus must leav e” HORSES 75% Monsignor Donal Reidy, Dean of Kerry, 1955 PIGS 50%

HENS 66%

DUCKS 90%

GEESE 95% A farmer and his children harvest the onion crop TURKEYS 85% in West Kerry – September 1963

8 KERRY LIVES 1950-73 KERRY LIVES 1950-73 9 Farmers from a co-op in Brandon pick new potatoes for the Dublin market – April 1964 Father and son plough the land – January 1961 Mrs B O’Shea, – December 1955

My Countrywomen awake, arise Farmers’ wives and children under the Large families were common, and age of 14 were not officially counted as multiple pregnancies combined with the Your work begins anew, part of the workforce employed in harsh realities of farming life aged many And oh! My friends, there’s plenty yet agriculture, even though farming de- women prematurely. Consciously or For Irishwomen to do manded the labour of the whole family. unconsciously their daughters inherited Mrs Kit Ahern, President Irish a desire to lead a different way of life. Countrywomen’s Association, in a poetic New In the 1950s farming relied on methods Year’s greeting to her members, 1962 that were fast becoming outdated in the face of mechanisation. The great project of rural electrification began the slow process of modernisation on the farm.

10 KERRY LIVES 1950-73 KERRY LIVES 1950-73 11 Water water everywhere…

By 1971 the vast majority of urban and rural homes in Co Kerry had Water on tap at a house in Tralee – electricity. But the flick of a switch did not fulfil all of the promises of November 1954 modernity and many houses in rural Kerry still lacked basic facilities. A tap inside and a toilet, either inside or out, did not exist in half of the homes in the countryside. It would take another ten years for rural living standards to match their urban neighbours.

Percentage of Kerry homes with basic facilities in 1971

ELECTRICITY INDOOR TAP FIXED BATH OR FLUSH TOILET (INDOOR NO TOILET OF ANY SHOWER OR OUTDOOR) DESCRIPTION

TOWNS 99% 95% 72% 97% 2% Young ladies of

RURAL 88% 52% 32% 43% 50% th“e country: make it known that there will It was a woman’s responsibility to keep the house be no more marriages supplied with water, which was drawn from a until there is hot and pump, well or stream. Even though it was the single cold water on tap in greatest labour saving device in the home, piped the kitche n” water did not get the same priority as electricity. The Irish Countrywomen’s Association led the James Dillon, Minister for Agriculture, 1950 campaign for running water – but met opposition from the National Farmers’ Association who feared that it would lead to higher rates.

Stoking the fire at a cottage near Kells – March 1958

12 KERRY LIVES 1950-73 KERRY LIVES 1950-73 13 A meeting of the ICA in Tralee. Kit Ahern from , On a farm in – November 1958 Women at work in Traly Footwear Factory, The Basin, Tralee – September 1959 President of the Association, is on the right – January 1964

In one farmer’s house the only girl is gone leaving Teenagers who worked on the family The number of women employed in farm were considered to be gainfully manufacturing in Kerry doubled “father and son to carry on; in another farmer’s house, occupied in agriculture, and officially between 1951 and 1971. The female four girls are gone and the fifth and last one talking categorised as “assisting relatives”. population of the county’s towns of going – where will a farmers’ son find a wife?” In most cases, though, the work was was greater than the male by 1971, unpaid and the sons and daughters as women left the land in larger Michael Walsh, Knocknagoshel, , writes to Taoiseach John A Costello, 1955 of the countryside began to leave the numbers than men. In rural Kerry in land to find paid work elsewhere. 1971 almost half of the men in their 30s and 40s were still single, the majority destined to remain so.

14 KERRY LIVES 1950-73 KERRY LIVES 1950-73 15 A couple at the Emigrants’ Dance in St John’s Parish Hall Trains, boats and (CYMS) in Tralee – planes… December 1959

Emigration touched every aspect of life in Kerry in the 1950s and 1960s. The county emptied of young men and women, who left for the larger towns and cities of Ireland, for America, but mainly for Britain. Most were still in their teens when they left, boys and girls rather than men and women. As the economy picked up from the mid 1960s onwards, the rate of emigration slowed, and some of these emigrants returned home with their young families in the 1970s.

Emigration numbers: = 1,000 people

1951-56 8,865 Passengers embarking at Dublin Airport – September 1954 1956-61 9,277

1961-66 6,522

1966-71 2,650 Our standards must In 20 years Kerry lost 22% of its population 27,314 “approximate to British standards, or our 57% of 6th class pupils in 1951 – six out of ten – left people will g o” Kerry before their 22nd birthday Seán Lemass, Minister for Industry Many contemporary commentators insisted that and Commerce, 1957 emigration was a choice rather than a necessity. Women, who emigrated in equal numbers to men, were depicted as flighty featherheads who had been encouraged by films and magazines to harbour unrealistic Amount sent home by Irish emigrants in1961: £13,500,000 expectations of life. This viewpoint deflected attention away from the Amount spent by Irish Goverment on primary and secondary education in 1961: £14,100,000 economic realities that caused so many young men and women to leave.

16 KERRY LIVES 1950-73 KERRY LIVES 1950-73 17 We see in the proposed “industrialisation of Kerry the solution to emigration ” Fr Peter Scott, Tralee, after a visit to the Imhauser factory in Olpe, Germany, 1960

All dressed up for the ‘Yanks’ Ball’ in , so-called because the dance Hard at work in the Liebherr factory in A Liebherr crane in action, loading a ship at was held in honour of emigrants home on holidays – August 1958 Killarney – April 1960 Pier – May 1970

Over half of the county’s teenagers left didn’t end when they left: the duty to fiction they told at home to hide the opened the country up and got the during the 1950s. Having only a send money back was taken very truth of a lonely life of exile. economy going again. minimum of education, many of them seriously. Many households in Kerry were destined for work in building sites, depended heavily on the regular arrival As the 1950s wore on, it was clear that One of the first, as well as the most factories and shops. They followed in the of cash from America and Britain. the country was stagnating and the enduring, to take advantage of the new well-worn paths of previous generations. economy stalled. The Programme for strategy was the German crane Long-established networks in America To return a success was every emigrant’s Economic Expansion in 1958, followed by manufacturing firm, Liebherr. Locating and Britain helped the newly-arrived to desire, but an annual trip home was Seán Lemass’s accession as Taoiseach in his engineering works in Killarney, Hans find jobs and places to stay. usually the most that could be managed. 1959, kick-started a process of Liebherr had a major impact on Kerry, While many did indeed flourish, there transformation. Free trade and the active developing tourism as well as industry. Their responsibility to home and family were some for whom success was a encouragement of foreign investment

18 KERRY LIVES 1950-73 KERRY LIVES 1950-73 19 Faith of Our Fathers…

Almost the entire population of the county was Catholic in 1971 as it had been A young girl photographed for her First twenty years earlier. Attendance at mass was very nearly universal, and Holy Communion participation in the rituals of the Church calendar was an integral part of the – May 1957 fabric of life. Most of the country’s schools and many of the hospitals were run by the Church and the parish was the cornerstone of society. Respect for and deference to the authority of the Church remained steadfast.

97.1% population of Kerry recorded as Catholics in 1971

Number of parishioners per priest in the Diocese of Kerry: = 100 people We Irish Catholics h“ave shown ourselves 1950 1,057 : over-tame in our reaction to the 1970 impudent attempts to 890 : wean us from the faith of our father s” Rev Benedict O’Sullivan, OP, Prior Holy Cross Tralee, 1953 Number of nuns in the Diocese of Kerry: = 50 nuns

1950 672

1970 610 Cardinal Browne is given an enthusiastic welcome in Tralee during his visit to the Dominican Priory – August 1962

20 KERRY LIVES 1950-73 KERRY LIVES 1950-73 21 The Corpus Christi Procession in Tralee Bishop of Kerry, Dr Denis Moynihan (left), and Canon Boys from St Joseph’s Industrial School, Tralee. Run by the Christian Brothers, – June 1955 TJ Lyne in on Confirmation Day – May 1957 the school was known locally as the Monastery – April 1955

The Second Vatican Council in 1965 The major impact of Vatican II was Children on the margins of society found industrial schools that was outside the brought an air of excitement and change that it encouraged people to think for themselves incarcerated in state-funded, accepted norms of any civilised society. to the Catholic Church. An immediate themselves. This allowed for a more Church-controlled industrial schools. and major change was that mass was questioning faith than one which had While the harshness of these now celebrated in English rather than previously relied on obedience and institutions was generally recognised at Parents should impress on Latin, and the priest no longer stood acceptance. It was a gradual but the time, corporal punishment at home “their children the great with his back to the congregation. The fundamental shift, and it was only in and school was an accepted part of life enormity of sin” strict restrictions on the way nuns lived the following decades that its full and most people enquired no further. Dr Denis Moynihan, Bishop of Kerry, on were also relaxed – they were allowed implications began to be felt. The Ryan Report of 2009, however, Confirmation Day in St John’s, Tralee – 1959 to leave the convent, for example, and exposed a level of sadistic brutality and visit their families. sexual abuse inflicted on children in

22 KERRY LIVES 1950-73 KERRY LIVES 1950-73 23 The best days of your life…

Up until 1967, secondary school in Ireland was available only to those A pupil at Boy’s School –May 1955 whose family could afford to pay for it. The majority of children left school at 14 to find their way in the world, either at home or abroad, with only a primary level education. The introduction of free secondary school in 1967 opened up opportunities previously denied to thousands of children. Within four years, the majority of young people leaving school in Kerry were equipped with a second-level education.

Percentage of 14 to 19 year-olds in education: = 500 pupils

1951 22% of boys There are thousands 27% “of schools which can 32% of girls only be classified, I am sorry to admit, 1961 35% of boys as hovel s” 41% Donogh O’Malley, Minister for 48% of girls Education, 1967

1966 49% of boys 48% 53% of girls

1971 55% of boys 59% 65% of girls Boys and girls at a national school in West Kerry – March 1955

24 KERRY LIVES 1950-73 KERRY LIVES 1950-73 25 One of the dry toilets in National Sr Immaculata (left) and Mother Bernadette with their pupils A world of education, Caherciveen Secondary School – April 1958 School – January 1968 in Presentation Convent School, Tralee – December 1955

In rural areas a significant number of one- The inheritors of your At second level, education was firmly In 1965 an OECD report, Investment in and two-teacher national schools were divided between the fee-paying Education, highlighted the inadequacies housed in 19th century buildings with “revolution, Minister, secondary schools and the free and inequalities in the Irish education basic heating and primitive sanitary have been rewarded vocational system. Secondary school system. The report led to an increased facilities. Pupils were taught through Irish, with squalor ” pupils followed an academic programme spending in this area and encouraged a but there was a subtle shift in emphasis Bryan MacMahon, author and teacher, that led to the Intermediate and Leaving number of reforms aimed at giving in the 1960s to the teaching of oral Irish in a meeting with Richard Mulcahy, Certificates. Practical and technical more people access to education. The that allowed English to be used for other Minister for Education, 1950 subjects were taught in vocational educational landscape was beginning subjects. schools and pupils were restricted to a to change, although access to third two year course culminating in the Day level remained the final frontier for Group Cert. several more decades.

26 KERRY LIVES 1950-73 KERRY LIVES 1950-73 27 Seize the day…

Money was tight and leisure time scarce but people made the most of Kerry footballer Mick O’Dwyer at a training every bit of what they had. They were multi-taskers out of necessity long session – before the term was coined and recyclers of practically everything as a September 1970 matter of course. Life was enjoyed to the full and all the more so because it required a level of creativity, inventiveness and ingenuity.

Average weekly industrial wage in today’s euro equivalent

€368 £36.96p €313 £27.11p €245 £17 1s 8d €177 €183 €153 £9 6s 3d €152 £18.69p The arrival of the £5 8s 1d €120 £13.12p fi“ve-day week and the € €87 99 £8 8s many labour-saving £5 4s £3 1s 6d devices poses for this generation the challenge of leisur e” Senator Kit Ahern – 1965 1950 1960 1968 1971 1973

Number of cars on Kerry roads: = 1,000 vehicles

1951 2,286

1961 A group of football 6,099 supporters on their way to the Munster Final in 1971 Cork stop for some tubs 13,599 of ice-cream after fixing a puncture – August 1959

28 KERRY LIVES 1950-73 KERRY LIVES 1950-73 29 Enjoying a day at the races in Ballybeggan, Tralee – September 1959 A couple at a dance in the CYMS Hall in Capturing the Puck Goat on the slopes of Tralee – December 1961 Carrantuohill – August 1962

Football and Kerry are inextricably linked Festivals and fairs added colour to life People who dance till Dancing was a national passion – there but a myriad of other sporting interests during the summer, and two of the best was a dancehall for every 1,500 people in also vied for people’s attention. Huge known took place in Kerry every August. “two or three in the morning the country. Although the Bishop of crowds turned out for cycle races such Puck Fair, one of the oldest fairs in the are not fit for a day’s work Kerry insisted in the mid 1950s that as the Rás Tailteann, for coursing country, continued to attract crowds to which begins three or four dances should end no later than meetings, swimming galas and many . A new arrival, the Rose of hours later” midnight, this did not deter his flock. more events that have now faded from Tralee, grew out of a carnival held in the There were 830 dances in the Tralee area the sporting calendar. town every August, and from 1959 began Justice Johnson, dealing with dance hall alone in 1955, not including all those held exemptions at Tralee District Court, 1956 to establish an international reputation. in parish halls such as the CYMS.

30 KERRY LIVES 1950-73 KERRY LIVES 1950-73 31 A partnership of passion and photography

In 1955 Padraig Kennelly was a newly qualified pharmacist dutifully working in the family business in Tralee, but his real passion was photography. He operated a photo processing service through the pharmacy and it was there that he met Joan O’Connor, back home in Kerry for Christmas in 1955. Joan had been in Spain for four years, teaching English to Spanish airline pilots, and arrived in the pharmacy

The intrepid pair travelled the length and breadth of Kerry, photographing everything from news stories, to formal events and right down to casual everyday scenes

to have her photographs of bull-fighting developed. A relationship quickly blossomed and they were engaged at Easter and married in July 1956. With energy and imagination, Padraig and Joan began to make a livelihood out of doing what they loved best – taking Creating an archive for pictures. Their career together embraced local, national and international press future generations photography, as well as a postcard- Padraig and Joan took over 600,000 pictures publishing business and television news between 1953 and 1973. All of the negatives were work. In 1974 they established a local carefully filed and stored, and the Kennelly newspaper, Kerry’s Eye, a publication that Archive was set up in 2007 to convert these into is still going strong today under the high-quality digital images. To date, over 150,000 stewardship of the next generation. Joan images have been processed using the latest died at Christmas 2006 but Padraig imaging technology and are now accessible continues the work they began all those online, allowing this record of life in Kerry to be years ago, capturing life in Kerry on shared with future generations. camera. www.kennellyarchive.com

32 KERRY LIVES 1950-73