Jimmy Deenihan with Darian Allen celebrating all things culinary in Listowel. Photo: Hospitality Ireland Listowel Food Fair: Tríoche Bliain ag Fás (Thirty Years a-Growing) 1995-2025,
edited by James Deenihan and Annette McElligot
(Listowel Food Fair, €20 + €4.00 p&p; email James Deenihan: info@listowelfoodfair.ie; copies locally from Woulfe’s Bookshop, 7 Church Street, Listowel)
The Listowel Food Fair was established in 1995 by a committee headed by Jimmy Deenihan. However, much of the credit for its establishment is to be given to Sheila Broderick. She was a remarkable businesswoman who, from her home at Coolnaleen on the outskirts of Listowel, ran Kerry Farmhouse Cheese.
A mother of four on a busy farm, she built her cheese business from the ground up and her cheese won many awards at home and abroad. She attended the Turin Food Fair in Italy in 1994. Also attending was Jimmy Deenihan, then Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture with special responsibility for An Bord Bia. Before they left for home, Jimmy and Sheila had decided to set up a Food Fair in their hometown.
This book was published to celebrate the success of the Listowel Food Fair, one of the longest running Food Fairs in the country.
Some of the articles concern the dairy industry and food production in North Kerry. Joe Harrington writes about the Cork Butter market, which for most North Kerry farmers was ‘a road too far’. Maurice Stack describes food production in Kerry in the twentieth century under the following headings: potatoes, economic war, veal, poultry production, pig industry, dairy industry and organic farming. Séamus Murphy emphasises the importance of ‘quality’ grass in food production. Frank Hayes, PRO Kerry Group, provides a short history of the global food-ingredients giant, which had its beginnings in Listowel.
The book includes one of Séamus Heaney’s best-known poems ‘Digging’, which he dedicated to his father. Also to enhance the publication, the editors called on the local scribblers, and they did not disappoint. Gabriel Fitzmaurice composed ‘Drinking Coffee on the Left Bank’, Brendan Kennelly came up with ‘Bread’, Bob Boland with his ‘Sonnet to a Spud’, Séan Nolan provided ‘Colcannon: The Skillet Pot’ and John Fitzgerald provided ‘Sandy’ in praise of his father and his father’s popular restaurant.
Vincent Carmody writes about Listowel native, Kathy Buckley (Kathy White House), who served as the chief cook in the White House during three presidencies. John B. Keane hails the ‘Listowel Mutton Pie’, which each year was the most popular of ‘eats’ at the Annual Harvest Festival. Bryan MacMahon and Dan Keane wax lyrical on the ‘North Kerry Food Chain’.
In a section on the highlights of former Food Fairs, most of the best-known personalities in the service and restaurant industries feature, such as Francis Brennan, Darina Allen and Nevin Maguire. The final section is a Listowel Culinary Directory. Among twenty eateries listed are Apache Pizza, Mamma Mia Pizzeria, Mr Kebab and Grill, Pad Thai Restaurant and Nanjing Chinese Restaurant.
I find this publication something of a revelation. I was born and grew up in Listowel and witnessed in the town and its vicinity some “harsh” times, even some hungry times. I am both amazed and delighted at the present-day seeming affluence and sophistication of my fellow townspeople.