Excerpts from:

Limerick And The Art Of Storytelling.

by Gerard Hannan.

Limerick's Bards, Fablers And Yarn Spinners And The Art Of Local Storytelling.

From malicious saints to broomakers to drunken ladies, ghostly bells to murdered colleens and on to tales of espionage to 'Gurky' and a couple real Limerick blaguards.

'This typifies Limerick…It has never divorced itself from the past; and the songs and stories of it's olden glories for ever vibrate through the air. Thus it is that, under the light that glows softly from a porcelain bowl and sitting at a gas-fire, the citizen of today tells his children the same old charming legends that were told by his ancestors a thousand years ago in the smoky glare of a bog-wood fire. Unhappy indeed is the man who cannot sometimes laugh at himself, and lost is the community that may not wither its follies with the God-given gift of humor. Whatever else it may lack, Limerick is richly endowed with this saving grace.'
A. J. O'Halloran.

Chapter One

Curses, Brooms, Ghosts, Death & War : The Storytellers come to life

Stories come and stories go but the better ones last forever. They seem to get less believable and more sensational with every telling but have no doubt Limerick has many such immortal stories.

Not only do they live everlastingly, but like a good wine, with the passage of time, they grow old gracefully but retain a unique elegance that lasts for all of time. With almost every retelling some new little piece is added and as the centuries pass the stories move slowly but surely from yarn to myth and from myth to legend. Take, for example, one of Limerick's most famous stories; the legend of the patriot saint of Limerick known best by the title of the 'Curse of Saint Munchin.'

The notorious Saint Mainchin - 'the little monk', whether that was his Irish name or just his nickname is still an unanswered question for local historians, had a serious axe to grind with the people of the city.

Put simply it is a great old yarn about the saint to be who wanted help to raise a large stone during the construction of the church of Saint Munchin. The locals, for some unknown reason but 'laziness' is what most historians will proffer, refused to help raise the stone but some foreigners came to his aid and helped him achieve his aims. When the work was complete the Bishop cursed the people of Limerick and said that from that day forward the foreigners would prosper in Limerick while the locals would endure nothing but hardship and poverty and fail at all their endeavors to accumulate wealth.

The story is immortalised by one of Limerick's most loved poetic storytellers Michael Hogan (1832-1899), better known as the 'Bard Of Thomond', when he wrote his 'Lays and Legends of Thomond.'

May ye always want something to wear,
And always want something to buy it,
And always have nothing to share,
And always have ways to supply it!
And may every pound of ye're bread,
Have the flavor of sawdust and clinkers,
While ye gang like poor gypsies to bed,
And get up in the morning, like tinkers,
With fleas dancing round ye, like goats.

Hogan, some would say was no genius but was still the quintessential Limerick storyteller and to this day much of his poetry, stories and writings are recited, read and enjoyed, not only in Limerick but all over the world.

'Limerick people have taken Michael Hogan to their hearts. He will certainly not be forgotten within the foreseeable future. Of his popularity there can be no question; it began when he was a young man writing for 'The Munster News' and it is still with us so many years after his death. Essentially he was a colorful local character with a fertile imagination and a gift for rhyme, a balladeer of distinction.'

In his essay 'The Glamour of Limerick' the author A. J. O'Halloran uses the story of the famous curse to elaborate on the skill of Limerick storytelling when he cries out to his readers to 'witness Limerick's oldest legend, which, bubbling with laughter, relates that fifteen-hundred years ago its earliest bishop and patron saint roundly cursed all who would first see the light of day therein, because his fellow contemporary citizens would not help him to build a church. So it is that, to this day, on account of Saint Munchin's curse, no Limerickman ever prospers in his native city.'

'May the strangers henceforward,' he cried,
In Limerick fast prosper and flourish;
While like the bad froth of the tide,
The natives will dwindle and perish,
With plenty of nothing to do.'

Ask any failed entrepreneur, businessman, writer, artist, actor or layperson in Limerick why his or her plans or schemes for prosperity never worked out and you could very well be told that it has something to do with the famous curse.

'Thus, from that day to this, 'tis well known,
How strangers in Limerick are thriving;
While the natives all backward are thrown,
Or headlong to ruin are driving!
Och, troth, 'twas a very droll stone,
To cause them so bitter a luncheon;
Filched, fleeced, starved, and stripped to the bone,
By the curse of the blessed Saint Munchin.'

But, say what you will about the tale of the 'Curse', real or unreal, true or untrue, if nothing else, it's one great Limerick story that still inspires many a local poet and storyteller to pick up the pen or spin the immortal yarn.

Since those words were spoken that church was built,
Ages have passed and gone,
But a cloud hangs over the city yet,
And all men sorrowing own,
How here towns-folk have often no dinner to eat,
While strangers two courses for luncheon;
And how we witness in every street,
Sad signs of the curse of St. Munchin.
A.S.O'B.

An equally great story is the tale about the Clareman who was 'fortunate' enough to be the first across Thomond Bridge into Limerick at a time when Limerick Corporation couldn't decide who should be Mayor and the decision had been made that the first man to cross that bridge would be given the honour.

Saint Munchin's story is equal only to the story of the man known as 'Shawn-a-Scoob', the immortal broommaker, who 'dazed by his rapid transition from the humble toil of heather gathering to the dignity of Limerick's mayoral chair, grew so overbearingly forgetful of his past that he failed to recognise his own wife.'

As with most goods stories it was only a question of time before the yarn would be spun in verse. The story of 'Shawn-a-Scoob' was celebrated in fictionalised rhyme by 'The Bard' but has it's foundations in absolute fact.

'When Limerick thought of the formation
Of that blest tribe, the Corporation,
The devil's anglers went about
To fish the gypsy truckler's out.
From the back lanes, nooks, alleys, holes,
Human gorillas came in shoals,
To form this heterogeneous school,
And play the scoundrel of the fool.
Of course - like every other sham,
That every day starts up to damn
The hoodwinked people of this realm
The greatest rascals took the helm.

The story goes that the city of Limerick was in crisis because the city father's through heated meeting after heated meeting had failed to elect a Mayor.

One city official came up with the very unique idea that the first man to cross Thomond Bridge at dawn on the following Saturday morning would be appointed Mayor of the city:

'My friends,' he said, 'I make a movement,
To your honors an improvement,
To leave the Mayor's legal sway,
To the next man who comes the way,
O'er Thomond Bridge, from County Clare,
Boor, beggar, let him be our Mayor!'

That man turned out to be a gentleman broom maker from Cratloe Woods in County Clare known to locals as 'Shawn-a-Scoob' or 'John of the brooms', he was making his way to the marketplace to sell his brooms and brushes.

Limerick writer Desmond O'Grady takes up the story as it should be told by any self-respecting local storyteller, 'Shawn was hardly the length of his big toe across the Bridge, innocently dreaming his way to the market and thinking his early morning thoughts when he was accosted by the entire council of city fathers.

'Lank, lean and languid was his look,
He groaned at every step he took,
Back on his poll his hat was cocked,
Seeming to curse the day 'twas blocked,
His coat to tattered shreds was gone,
As if a pitch-fork shook it on.'

'This was no small surprise for poor Shawn. Before he could draw breath and give voice to his amazement, for he knew them well enough by the rich robes of office they wore, they informed him, there and then, on that infamous but historical spot, that he was the first male human to cross Thomond Bridge that morning, and as such was therefore, as of this most solemn moment, Mayor of the city of Limerick. All that remained was the official ceremony of swearing in and taking office. And this, they assured him, would be put into effect, carried out and dispatched forthwith and without further delay.

They transported him immediately, voiceless and bewildered, to their great neoclassical granite Town Hall with its towering columns, formal façade and carriage arcade. Once there, crowded into the regality of the robing room they vested him in the official robes of scarlet and ermine, hung the historic gold chain about his rough neck and shoved the symbolic silver mace into the palm of his country paw.

'Give him the municipal robes,
Henceforth we'll have a reign of Scoobs,
Sergeants-at-mace, take off these brooms,
And then return, and take your place,
Before his Worship's platter face.'

That night, in his befuddled honour, they held celebrations all over the town with lights and colored bulbs, luminosities and brightly foreign fireworks. Meanwhile, in the office the lesser clerical cast made arrangements for Shawn's Mayoral Parade through the streets of his city on the following morning, the Sabbath, before the entire population.

Back in Cratloe Woods, in his husbandman's wattle hut, Shawn's healthy and honorable wife began to wonder what in the world had happened to Shawn that he had not shown his face home the Saturday night. She came to the crestfallen conclusion that he must have fallen foul of drinking company in the town and that they had got him so boneless drunk he could not make the road home. Or, maybe he met a young thing, flighty and easy, who had turned his head and led him heedlessly astray against his awareness. He might well, even at this very mortal moment, be lying prone and punctured in pride and pocket in a common gutter of the town or somewhere in the ditch by the side of the open road under the indifferent moon.

So, Sunday morning, when Shawn didn't show, she threw her long black shawl about her shoulders and started down the road for Limerick. When she reached and crossed Thomond Bridge, she found the entire populace abroad in the streets in festive mood and the town's entirety decorated like a dandy for a great parade.

And then the parade swung into sight.

There were marching soldiers and soldiers on jogging horseback all spit and polish, buckles, buttons and brass. There was a great brass band with whirling drumsticks and stomping band major with moustaches. There was the easy stride of the high ecclesiastical orders about the plain purpose of their own purple and gold-embroidered authority, and in the middle of all, the centre and cause of attraction, rolled the delicately sprung, open Mayoral Coach, drawn by snow white prancing horses with the Mayor himself, no less, seated within, smiling benignly and waving graciously to the cheering, flag waving people of his city.

The poor woman could hardly believe the two eyes in her head. There, regally enthroned in the upholstered amplitude of the Mayoral carriage, a dazzling smile of surprised success and well being as broad as a shark's on his pork-chop, country face, benignly waving, almost Papal like blessing the delirious throng, rigged out in scarlet and silk and ermine fur, with gold chain entangle and weighty mace in the crook of his arm, sat her one and only, larger than life, honest husband 'Shawn-a-Scoob.'

Certainly the sight gave her pause. But not for long. When reality reasserted itself, she moved. She rushed forward and out. Blind and senseless to all else about her, eyes wide and fixed on the image of himself before her, as in a trance or ecstatic transportation, she broke through the cheering throng calling, 'Shawn, Shawn!'

Then she was at his side. One hand grasped at the French-polished carriage-work, the other stretched forward in supplication.

'Shawn,' she cried, 'Don't you know me? Don't you know me at all? His attention caught by her shrill voice, his head turned a moment away from the applauding populace, his celebrating people. He looked down at her from his mayoral height. He looked deeply into her pleading eyes. His own eyes smoked. His brows arched. He raised his mayoral hand as if in benediction and the scarlet stuff of his robe fell silkily back from his rough wrist. His features set gravely. His gaze had the penetration of some powerful prince of the church.

'Shawn, Shawn. Don't you know me at all?' she cried again in her desperation. 'Get away home out of that woman,' said Shawn grandly in one breath. 'Can't you see I don't even know myself?'

The Bard, like any decent Limerick storyteller, exaggerated the tale when he suggested that the by now distinguished and noble 'Shawn-a-Scoob' not only told his irate opportunistic wife and children to go home, but actually sent them off to jail.

Sure I can see it at a glance,
When God gives people a little chance,
From poverty's black mud to grow,
Bad luck to me, devil a one they know,
Nor know themselves, ah! Shawn,
Is all your former friendship gone?
I came in here to share your weal,
And, you rogue, you order me off to jail!'.

There are many such stories, legends, tales and yarns still being told to this day in Limerick with a new twist in near every telling.

The tale christened by The Bard as that of 'Drunken Thady and The Bishop's Lady' is still being related to local children as one of Limerick's great ghost stories.

The lady in question resided in the still standing 'Bishop's Palace' on Church Street which is arguably the oldest domestic dwelling in the city. This was the official residence of the Church of Ireland Bishop's of Limerick until they moved to Henry Street in 1784. The 'Bishops Lady' is perhaps one of it's most famous residents and she too was immortalised by The Bard when he wrote his famed poem based on the celebrated story.

'There lived and died in Limerick city,
A dame of fame - Oh! What a pity,
That dames of fame should live and die,
And never learn for what or why.'

The myth is related in so many different ways for centuries in Limerick but the most popular version is that this much feared and widely hated lady was more than just a cantankerous old woman but was bitter and horrid to the absolute core.

She allegedly was a severely heavy drinker who enjoyed wild parties, long boozing sessions, the company of men and flaunting herself and her wealth to the poverty ridden God fearing Catholics of her parish. After her death, by way of penance, her spirit was sent by the angels of Heaven back to Limerick to make efforts to ensure other men and women of her ilk would change their ways or they too would be cast away from the gates of heaven.

She went about this task by scaring the living daylights out of the those who crossed the bridge in an inebriated state and the sight of her ugly evil face was enough to send a man, woman or wayward child back into the church to beg God's forgiveness for their sins. Those whom she deemed to be beyond redemption were thrown over the edge of the bridge to float forever in the frozen Shannon river.

One such person was a boozer and compulsive gambler known as 'Drunken Thady' who confronted, by way of a bet with his friends, the notorious ghost and they did battle on the bridge until he defeated her by throwing her ghost over the bridge and into the river. On her way down she grabbed the edge of the bridge and her handprint remains in that very spot to this day.

The true story of the Bishop's lady is perhaps far less dramatic than the four-hundred and forty line poem but it is the latter that forms the basis of the myth relayed in the dead of night to the children of Limerick.

One such child was Limerick author and historian Criostoir O'Flynn who takes up the story; 'The 'Bishops Lady' was so wicked that after her death her spirit was sentenced to haunt Thomond Bridge. As children, before ever we were subjected to the formal learning of poetry in school, we were privileged to hear poetry in its natural use and setting when our maternal grandmother, Mary Connolly, who lived in Crosby Row, used to quote lines by a man she called 'the Poet Hogan', whom she had known personally, to reinforce her warning that anyone who dared to try to cross Thomond Bridge too late at night, or in a less than sober condition, was in danger of being thrown into the river by the Bishop's lady - just like what happened to Drunken Thady. And when we crossed that bridge even in broad daylight, we were still subjected to the thrill of terror when our older siblings fitted our nervous fingers into the actual groove on the parapet of the bridge where the ghostly lady's hand had left its mark, so they told us.'

'Each night she roamed with airy feet,
From Thomond Bridge to Castle street,
And those who stayed out past eleven,
Would want a special guard from heaven,
To shield them with a holy wand,
From the mad terrors of her hand.'

Nothing is sacred or spared when the Limerick storyteller moves forward to speak. As the story of the 'Bishop's lady' clearly illustrates even the women of Limerick, story has it that they are the most intelligent women in the world, are not spared the rod when it comes to storytelling. Presenting yet another example of such great talent for yarn-spinning and rather patronisingly using women as an example in his book 'The Legends of Limerick' A. J. O' Halloran writes:

'Listen to the Limerickman laugh, for example, as he explains why it is that for thousands of years the ladies of Mungret have enjoyed a proverbial reputation for wisdom. How the band of foreign scholars who had established their theses in every one of Eire's famous schools, worsening in debate the most learned doctors, light heartedly faced for the University of Mungret fully anticipating a crowning victory. How the finesse of the Limerick monks countered their assurance, and the pseudo-women beetling linen on the wayside brook sent them to the right-about in abject confusion. And that is why, apart from compliments to her good looks, the most acceptable praise one can bestow on a lady is to tell her she is as wise as the women of Mungret.

Nor is the eerie or supernatural forgotten in these legends and stories. Where is the Limerickman worthy of the name who, having occasion to the Thomond Bridge late at night, does not shiver with apprehension as, passing from under the protection of the Castle walls, he beholds in every patch of shade the floating mantle and grasping hands of the Bishop's Lady, and hears in every fugitive sound the swish of her garments as she prepares to hurl him over the battlements of the bridge.

What though, in the snug security of his own fireside, he stoutly asserts that the unruly dame was long-since banished to the Red Sea. Little comfort is that to him as, in the awesome midnight gloom and with the night-winds from the Clare hills sobbing around him, he fancies it is just possible that the lady is allowed to pay a flying visit to her old haunts now and again. Does he not sigh his relief as, reaching Thomondgate, he beholds the sturdy old Treaty Stone on his left, and feels that he is under the blessed shadow of Saint Munchin's Church?

On the same bridge, but at another time, when the Summer sunset is tinting the Shannon waters to a ruby glow and the chime's of Saint Mary's or Mount Saint Alphonsus are filling the air with music - his thoughts would have winged back to another story, to the legend of the poor Italian wanderer, who, having searched the world for the bells which he had made and which had been stolen from him, heard them once again as his ship sailed up the river on such an evening - heard them but to die of joy. That legend is related magnificently in rhyme by an Anonymous local poet.

Soft shades foretold the coming of the night,
Yet goldenly on Shannon's emerald shores,
As charmed, or fallen asleep, the sunset light,
Still lingered, or as there sweet day.
Had dropped her mantle, ere she took flight.
'Up Shannon's tide a boat slow held its way,
All silent bent the boatmen to their oars,
For at their feet a dying stranger lay;
In broken accents of a foreign tongue,
He breathed fond names and murmured words of prayer;
And yearningly, his wasted arms outflung,
Grasped viewless hands and kissed the empty air.
Sudden, upon the breeze came floating down,
The sound of vesper bells from Limerick Town;
So sweet 'twould seem the holiest of chimes,
Stored up new notes amid its silent times,
Some wandering melodies from heavenly climes,
Or gathered music from the Summer hours,
As bees draw sweets from tributary flowers;
Peal followed peal, till all the air around,
Trembled in waves of undulating sound.
The dying stranger, where he gasping lay,
Heard the sweet chime and knew it ringing nigh;
Quick from his side the phantoms fled away,
And the lost soul-light kindled in his eye.
His cold hands reaching towards the shadowy shore;
'Madonna, thanks!' he cried, 'I hear the bells once more.'
And then he died.

O'Grady contends that, 'In this old city the very stones echo stories from the past - stories in which one may hear the rustling wings of the twin spirits of tears and laughter.'

Another such woman to fall victim to the storytellers is a country girl, Ellen Scanlan nee Hanly, known as 'The Colleen Bawn'. Her tragic story has become the subject of many plays, books, songs, operas, poems and stories and even a little known film.

Historian and writer Maurice Lenihan captures the mood of the story when he reports, 'Romances have been written and dramas enacted on the groundwork furnished by this terribly tragic event, which became the subject of judicial enquiry before the Right Hon. Richard Jebb (fourth Justice of the King's Bench), who, with the Hon. Henry Joy (first Sergeant), went to the Munster Circuit at that assizes. A fearful murder had been perpetrated on the 4th of the previous July, (1819) in the River Shannon, within the jurisdiction of the city and under the circumstances of the most revolting atrocity, circumstances which have awakened the indignation of every individual to whom they have become known in all parts of the world.'

The Colleen Bawn, a young peasant girl, was known throughout the length and breath of West Limerick for her extreme beauty and gentleness of ways:

'She's gentler than the turtle dove,
Her hair is brown and flowing!
Her eye is of the softest blue,
Her breath as sweet as morning dew,
Her step is lighter than the fawn,
And 'Och', she's called the Colleen Bawn.

She lived a serene and tranquil life until the day she encountered a nobleman, twenty-three year old John Scanlan, also of gentle birth who immediately fell in love with the beautiful and virtuous peasant girl but regretted his hasty decision to marry her and took her for a boatride and murdered her.

Scanlan was a person who had served in the Royal Navy as an officer and who had moved in the highest ranks of society. Ellen belonged to a grade much lower than that and hence he was inclined to get rid of her.

She was living with her uncle, one John Connery, a ropemaker, others say a shoemaker, in a small town in County Limerick, who had adopted her, when she contracted her 'ill-omened' marriage.

But the Limerick storytellers of that time, and indeed for decades afterward, loved the tale of the 'Colleen Bawn' for many reasons but mostly because of the 'rich man, poor girl' element and the doomed romance that would lead to murder and execution. Here then were all the ingredients of a sorrowful tale worthy of many a retelling until such time as fact mingled with fiction until reality became of no consequence because the story got better and better as time went on.

Lenihan elaborates on the storytellers who, through the ages, assisted through their work in the distortion of reality when he writes, 'Probably no murder ever committed has excited more attention than that of Ellen Scanlan, a fact which is chiefly owing to the treatment of her melancholy story has met with at the hands of the authors of 'The Poor Man's Daughter', a narrative in a series entitled 'Tales of Irish Life', another in the New Monthly, the beautiful novel of the truly gifted Gerald Griffin, the Collegians, and the extraordinarily successful drama of Mr. Boucicault, the 'Colleen Bawn'.

For a long time it seemed impossible to capture the murderer but in the dead of night, based on secret information, the police arrested Scanlan having prodded him with a bayonet as he hid himself in a bed of straw. His guilt was conclusively proven and Scanlan was sentenced to be hanged.

Scanlan was defended by Daniel O'Connell, the Liberator, and Mr. George Bennett. Messrs. Pennefather and Quin were Counsel for the prosecution. Scanlan, a Protestant, pleaded 'innocent' right up to his death and told the court that, 'I suffer for a crime in which I did not participate.'

There were many doubts by the local peasantry that such a nobleman as Scanlan would ever face the gallows, justice was not impartially administered and it was believed that somehow or another Scanlan would walk free.

When he pleaded that he should be taken to the place of his execution in a carriage his request was proving more and more impossible because the local livery stables owners were so appalled by his crime that they refused to cooperate.

Aubrey de Vere writes, ' A vehicle was procured from a distance on the morning of the execution, and the unhappy man entered it. On the middle of the bridge that spans a small arm of the Shannon, the horses stopped, and no efforts could induce them to go further. The crowds were more certain than ever that somehow there would be an escape; a gentleman could not be hanged. The horses plunged more and more furiously but would not advance. The murderer fell into the agony of terror. He exclaimed, 'Let me out and I will walk.' He walked to the place of his execution, and was hanged.'

There is still an old worn-out journalistic cliché knocking about on the streets of Limerick that states that you should never let the truth get in the way of a good story. For many of Limerick's storytellers it is less of a cliché and more of a rule.

After all, it's more than a story that Limerick is a city of storytellers. Some have the gift and some haven't. But the truly skilled storyteller is a rare breed.

But almost everyone, male and female, young and old, rich or poor, barristers and common labourers alike, are known to have a go.

Visit any pub, locals will tell you there is 365 of them, one for every day of the year but that's just another story, call to any public house in the city or county, overhear any conversation between two or more locals chatting at the counter, on the streets, in the public walkways or sports clubs, in the coffee shops, outside the churches, pool clubs or bingo halls, and chances are you will hear yarns so hilariously outrageous that you'll come away wondering if the entire population of the city have completely lost touch with reality.

The stories are often wickedly funny and wildly outrageous but, in most cases, expertly told in a unique soft spoken lilting accent that makes you want to listen and hang on to every comprehensible word that flows like classical music into your ears and straight to your heart.

The importance of the accuracy of the story rapidly falls to the wayside because the true Limerick storyteller performs every syllable, plays every role, speaks every part with 'Oscar' worthy precision and the words flow in pure 'Limerickese' that is breathtaking to behold.

You'll hear stories about drunken nights, bishops with girlfriends, ghosts haunting public houses, rugby players and hurlers and what they can and can't do, poor old days, rich old days, escapes from prison, run-ins with the grim-reaper, fish that got away, rich farmers with no money, doctors who don't know what they are doing, publican's watering down the whiskey, corrupt politicians, treason and treachery, scared soldiers, sailors who can't swim, shopkeepers on the fiddle, singers with no voice, teachers who scare the 'shite' out of children, priests who give hard penance, journalists who don't know their arse from their elbow, and a million-and-one reasons why Limerick is not what it used to be because nothing is sacred anymore.

There is absolutely no shortage of material.

Just pick the subject and any Limerickman worth his salt can and will spin the golden yarn to the point where accuracy is of no real consequence because, if indeed exactitude were to creep in, the chances are the anecdote wouldn't be worth the effort.

While this may be true of the 'verbal storytellers' it certainly is a rule that is liberally applied when it comes to the written word.

Most local writers-cum-storytellers will take pen in hand and write their truth as they understand it but, if and when there is doubt, they will back their concepts with myth and legend.

That's only one of the reasons why, through the ages, Limerick produces an impressive proliferation of such great storytellers and writers like Kate O'Brien, Desmond O'Grady, Sean O'Faolain, Aubrey de Vere, Gerald Griffin, Daniel O'Connell, Michael Curtin, Christoir O'Flynn, Sean Bourke, Michael Hogan, Kevin Hannan, Jim Kemmy and a couple of 'blaguards' known to the world as Frank and Malachy McCourt, to name but a few.

Limerick writer Michael Hartnett recognises this fact when he writes in his essay 'Some Limerick Writers' for The Olde Limerick Journal; 'The work of writers such as Kate O'Brien in prose and Desmond O'Grady in poetry made the modern reputation of Limerick as a possible literary place.

The county looked at in part by Sean O'Faolain, had been in the main neglected since the days of Aubrey de Vere and Gerald Griffin; so I would propose that while Kate O'Brien and Desmond O'Grady were the first modern writers to lodge the idea of a Limerick literature as a whole, both were émigrés.

But however cosmopolitan they became, they never dropped their Limerick mantles: the reputation of such writers as Gerard Ryan who remained at home, were in the main local. And side-by-side with the growth of this building of a Limerick-blooded literature, with less flamboyance but not with less hope or less talent, the Irish language was being fostered by writers like Art O'Conghaile and Criostoir O'Flynn, who rekindled in the public the notion of a modern Gaelic literature of Limerick origins.'

But you don't have to dig too far into the past to discover that Limerick has not lost the knack. For example, in 1999 former Limerick popular politician and storyteller Mick 'The Doc' Crowe while visiting his sons, Irish bar-owners in New York, happened to bump into Frank McCourt who was giving a speech about 'something or other to do with those bloody ashes' to a group of Irish intellectuals.

Crowe owned and run a number of bars back in Limerick but most of his businesses over the years culminated in rapid closing down following a series of rather unusual looking fires.

When Crowe was introduced to McCourt he leaned over and whispered, 'Tell me something Frank, I want to ask you a question.'

'Go ahead,' said the Pulitzer Prize winning author expecting some question of great literary merit. 'Can you tell me how come you're a bloody millionaire when you sprinkled ashes once and once only back in Limerick. I've been sprinkling ashes for years now and I'm still bloody skint.'

True or not, it's not only a great story but one that obeys all three of the unwritten rules of Limerick story telling.

The first is never say a word of malicious untruth, any other 'untruth' is totally acceptable if it makes the story that bit better.

Secondly, keep it short, complimentary to Limerick and funny.

Thirdly, never tell it to anyone who doesn't want to hear.

Follow these basic rules and chances are you'll drink for free and your stories will live forever.

End of excerpt

Author interviews: Tel: + 353 61 315668 e-mail: gerryhannan@hotmail.com