In the Footsteps of Pat Moore in Asdee

Last Sunday we spent most of six hours in the footsteps of a special priest, Pat Moore, in his native Asdee on the banks of the Shannon Estuary.   You can  hear the whole story on Radio Kerry – live on next Saturday week (July 29) from 9 to 11am and on podcast (www.radiokerry.ie) from the following Tuesday or Wednesday.

We began in a farmyard where the Irish Dail of the modern era had their first meeting.  Then, in the centre of the Jack Walsh Memorial Park, we heard of Asdee’s sporting heroes – in gaelic football, soccer, handball.

How St Eoin’s Well moved because of a horse, St Senan banned all women from Scattery Island and how an Asdee radio set turned up in Birmingham 50 years later.

The grandfather of the famous outlaw Jesse James emigrated from Asdee.  We heard how cursing saved a young Asdee curser and local musicians played Irish airs.  At the Community Centre  we heard of efforts to revitalise Asdee and the Drama Group dramatised a hilarious tale involving the Pension Officer.

At the fairy fort on Pat Moore’s family farm we heard of the Asdee Italian district and the strange goings on of Moloney at the Wake.

On the 6 mile Beale/Littor beach  where in famine time there was food but those with land on the beach were crippled by rates and a poem about the attractions of Caislean Easa Dui/The Castle by the Black Waterfall – that gave Asdee its name.

The huge panorama of the Shannon estuary fron Cnoc an Fhomhair, where Pat Moore celebrated Easter Sunday Dawn masses there was a German arms dump in 1914 and the song says

‘We know you’ll like the way we live 

In the village of Asdee’