Listowel is a market town on the River Feale, seventeen miles north of Tralee, that decided long ago its main industry would be writing. John B. Keane ran a pub on William Street and wrote The Field in the back room. Bryan MacMahon taught at the local national school and wrote novels and stories on the side. Half the town has a relative who has had a play put on. The other half is in the audience.
It looks like an ordinary Kerry market town - a Square, a Castle ruin, a church, a racecourse on the edge - and it sort of is. The trick is the layering. The carved plasterwork on the buildings around the Square. The Holocaust memorial in the Garden of Europe behind the church. The little theatre in the old Church of Ireland. The pub where the playwright actually pulled pints. Walk it slowly.
Two weeks of the year the town stops being ordinary. Writers' Week in late May fills every B&B with poets and novelists and people who want to listen to them. The Harvest Festival in mid-September fills the same beds with racing people. The other fifty weeks are quieter, and that is when the place is most itself.
Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.
The Field, Sive, Big Maggie - Keane wrote them in the back room of the pub on William Street that still has his name on the door. Bryan MacMahon taught half the town and wrote the rest.
Stories & lore → 02 The SquarePat McAuliffe carved the facades around the Square in the late 1800s - lions, harps, mermaids, a full Victorian bestiary in stucco. Free, permanent, and most visitors miss it entirely.
Stories & lore → 03 The festivalsListowel Writers' Week (late May) is Ireland's oldest literary festival, founded 1970. The Harvest Festival at the Racecourse (mid-September) is a week of horses and pints. Either is a reason to come.
Stories & lore →None of these are themed Irish pubs, because they don't need to be. A few that earn the trip:
The playwright's pub on William Street, still run by the family. Billy Keane (his son) is often behind the bar and will talk to you about anything. Sing-songs on Sunday nights. The back room is where The Field was written. Order a pint and look at the walls.
Plain, dark, busy. The kind of pub where the regulars are regulars and the talk is the entertainment. No pretensions, no cover band, no menu of craft cocktails. A pint of stout and you're sorted.
Inside the Listowel Arms on the Square - the hotel where Charles Stewart Parnell gave a speech from the balcony in 1891. The bar fills up in race week and empties politely the rest of the year. Decent pint, good fire.
The Upper Church Street pub that turned itself into one of the better small music venues in the south-west. Touring acts most weekends. The name is from a previous owner who sold pies. The pies are gone. The name stuck.
| Place | Type | € | Local note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Allo's Bar & Bistro | Bistro & townhouse | €€ | On Church Street, in a building that has been a pub since the 1850s. Small, candle-lit, the kind of menu that changes with what the suppliers brought in. Three rooms upstairs if you want to stay where you ate. |
| The Listowel Arms | Hotel restaurant | €€ | On the Square, looking out at the Castle ruin. Proper hotel dining - Sunday lunch, racecourse breakfasts, afternoon tea that the local mothers know about. Not flashy. Reliable. |
| Mai Fitz's | Cafe & coffee | € | Day-only spot for a flat white, a scone, a soup-and-sandwich at lunch. The kind of place you end up in twice a day if you are staying more than a night. Closes by five. |
| Place | Type | Local note | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Allo's Townhouse | Rooms above the restaurant | Three rooms on Church Street above the bistro, in the building that has been licensed since the 1850s. Walk out of bed and down to the same table you had dinner at. Quieter than the hotels; the breakfast is the bistro kitchen. | |
| The Listowel Arms | Hotel on the Square | Looking out at the Castle ruin. The hotel where Parnell gave his speech from the balcony in 1891. Middle-of-town, walking distance to everything, bar open late in race week. Not flashy. | |
| B&Bs around the Square | B&B | A scatter of well-run small B&Bs on and off the Square. The better ones fill during Writers' Week and race season - book ahead. Ask in John B. Keane's if you are stuck. | |
The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.
Wear waterproofs. Bring a sandwich. Tell someone where you're going if it's the mountain.
There is no bad time. There are different times.
Quiet and pleasant. The town looks its best before the summer traffic starts on the N69. Walk the River Feale on a still morning.
Ireland's oldest literary festival takes over for five days. Every bed in town is full. Plan well ahead or day-trip from Tralee. Worth every logistics headache.
The Harvest Festival at the Racecourse fills the town with a different crowd. Good pubs, great craic, hard to park. Book accommodation or commute.
An ordinary Kerry market town in winter is an underrated thing. Quiet, local, the pubs are proper. John B. Keane's does not change register for the season.
If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.
The festival is five days in late May. Every B&B in a thirty-kilometre radius fills up. Book in January if you are coming then.
The Castle is the obvious stop but the plasterwork on the buildings around the Square - carved by Pat McAuliffe in the late 1800s - is the rarer thing. Spend fifteen minutes looking up.
The Harvest Festival means the whole town is in a different gear. Come in October for the quiet version of the same pubs.
Tralee to Listowel is 30 minutes on the N69. Limerick is 1h 15m. Killarney is an hour through Castleisland.
Bus Éireann 274 from Tralee to Listowel runs several times daily. About 35 minutes. The Limerick-Tralee Expressway also stops in Listowel.
No train. The line closed in 1977. Tralee is the nearest station - bus or taxi from there.
Kerry Airport (KIR) is 50km. Shannon is 1h 30m. Cork is 2 hours.