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Thursday, July 15, 2010
The shop on the crossroads
TIMES ARE changing fast.
There is a view, active for some years now, that rural Ireland is disappearing with many small villages barely holding on to the school, the post office, the church and the shop.
Even the pub holds a doubtful future.
At a time when it is possible to shop for everything under one roof in a shopping centre the size of a football pitch or have the groceries arrive at the door courtesy of online shopping, it is no harm to reflect on the way things used to be.
Those of a certain generation recall the busy little shop on the crossroads, the family-owned shop between villages or the private house where it was possible to purchase bread, tea, sugar, sweets, lemonade, and, of course, smokes.
Cigarette sales were always big business in the days when a box of forty Maguire & Patterson matches cost a penny.
Many small shops were the sole source of income for the owners. It was amazing how anybody could survive in the paltry days of pounds, shillings and pence, but business prospered and it took the development of supermarkets to drive these people to the wall.
They were also meeting places, gossip was exchanged in large doses, and very often games, such as horseshoe pitching or pitch ‘n’ toss would occur when the sun shone and cards and darts were popular by the light of the Tilley lamp.
Can anybody remember cycling from Enniscorthy to Bree, a distance of about six miles. No helmets necessary. Let’s take a snapshot back in time.
I don’t remember a shop at Red Pat’s Cross, but there was one there (Kenny’s) and if memory goes back far enough we find that there was a tavern or shebeen there in the days before licensing laws were introduced in the latter half of the 19th century.
Moving through Tomnalossett, Statia Doyle’s was on the left, while further on, John Carberry from Enniscorthy set up a shop in the late 1960s, which became Mick Butler’s and is now Martin’s Londis, the latter being a survivor that expanded into a major modern store and forecourt service.
Familiar advertising signs like, W.D. & H.O. Wills and Gold Flake, adorned the exterior of Mrs. Plummer’s shop at Munfin or Plummer’s Cross as the place is popularly called.
The most popular of them all was Johnny Ryan’s; just across the road from Wilton gardens, a purpose built structure on the end of the private residence, but entry was across the kitchen floor!
Later, Kinsella’s or O’Connor’s shop, overlooking Park Wood at Carrig, did a fair trade for many years, and within five minutes Bree was reached where the Byrne family have run a successful business since 1898.
Rural shops were plentiful and well distributed throughout the county. They thrived in the days before the motor car became the populist mode of transport. They were legendary and the hive of activity in many a community.
These small country shops were stocked by wholesalers from Enniscorthy, the most popular being Treacy’s, who expanded and moved from Cathedral Street to The Pig Market Hill in 1955.
However, Treacy’s rivals operating from Enniscorthy included Armstrong’s at Main Street and Templeshannon, Earle’s on Templeshannon Quay, and Herbie Murphy’s on Mill Park Road, the later being the only one of the aforementioned quartet still trading.
They were called huckster’s shops, because it was mainly half a dozen of Oxo or half a dozen bars of chocolate or maybe six packets of cigarettes, and it was mainly a cash transaction.
Treacy’s sold everything imaginable, except bread or milk. Everything was weighed up, sugar, tea, flour – it was packed in bags like it comes nowadays. This was usually done on Monday.
The van would travel around to the many shops once a week and sometimes once a fortnight. It would be once a week to Blackwater, but, perhaps, once a fortnight to Fethard-On-Sea area.
Cadbury’s were famous for the chocolate, the most popular brand of cigarettes were Player’s, Gold Flake and Afton, all manufactured in this country.
Jacob’s were famous for the biscuits with varieties such as Custard Creams and Marietta.
Armstrong’s was a major wholesaler who delivered all over Co. Wexford with five or six vans on the road and the same number of travellers who went in search of business orders, and that was around 1960.
They had the ability to deliver orders the next day. The company employed about sixty people weighing up orders and ensuring the smooth running of the operation.
There is a memory that tea arrived in tea chests, the tea was weighed up in popular measures, and then the shopkeeper sold the tea chest, usually to act as a child’s safety area, for six pence or a shilling!
I am open to correction here, but I am told that Armstrong’s pioneered the sale of apples, bananas, oranges and tomatoes in and around Enniscorthy, and despite being perishable in the days before refrigeration became a normal part of the household, they were a huge hit and would sell out as soon as they arrived in the warehouse.
Tomatoes, bananas and oranges were a novelty and biscuits were a huge seller. They were displayed in steel tins with glass fronts.
It is also worth noting here that the wholesalers received their produce by rail. Everything was dispatched from Dublin aboard the train and arrived at Enniscorthy Railway Station for collection.
Those were the days when life was simple and business was selfsufficient and while few were rich, those who traded were solvent.
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