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Despite the dominance of large supermarket chains, a handful of independent family-run grocery stores continue to thrive in towns like Kinsale and Castlebar. These small shops, often passed down through generations, offer a unique combination of personalized service, local product focus, and community involvement that keeps customers returning. While many have turned to franchises for stability, those that remain independent credit their resilience to diversification and a strong connection to their local communities.
Shane Rodgers, who runs a grocery in Castlebar, says diversification has been the key to survivalIt is the kind of order grocer Sheila Murphy has received on more than one occasion over the past 50 years or so.
Good cheer breaks out on Today with David McCullagh. Should we panic? Rathmines and Rathgar become film set for An Cailín Ciúin director Colm Bairéad Although Shane Rodgers did quip to a certain customer who had a proclivity for buying two slices of luncheon roll: “You must be having a party. ” Murphy and Rodgers don’t know each other but they have a lot in common.
Both are from that fast-disappearing cohort of traditional, small family-owned grocers who are not aligned to chains such as Centra, Spar, Daybreak or Costcutter. There are up to 35,000 family-run grocery shops in the country but the vast majority have joined franchises to aid their economic viability. For the small numbers still paddling their own canoes, they rely mainly on local producers and cash-and-carry wholesalers for their goods.
“It is very convenient and they’ve got everything,” he says. “Fantastic ham and they do lovely local breads, cakes and bracks. I’d only go to a supermarket occasionally. ”McCarthy is not the only customer who prefers the personal touch offered in Murphy’s, says Sheila.
“While you are buying your groceries you can have a bit of a chat, hear about who has got married and who has died and if you need an electrician or a plumber, or if you are a visitor and want to know where the post office is, we’re happy to help. In some ways during the summer, we are nearly like a tourist office.
” It has been more than 70 years since her late mother, Ellen McCarthy, moved the 30km from Kilbrittain to Kinsale and married Jim Murphy, a small farmer from Bandon. While Ellen ran the grocery shop, two of her sisters moved to the town also and ran drapery shops for many years.
“The draperies may be long gone but the grocery shop hasn’t changed in size or shape over the 70 years,” Sheila says. “There were four of us sisters growing up and we all worked in it. When one went away to boarding school, another would step in, and when one got married, somebody else stepped in.
“I took it over 35 years ago and I run it now with help from my sister Nora O’Brien,” says Sheila, who never married and lives nearby in the town. “It is only now we don’t have much of the next generation available to work here. Sure the nieces and nephews all have their own careers. ” Murphy recalls how there were two main grocery shops on the street in the past.
“There was ourselves and, where the Market Garden is now, that was called Maisie’s. Maisie’s was the very same as ourselves, and my mother and herself were great friends. It was a friendly competition. ”“It’s harder now.
I suppose I would be relying on an older clientele, and then we have the tourists during the summer. A lot of the holidaymakers come back every year and love the chat and the locally made and grown produce,” she says.
“You could call it a key part of my social life,” she says, laughing. “Many of my customers have become my friends. ” Rodger’s on Spencer Street in Castlebar adheres to the same early-morning regime. While Shane is now an octogenarian and has handed over the reins somewhat to his son Paul, with help from daughter Louise, he is still at the helm.
When The Irish Times joins him for tea and a chat in the upstairs sittingroom, he has already done the banking for the day and will help stock the shelves later. This is where he was raised from seven years old, when his family moved down the street after his uncle Pa gave his mother Alice the shop.
“It was my granduncle Thomas Gavin who set up a bakery here in 1898 and it later became a safe house for on-the-run IRA men during the Civil War whilst, ironically, having the contract for bread with the British army barracks in the town,” says Rodgers. He took over the business in 1971, after his parents died, having worked in Castlebar Bacon Factory’s accounts department for 14 years.
He and his wife, Pauline, raised their seven children over this busy shop, with the young mother also feeding all the staff. Pauline was also in charge of cleaning the ice-cream machine each evening to ensure the shop’s reputation for selling the best ice-cream in the county town remained intact. When asked if the children also helped, Rodgers jokes: “Not really. They helped themselves, all right.
” Missing cigarettes from packets, as well as chocolates and sweets were the favourite contraband, although the thieves never ended up in the courthouse, which is just across the road. When Rodgers started out in the retail business there were 31 small grocery shops in Castlebar in the 1970s. His little shop is effectively the last of its type now.
“We are still here because we continued to diversify and we extended the shop back in 2000 and invested €300,000,” he says. It is the only way to survive. If you walk around Castlebar nowadays, a lot of those old premises are derelict or empty. The Aldis and the Lidls have taken over.
” In their continued bid for survival, they also upgraded their fridges and freezers last year to make them more sustainable and cost-efficient, with support from the council via an energy-efficiency grant.
“It has been a game-changer for electricity costs,” he says. Back in the old days, most of the shop’s customers came from out the Ballyheane and Westport roads and from around the town. These days, however, there is a big dependence on the nearby secondary school, just around the corner on the historic Mall, once the site of Lord Lucan’s cricket pitch.
“We also have a lot of customers from the courthouse, also on the Mall. Back in the olden days we used to sell a lot of ham but now its prepared sandwiches and hot food,” he says. Diversification for this family business has seen daughter Alice open a coffee and smoothie takeaway next door.
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