A century at the heart of community’s good health

Lifestyle –  Judy Murphy meets a nonagenarian whose pharmacy has been dispensing lotions and potions for 100 years

Eamonn Hayes was just five years old in 1928 when Lord Lascelles of Yorkshire and his wife Princess Mary visited Portumna. The couple had inherited Portumna Castle and estate 12 years earlier, following the death of Hubert de Burgh Canning, Marquess of Clanricarde.

Princess Mary was the daughter of King George V of England, and their arrival marked the first time a member of the British Royal Family had visited Ireland since the War of Independence.

They called to the local primary school, where Eamon welcomed them. Today, at 93, he clearly recalls their visit and the subsequent report in the Daily Mail about how ‘Eamon Hayes, a bright boy of five, who happened to be at the head of the class, welcomed the couple in his rich brogue’.

It was a proud moment for Eamon, who went on to spend a lifetime working in his local community. Next Wednesday, he will celebrate another proud moment as his family business, Hayes and Hayes Pharmacy, marks its 100th anniversary.

Eamon, a sprightly nonagenarian and walking social historian, lives above the business, which was founded by his father Robert and is now run by his daughter-in-law Noelle.

His wife Kay died over a decade ago – a nurse who later trained as a chiropodist, she worked alongside him in the business from their marriage until retirement.

There have been many changes in the world of pharmaceuticals since Eamon’s father Robert William Hayes, set a medical hall in Portumna in 1915.

Robert – better known as Bobby – was born in Dublin’s Hume Street in 1889, the son of a tailor. He and two of his ten siblings trained as chemists. Bobby and one brother spent several years working in the spa town of Harrogate in Yorkshire before returning to Dublin where they briefly ran a business together.

“His older brother was a great chemist, but a bad businessman, and Bobby went to Galway eventually,” recalls Eamonn.

Bobby first came to Birr in 1914 to work as a locum for Golden’s Chemist. They had a sub-chemist in Portumna, where Bobby was based.

His best customer was the Earl of Westmeath, whose mansion was in nearby Tynagh, Eamon recalls. The earl would send in ‘his man’ on a horse and sidecar to purchase bottles of Evian tonic water, the height of luxury at the time.

In 1915 Bobby opened Hayes and Hayes Medical Hall in a building subsequently occupied by Starr’s, which is now vacant.

Finally he relocated to St Brendan’s Street, initially renting and subsequently buying the premises from a Miss Lavin. That’s where Hayes and Hayes is still located, having gone through many changes since.

Bobby was small of stature – he needed a box to step up to the counter, Eamon recalls – but had a large personality and a generous nature.

Older customers fondly remember the taste of liquorice sticks he dispensed to them – there are less fond memories of cod liver oil, which was decanted from large Winchester containers in to bottles and simply labelled with ‘The Medicine’,

Bobby married Kathleen (Mimi) O’Connor from Loughrea after moving to Galway and they had eight children, seven of whom survived to adulthood.

Two followed in Bobby’s footsteps, with Eamon joining the family business after qualifying in 1948. A few years later, the shop was expanded and the name changed to Hayes and Hayes Chemist.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.