Step back in time

Lifestyle – Judy Murphy visits a shop/pub in Kilrickle which has barely changed in the past century and features a treasure trove of relics from a bygone age.

When Dessie O’Brien stands outside his shop and pub in the village of Kilrickle and says emphatically “I love this place,” you might be excused for thinking he’s referring to the family business. In fact, Mullagh-born Dessie, who bought the former Curley’s pub and general merchants 15 years ago with his wife Therese, is talking about his adopted home village of Kilrickle.

The O’Briens now live above the shop with their three children and to enter their premises, which dates from 1901 and was possibly established even earlier, is to step back in time.

The Curleys, who founded the business, ran it for years before leaving it to a relation, Alfie Kirwan. When Alfie retired, it was again passed on within the family but operations were wound down in the late 1990s and the pub was “just ticking over” when Dessie and Therese bought it.

“The shop part was probably closed for about 10 years before we got it,” says Dessie, referring to the grocery section to the front of the premises.

The building had been left untouched for years and was a treasure trove of relics. These ranged from the old till, which still works, to bottles of Maggotine, a traditional formula for treating maggot-infested sheep.

These days in the grocery shop, traditional potions used for treating animals and humans are stored in the original medical cabinet, alongside contemporary over-the-counter medicines. There are children’s hobnailed boots made of rock-hard leather and sturdy, low-heeled ladies shoes, straight from the mid-20th century.

High on the shelves behind the original shop counter are boxes of horseshoe nails and rolls of twine – all original stock, as well as old Guinness bottles where the Curley name is stamped on the label beside famous Guinness logo.

The bottles are from the days before draught Guinness, when wooden barrels of the ‘black stuff’ were transported from Dublin to individual pubs countrywide and bottled onsite. Likewise, the Curley Bros bagged their own tea – some of the packets still exist and list their other services, too, from supplying agricultural machinery and manures to electrical goods and radios.

Different times. And different times, too, when the village had three shops and two pubs, including this general merchant’s, which also served as an undertaker’s, a drapery shop and pub – the pub was the smallest part of the business, according to Des.

“Where you are now is where the ladies fashion was,” he says as we sit in a snug by the window, while his oldest son, Conor, who has just graduated from the University of Limerick, serves customers in the shop.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.