Shortt family leave Post Office
An era in Kilcullen Post Office history ended last Saturday when the Shortt family finished their association with that service.
For Francis and Mary particularly it was an emotional occasion, after nearly a quarter of a century of looking after the Kilcullen sub-office. For their friends and staff it was equally so.
From Tuesday January 3 the service is under the management of Noeleen Eston from Dunlavin.
Though their daughter Catherine had been the actual postmistress for the past year, both Mary and Francis remained actively involved up to the end of the family's tenure. If they had stayed until March they would have been twenty-five years at the Kilcullen PO.
"We really didn't want to hang on," Mary told the Diary on her last afternoon as Catherine went about clearing the premises prior to the takeover by the new operator of the service.
Mary and Francis plan on spending more time with each other and helping their son Dermot train for the next Special Olympics, to be held in China. In partnership with his dad, Dermot was a medal winner in the last such event, held in Dublin.
"They've qualified for the Leinster team and the finals for China are in Belfast in June," Mary says, recalling that she never got to see the pair playing in the last Special Olympics because of the demands of work.
"There are things that have passed me by that I would have loved to have been at."
Mary worked with An Post for virtually all her life so far, starting off in Gorey PO for a couple of years before being 'shipped off' to the GPO.
When Mrs Melia in Calverstown was retiring in the late fifties Mary was asked to help out and show Mrs McNamee how to take over.
"Then I got married, and left An Post. I helped Francis with the horse training for a while, but it went into a slump at the time when Charlie Haughey was asking all of us to tighten our belts. The Kilcullen PO vacancy came up when Kay Moran decided to retire and I said to Francis that I thought I should have a go."
Kay had taken over the business just a few years before from longtime incumbent Mrs Buckley, who ran the operation from a premises that is now part of Nolan's butchers stall.
By then Francis had only about six horses left in training, and most of the lads had got jobs elsewhere. He said he'd keep going as long as he could and Mary took over from Kay.
At the time the service was being operated from the premises that is now Patricia's hair stylist business. Pretty soon Mary found that she couldn't do it on her own, and asked Francis to come in with her. Which he did. And he found that he enjoyed it.
He liked to talk to people and his yarns from the racing world became a special attraction for the customers, many of whom would come back just to hear more.
"All Francis's jockey friends would stop by too when coming through Kilcullen, for a chat and a cup of tea. Both of us like people, and we got on great with them, as well as with the customers."
The income from the business was based on the level of traffic through the office, and there weren't that many customers in the Kilcullen of the time. With the rent constantly going up, Mary and Francis had to make some decisions.
"The premises next door came on the market and we bought it for £15,000. We didn't have the money, but we were encouraged and helped by a bank manager friend."
A downside over the years has been that Francis was rarely able to go to many race meetings and see friends who had been part of life for so long. Mary expects that their retirement will improve that situation.
"He'll also be able to go and play golf with them, which he just wasn't able to do as much as he should have been."
As the business grew with Kilcullen's own growth and the overall improvement in the economic climate, many people from the area have worked with Mary and Francis over the years.
On the last days of their tenure, Mary Prendergast and Mary McManus were there to help close this particular chapter of local history. But they were just the end of an important paragraph of assistance to the Shortts.
"When I started, Rita Nugent -- who had been with Miss Buckley -- came and stayed on and off with me for about a month. And that got us going.
"And a few of the lads in Naas, who had been clerks with me in the GPO, used to come out and do the balances with me, and I must say they were very good to me.
"And then when we got busier, Anne Doyle from Athgarvan, who had given up the Post Office there, came and helped out. In the latter years Carmel Moloney came for about three years, before she went back to CIE."
Three years ago their daughter Catherine took leave of absence from the bank where she worked, to help out and see if she would like to continue the tradition. Over her time she has worked hard to improve the business.
But the climate in the An Post company has changed significantly over recent times, and the Shortt family's decision to get out of the franchise is one which is being mirrored across the country.
"All the things that brought in business have been given away, like BillPay and Paypoint and the Social Welfare,". Mary says. "It's as if they want to get rid of us altogether."
The last straw came during the summer when An Post management looked for an audit of the assets of the sub-office network and its operators, with a view to introducing measures which would include the franchise holders taking all responsibility for losses due to robberies, under some circumstances.
Since the franchisees were already paying for their own security systems, including CCTV and teller barriers, this is nationally being seen as a push to encourage the move of Post Office operations to places like supermarkets which already have such facilities at no cost to the network
The Diary understands that there are at least a score more operators similar to the Shortts leaving the network, some of them ending an association with An Post of up to four generations.
The new holder of the Kilcullen operation has taken a year-long lease on the Shortt's premises, but it is believed that the planned expansion of the Eurospar supermarket across the road could eventually see the operation move over there.
Over the time during which the Shortt family has been involved in the Kilcullen Post Office, the business was underpinned by the friendliness, good humour and helpful attitude of everybody who was part of the service.
These days in many businesses, there's a hype about 'customer service' which often doesn't translate into much more than the two words. But for the last quarter of a century in Kilcullen Post Office, customer service has been been more than words. Not for any strategic reason, but because it was an integral part of the nature of the people who were there.
On behalf of the people of Kilcullen, the Diary thanks Mary and Francis Shortt, and their family and their fellow workers over the years, for being sterling friends to this community.
One of their ambitions in retirement is to do some travelling. So we can expect that lots of foreign stamps will be coming through Kilcullen PO over the next years, wherever it might be located.
Happy many new years, Mary and Francis and family.
Brian Byrne.
