John Joe and Noreen quietly close the till

It's 49 years since John Joe Dowling was sent by his father from his native Mountmellick to help out a widowed aunt with her shop on Kilcullen's Main Street, writes Brian Byrne. It was to be for a short time while she got things together after her husband died.

"But I never went home," he said when he and his wife Noreen closed up their Kilcullen Flowers & Gifts shop last Saturday, for the last time. They plan to do some travelling, tend their small farm in Old Kilcullen, enjoy life a little more.

John Joe and Noreen — she's from Kilcullen, and a substantial part of why he never got back to Laois — literally have memories of some four generations of customers. And recollections of lots of change in both their own business and the town itself.

"When I arrived in here just after my Uncle Jimmy Quinn died, the shop was the only newsagent in town," John Joe says. "In those days, Easons were the only newspaper distributors and tightly controlled newsagent numbers."

Just as now, the newspapers were the 'hook' to bring customers for other things. At the time Quinns also sold groceries, vegetables, and — crucially important for the induction of new young customers — ice cream in summer.

There was also, perhaps not fully appreciated at the time, a symbiotic link between Quinns shop and Byrne's Hideout pub just across the street on the corner. That was the bus stop, and the place where parcels, day-old chicks, and newspapers were delivered from those same buses for collection by whomever they had been sent to.

"My job as the 'boy' included collecting the papers from the front bar of the Hideout — the Independent, Irish Press, Irish Times and Daily Telegraph in the mornings, and the Evening Herald and Evening Press at tea-time. There was also the Daily Express for some regulars, and weekly and monthly magazines reserved by customers."

And, of course, the Sporting Life, essential in an area where race horses were a key part of the rural farming and business environment. Paddy Murphy, Frank Berry, Mrs Urquhart, among the many who are remembered as regulars.

In 1967, John Joe's aunt Annie decided to retire, and he and Noreen, just married, took over the business. It was already seeing the changes which the retail trade was beginning to encounter in Ireland. "The BSM Supermarket opened down the road, and ended the groceries. We switched to cards and small fancy goods, and the newspapers remained an important base for the other items, sweets and chocolates, fruit, ice cream."

Kilcullen's position an hour or so's drive out from Dublin on the main road to and from Kilkenny and Waterford was an important consideration. Quinns was an oasis for reading and munchies supplies in both directions for travellers, whether on the buses — they waited for ten or 15 minutes in those days while the drivers, conductors and passengers refreshed in the Hideout — or in cars.

And on summer Sundays, when it was traditional for Dublin families to take a drive down through West Wicklow and arrive in waves at the Hideout after opening time at four in the afternoon, the children were likely to be treated to crisps, ice creams and Taylor-Keith lemonade from Quinns while their elders relaxed at the pub.

So generally it remained a strong business. Until 1994, a fateful year for many enterprises in town. "The Kilcullen By-Pass opened that year, and it was like a candle being snuffed out. I stood looking up and down the street the following day and there wasn't a car to be seen. The novelty was such that even local people were using it."

By that time the numbers using the buses had also dwindled, with cars being the primary mode of transport in a more affluent Ireland. "We hadn't realised just how much of our trade had been people passing through. You saw customers as regulars, but didn't realise that they weren't from the immediate area."

In addition, the broadening of the newspapers distribution business meant they had not been the sole newsagent for some time. They stuck with a severely diminished business for a year, then closed it and went full-time into running a bookshop which they had operated in Naas for some years. That itself had once led to a funny encounter.

"I served a man in the Kilcullen shop one day, then I had to go to Naas to relieve one of the girls for her lunch," John Joe remembers with a grin. "Shortly afterwards, the same man came into the bookshop to look for a book, and he looked at me very strangely when I served him."

In 2002, with Kilcullen finally beginning to develop thanks to a much-delayed linkage to the county sewerage scheme, John and Noreen returned to Main Street, reopening as a Flowers & Gifts business. It was an unexpectedly successful enterprise, particularly popular with the new residents of the various housing developments that were eventually to almost triple the town's population.

"There were also a lot of Polish people working in the area, and for some reason they had a fascination with soft toys. We always had a big selection, and featured them in window displays all the time. We figure there are lots of our teddy bears and other soft animals now living back in eastern Europe."

John Joe and Noreen quietly slipped away last Saturday, closing their till for the last time and telling very few of their plans. The business itself will reopen later in the summer under new management. But an era has definitely ended.

This writer remembers when shopkeepers in Kilcullen always stood outside their businesses if things were a little quiet, greeting and chatting to their fellow-Kilcullenites, customers and friends. Nick Bardon, JJ Byrne Snr, Jimmy Quinn, PG Dowling, G Nolan, all come to mind.

John Joe always did the same thing right up to last week, because he started out in that era, albeit as the 'boy'. He and Noreen were always, and remain, nice gentle people who have been part of the bedrock of Kilcullen's community and business.

We wish them well in the next stage of their lives, but Main Street won't be quite the same any more.