The first whispers about trouble at Rathwood reached The Irish Times on June 20th last year when an email with the subject line: “Concerns Regarding Rathwood Garden Furniture Co Carlow” landed in the Pricewatch inbox.
Before that Friday evening, the homes and garden centre retailer that opened in the mid-1990s had attracted little attention from readers.
That was all about to change.
That first email detailed how the sender bought a set of garden furniture on the Rathwood website two months previously for €875 and was promised delivery within two weeks.
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“However, the delivery did not arrive on the scheduled date, and no communication was received from Rathwood to inform me of any delay or issue,” the email said. “Repeated attempts to contact the company by phone were unsuccessful.”
Just under three weeks later, another mail from another reader with a strikingly similar story arrived followed only days later by a third and then a fourth two days after that.
All the senders had much the same story to share. People detailed how they had bought furniture and fuel and were repeatedly let down by Rathwood and if they sought refunds they were effectively ignored.
On July 18th, The Irish Times first made contact with Rathwood to find out what was going on. The initial email contained no specifics of any reader query and simply asked for the best address to send in “some readers queries that have come in”. The almost immediate response from managing director James Keogh made it clear he had a very good idea what we were looking for.
“I’m one of the family members involved in the business,” he said. “I’ve seen your recent queries come through and just wanted to reach out personally. We’re currently working through some challenges in our supply chain and customer service, and I’d really appreciate the chance to connect and explain our current position. I hope it might offer some reassurance.”
The email went on to say that Rathwood “has been a family-run business for over 30 years, originally started by my parents, and we’re proud to be a local employer. We truly value every customer, and we want to work with you to answer your questions and resolve anything we can. Let me know if there’s a good time to chat – happy to speak at your convenience.”
And so began a series of lengthy engagements with Keogh over the phone and via email. It was clear he was a man under pressure but his talk of putting things right were convincing.
A couple of weeks later a short news story appeared in which Keogh publicly apologised to customers and said the problems started when one of its main suppliers went into administration.
“Over Christmas, Mercer Agencies, a key supplier who made up more than 70 per cent of our supply chain, suddenly went into administration,” Keogh said in a statement. “The impact was severe. It forced us to rebuild huge parts of our operation and the reality is that some of our customers were affected as a result.”
The statement said the company subsequently secured a multimillion euro cash injection from an unnamed strategic investor and had been “able to get back on our feet, restoring core brands, securing new partnerships and putting better systems in place”.
Keogh added that Rathwood had significantly expanded its customer support since the start of the summer, sourced new funding and developed more robust supply chains as it worked through the order backlog.
He concluded by saying the process of rebuilding after the setback connected to the breakdown of the relationship with its main supplier had not been without its challenges and he accepted that “orders were delayed, lead times increased and communication sometimes fell short of what we expect from ourselves. We’re not going to shy away from that.
“We know we let some people down – and we’re truly sorry,” he said.
Finally, Keogh committed to continue working to resolve outstanding issues and expressed confidence that the bulk of them would be resolved before the end of August 2025.
It was a pretty solid mea culpa.
More readers
However the article prompted more readers to get in touch and it emerged that Rathwood owed a significant amount of money to Mercer when it went out of business. Keogh acknowledged that and said Rathwood was working at paying off the money owed.
Another story appeared weeks after the first one. In that, Keogh said “our delivery drivers have been on the road seven days a week, working tirelessly to clear backlogs and honour customer orders as quickly as possible”.
He repeated the claim that the issues would be largely resolved by the end of August 2025.
Despite the multiple assurances, the problems persisted and scores more people got in touch sharing stories of long delays and disappointments.
“I’m currently helping my neighbours reclaim just under €1,500 for an order that was never fulfilled,” one reader said.
Another detailed how they had placed an order for wood on August 22nd with a deliver date of October 20th but that was pushed out to December 20th.
A third ordered briquettes in February at a reduced price of €119. They never arrived and Rathwood kept telling her “there is no stock or they are waiting on delivery but they never deliver”. Despite that, they were still listed as being for sale on the website and at a higher price.
And another reader bought dining chairs from Rathwood on August 25th. On September 17th, she was told the retailer could not confirm when the stock would arrive. “I immediately requested a cancellation and refund, which was confirmed to be returned on September 20th. Despite several follow-ups, I have not received my refund.”
At this stage, the Rathwood website was saying it had entered a “strategic partnership” with a company called Anhui Morden Living Co. It said the partnership was “designed to transform the way customers across Europe experience home, garden, and lifestyle products” and promised that the “collaboration combines RW’s innovation and customer experience with Morden Living’s world-class manufacturing expertise, introducing over 9,000 new product lines across the UK and EU”.
The statement added that the new relationship was “backed by 300-plus factories across China, Malaysia, and Vietnam” and added that there would be “fulfilment from new warehouses in Germany and the UK” with everything “powered by Rathwood logistics, sourcing, and customer care”.
Fresh statement
We went back to the company to find out what all that meant for our readers and for others left waiting far too long for orders.
At this point communication with James Keogh ceased and instead we spoke to Liu Hashimoto, a woman who said she was now representing the company.
She sent a fresh statement.
“Since the challenges reported earlier this year, Rathwood continued to make improvements with the process of supply chain and has made good progress in stabilising operations and improving delivery performance.
“In the summer of 2025, Rathwood built a brand new supply chain to bring all season goods from the Far East to its customers. However, the company experienced some unforeseeable ‘teething’ issues at the inception due to incompatibility of systems and some mismatched processes.
“Some of these issues meant that the intended auto communication via emails for order update were ‘stuck’. These led to a build-up of call volumes and waiting time. Deliveries were also affected by the mismatched processes. The company has worked diligently on fixing these issues since and have now resolved all known issues in the last a few weeks.”
The statement said the supply chain was “flowing smoothly from now on” but it was “likely to take a few weeks for the effect of the implemented improvements made to the flow of the supply chain to follow through”.
It concluded by adding that Rathwood was “aware that some customer had experienced delay with the delivery of fuel” and said “containers have docked this week and the firewood and fuel are being delivered to customers as we speak”.
The complaints kept coming in.
The Irish Times was not the only place where Rathwood’s failings were highlighted, with hundreds of people contacting the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) to express concern over broken promises.
Earlier this month, the consumer watchdog published two separate news releases about the company. In the first, it outlined how Rathwood had signed a legally-binding commitment to issue refunds to consumers with the undertakings coming after an investigation that found the company in breach of consumer protection legislation.
Days later, it emerged that Rathwood was the second most complained about company in Ireland in 2025, just behind Ryanair. It attracted 565 contacts to the CCPC helplines compared with just 24 a year earlier.
RTÉ Radio 1’s Liveline show picked up the story devoting almost two full programmes to customers who had been let down by Rathwood.
No one from the company would go on the show to defend how it had treated people but in a statement issued to Liveline an unnamed spokesperson said it had “reviewed all customer feedback and correspondence” sent by RTÉ and “we recognise the impact these issues have had.
“We have listened, and we genuinely apologise to every customer who has been affected. We understand the frustration this has caused, and we do not take it lightly.”
‘Working flat out’
The statement said that the Rathwood team was “working through all outstanding matters as quickly as possible. We know this has taken longer than it should and we are disappointed that we did not do better. We are working flat out to address each case and will respond to customers directly.”
It finished by saying “Rathwood was in a financial position to fulfil orders and issue refunds”.
Last Saturday morning the refunds issue was back in the news after a notice appeared on the Rathwood website saying it had gone into examinership.
“We want to reassure all our customers, suppliers and partners that we continue to trade as normal and operate fully in accordance with all applicable laws,” the statement said, adding that “at this time, we regret that we are not in a position to address any outstanding payments or refund requests relating to amounts owed up to today. These matters will be reviewed as part of the examinership process, and we will provide further updates once the appointed persons have completed their initial report.”
The end of last week was certainly busy for the retailer. Initially, with the assistance of Cork-based accountants Gerard Murphy & Co, the retailer formally entered the Small Company Administrative Rescue Process (Scarp).
[ Rathwood customers express fears they may never see promised refundsOpens in new window ]
Then it received details of an ex parte examinership application made to the High Court late on Friday with fresh proposals from Rathwood creditors, including Anhui Living, the company it had entered into a “strategic partnership” with last September.
Padraic Bermingham of Strata Financial in Dublin was confirmed as interim examiner and Anhui agreed to keep supplying stock to the business to allow it to continue trading.
Bermingham now has responsibility for the retailer’s future and will spend the weeks ahead seeking investors and drawing up plans to restructure Rathwood to give it a viable future.
Those still waiting for refunds or deliveries of products ordered before last Friday will be left waiting and there are fears that as unsecured creditors they may be left with nothing, although any future investor may decide to honour previous orders as a gesture of goodwill and to stave off inevitable criticism. As it stands that might be the best Rathwood customers can hope for.
