Finding a gap in the market for traditional Irish products

Moriarty's in the Gap of Dunloe, Co Kerry, this month celebrates 50 years in business. It has thrived on its stunning location, its commitment to a quality product offering and its great service over the past half-century.

Working with Irish producers of handmade knits, tweeds and jewellery and developing strong relationships with tour-bus operators have also been key to its success.

Denis Moriarty is managing director of the company, his father, Michael Moriarty, having died in 2003. Michael was born 100 yards down the road from the site of the existing business in 1926 "with nothing", and went on to develop one of the most successful enterprises in the area.

The company has just added an 85-seater restaurant to the gift shop. The addition of polytunnels and kitchen gardens to the 4.5-acre gardens will add to the offering of fresh, local food in the restaurant. The new gardens and walkways were designed by Tim Austen, Bloom gold medal winner and mentor on RTÉ's Super Garden show. They take full advantage of the business's location at the entrance to the Gap of Dunloe, one of the State's most popular tourist destinations.

Loan approval
The development cost about €750,000, and it was largely self-financed with some help from the bank.

Moriarty says he found the process of getting loan approval relatively painless: “Obviously we’ve loans for the new project and it was quite an easy thing to bring over the line. That was, of course, based on having had no previous loans for the past 30 years and funding half of it ourselves.”

With the new restaurant and gardens, the company now employs 22 people, two of whom have been working there for 30 and 40 years respectively.

Moriarty says the Celtic Tiger years and their demise had little or no impact on the business, which focuses almost entirely on the US coach-tour market, though this is likely to change with the new developments. If the events of September 11th, 2001, had an impact on tourism globally and US tourist numbers in particular, Moriarty says Ireland never lost its gloss as a safe tourist destination.

And now 2014 looks likely to be the company’s strongest performing year in recent history. “We never enjoyed any great benefit from the Celtic Tiger and we never really suffered when the bubble burst but there has been a huge bounce- back of American visitors for 2014 and looking towards 2015. Those figures and predictions have also given us the confidence to invest what we have invested here.”

Product offering
Consultation on the business in 2009 led Moriarty's to hone its model rather than change it. A close inspection of the company's product offering has seen gross sales since then increase from €900,000 to €1.35 million annually.

“We have quite a niche market,” says Moriarty. “We were thinking at the time that we needed to alter things radically from where we were but we discovered that what we were doing was good and unique. We didn’t want to deviate too much from what we were doing but wanted to add to what we already had. Our customers still want good-quality woollens, tweeds and jewellery.”

Moriarty’s specialises in the sale of traditional items such as handmade tweeds, knits and symbolic jewellery. While there had been a move away from such products by other well-known Irish retailers during the boom years, Moriarty says this product offering very much works for the company and its customers.

“We have tried to carry the more contemporary ranges such as Paul Costelloe and Jean Butler and it hasn’t lasted six months with us – it still goes back to Claddagh, Trinity knots and Celtic crosses. In Ireland, we have an instantly recognised symbolic brand, which is still in demand and there is no getting away from that.”

Irish tweed is selected by Denis Moriarty’s mother, Margaret, from John Hanly & Co in Nenagh, Co Tipperary; jewellery is made in Dublin; and sweaters are handknitted in Co Donegal.

“The trends in the past few years were to get stuff made quicker and cheaper in China or Cambodia. We never did that and always strove for quality,” says Moriarty.

Sourcing local produce for the restaurant has proved easier thanks to the variety of artisan producers in the region.

Moriarty adds: “With a change in visitors over the coming years, our product offering will probably evolve but we will still make sure that we are catering for our existing market.”

That Moriarty’s has remained a family business is something it has focused on in-store recently. Moriarty’s wife, Ailish, has been involved for a number of years, and his mother and sister Mary Anne both work in the business. The company’s motto is “courtesy, consideration and good value”, and Moriarty believes these qualities have helped maintain the business over the years.

He describes his father as having been an "extraordinary man". "What we are doing now with all our new developments is really based on the 48 years of hard work and commitment that has gone before us," he says. "To do it justice we wanted to go big and bold to honour that, and I think we have achieved it."

moriartys.ie