From pints to property and beyond: Irish shops are multitasking to make ends meet

Irish pubs have a tradition of providing a little extra to go with your pint. In small towns and villages, it made sense for baked goods, drapery, groceries and funeral services to come together under one roof. Some are keeping the vibe alive: McCarthy’s of Fethard in Co Tipperary is a bar, restaurant and funeral service provider. In the same vein, Joyce’s of Borris in Co Carlow is a pub, coffee shop and undertakers. It also has accommodation upstairs for the living, should you plan to make a night of it.

Making a premises work harder for its keep is not uniquely Irish: in Vietnam you will frequently find your hairdresser’s, or even your dentist’s has turned into a bar after dark. Closer to home, Belgium’s Wasbar chain has a full menu to take you from breakfast through to cocktails and dinner, with a full launderette service on the side. It’s a genius idea, which I hope catches on here. Why limit yourself to doing just one thing? We explore some stores with more.

The bookshop bar

Simon Prim’s atmospheric shop in Kinsale, Co Cork is a beautiful space with a dark wood floor. Book-filled shelves line the walls, and more tomes are piled on the long central table. There is a chess board – not for sale, despite the eager entreaties of two small boys – and a piano. Step out the front door to a view of the harbour, or head down the back and find a coffee bar that aids the place’s transformation to a vibey sherry and cava bar come nightfall.

“Bookselling is exciting,” says Prim, who clearly has it in the blood – his father’s Alan Prim Books recently marked 50 years in the business in Youghal. “You’re going to different towns, calling to people’s houses looking for books, and you’re always hoping to find something brilliant.” Alongside amazing finds, the second-hand book trade also sees occasional gluts of books. Last year, there were so many Da Vinci Codes coming in that artist David Shrigley famously pulped 6,000 copies and republished them as George Orwell’s 1984. “I’m seeing a lot of Milkman,” says Prim of Anna Burns’ Booker Prize-winning novel.

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We are sitting at the counter, sipping excellent coffee and although it is only just after lunch, I have to confess I am casting wistful glances at Prim’s array of wines and sherries. That side of the business started at the end of Covid. A couple of musicians, wanted a venue for a pop-up gig. A few sessions later, a sound engineer friend offered his services, and things grew. With an impressive roster for a small space. artists including Lisa O’Neill, Duke Special, Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh and Jack O’Rourke have all done a turn.

“There’s very little money in putting on small gigs, so I decided to start selling wine,” says Prim, laconically. A long-time lover of all things Spanish, the emphasis is on regional wines, cava and sherry, plus nuts and nibbles. Turning the shop into a bar used to take him a full hour, removing the books from the central table, lining the benches with sheepskins and dimming the lights. These days he can get it ready in half the time. The hardest part? “Lighting the candles. There’s about 55 of them,” he smiles wryly.

He doesn’t sell wine during the day, except at Christmas. “I want to keep them separate. People come in to buy books in the daytime, and I want to have time for them.” He says it’s easier to recommend a wine than a book, but if he had to choose? “Books,” he says immediately. “I genuinely love both. But believe it or not,” he adds, “more funny stuff happens in a bookshop than it does in a bar.”

The Bar at Prim’s Bookshop is open in the evenings on Fridays and Saturdays, with pop-up gigs on occasional Sundays. Openings will get more frequent as the summer comes in so check instagram.com/primsbookshop for details.

The bicycling baristas

Originally from Venezuela, Pedro Bottero took over running Life in Motion, the Harold’s Cross Bicycle shop in 2019. Expanding the repair shop to include sales, he soon realised that staying afloat during Covid called for another string to his bow. After toying with a few options, he settled on a coffee bar. “I realised a vape shop was a very bad idea,” says Bottero with a laugh, who originally trained as an Industrial Engineer, and sought Asylum in Ireland in 2014. Gaining refugee status meant he could explore the idea of setting up a business. A friend with a bicycle shop who was leaving the country offered him an opportunity, and the rest is inner tube and latte history.

“When Covid hit, we saw more people cycling, but we wanted to do something different. People do long cycles to the coast or the countryside, and they start early. Maybe they want to get their tyres pumped or chain oiled before they go, so we decide to make a social bicycle shop. They can get a coffee or an energy drink here, and then follow their route.”

Today, Bottero runs the workshop, repairing and servicing electric bikes, scooters and regular bicycles. He keeps this separate from the showroom and coffee shop, so that flat tyres don’t interfere with flat whites. Overall, he employs a team of six (“I’m very proud of the people I work with,” he says), including his fiancee and business partner Maria Carrero, as well as Baristas. They take their coffee seriously too. “Everyone who works in the cafe takes a course with Bewley’s before starting,” says Carrero.

“People are really friendly,” says Bottero. “Some do say ‘is this a bicycle shop or a coffee shop?’ but they soon get it. The feedback is positive. We had one lady who came in to buy a coffee and left with an electric bike.” Electric bikes, he says, can be a game changer in Ireland, an ideal antidote to our horrible traffic. “At the moment, we sell more electric bikes than normal bikes. They are getting lighter, and the range is getting better too.”

Alongside their excellent coffee, Bottero and Carrero also run courses and classes for bicycle maintenance and care, and can come to your workplace, club, or school, contact them at limbicycleshop.com for more details. limbicycleshop.com

Pulling pints and selling houses

“Never do business in a pub,” says Daragh Heraghty. But in combining his family pub, Heraghty’s of Manorhamilton in Co Leitrim, with an estate agent’s, he is following in the famous footsteps of the likes of Morrissey’s of Abbeyleix. The Co Laois bar, which has its roots in a shebeen from the 1700s, was once an auctioneers, insurance agent and undertakers as well as a pub. They even sold tickets for the Titanic. These days they stick to pulling pints and pouring coffees, but a couple of hundred kilometres further north, Heraghty’s is keeping the tradition alive.

“Auctioneering was always something I wanted to do,” says Daragh Heraghty. “I had done a bit of it in college in Bolton Street years ago, but I got sidetracked. My Dad used to have an auctioneer’s license as well, so when I moved back to Manorhamilton about six years ago, I got mylicence back and we started from scratch.

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“It’s a big old vintage bar, and it’s beautiful. I have an office over the back, and I use the pub window for advertising and so on. We also have the bar available as a meeting room if it’s closed and I happen to need a large space.” Separating business and pleasure is one thing, but Heraghty is keen to note that he also makes sure the two businesses stay separate as well.

“People might ask your opinion in the bar,” says Heraghty, “and general conversations about property happen all the time. But selling a house for somebody is serious business. I don’t think too many people would come to you if they thought you were going to transact their business over pints in the bar.”

That may well be the case, but the co-location does mean Heraghty has the ideal spot for hosting celebrations after happy transactions, and a great hub for welcoming new residents to the area. These days the property business is busy, and Heraghty says the vacant and derelict property grants have seen an increase in buyers for some of the region’s more, to put it delicately, picturesque offerings. The pub itself, which is run by Heraghty’s mother Bernie and his wife Phil, is quieter.

“Manorhamilton has four really good pubs, and we open three nights a week. Before Covid it was seven. The regulations are tough,” Heraghty says, quoting all manner of onerous and costly hurdles and rules. “We charge a fiver for all pints. No matter what it is. But the overheads have gone up, and everything has got so expensive. Still, you meet lovely people in the bar. You’re pouring pints, and you’re dropping people home. It’s a great community. We’re now an estate agent’s first and foremost. The pub is a weekend thing, you’d love to be open seven days a week. Maybe things will happen and that will change, but the name is over the door, and you’d want to keep it there as long as possible.” heraghtyauctioneers.com, facebook.com/HeraghtysBarManorhamilton

The tweed and travel agent

Mullaney Brothers of Sligo Town has been in the family since 1909, although the business itself has an even longer history. “The shop was an old shipping agent dating back to the 1750s, so there was always a travel agent of a sort here,” says John Mullaney. Mullaney’s grandfather worked at what was then White Brothers, before going to Moone’s of Galway, where he discovered a love of tweed.

Today, you can go into Mullaney’s for a tweed jacket – Magee’s of Donegal weave two tweeds especially for them – and quite possibly come out with a holiday to go with it. The Sligo store also specialises in Barbour country clothing and waxed jackets, as well as selling a wide range of clothing, school uniforms and communion ensembles.

“My grandfather bought the business, and my father and uncle were born there, but I didn’t grow up with it. My father was a solicitor and it wasn’t until I finished college that I started. I didn’t go in with any great plan, but I loved it. You see it in multigenerational businesses,” he says, “that if you don’t like what you do, you’ll kill it awfully quickly. To love what you do is almost more important than being good at it.”

Some people are surprised to find the travel desk, but locals are well used to it, and value booking their holidays from a team that know their destinations. “It’s the simplicity of knowing that we’ve been there and we know what it’s like, so we know what to recommend. And that you have somebody to call if anything happens.”

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So do people come in for a school uniform and leave with two weeks in the sun? “There is cross over,” says Mullaney. “And with 114 years in the business, we see generations coming in. But as a general rule,” he says , “school uniforms is August and September, and people will have had their holidays by then. I remember reading one of the big London shops announcing a spectacular departure: they were going to have a travel agents in store; and I thought there really is nothing new. Times come and go,” he says. “People see the tweed and maybe they see yesterday, but we’re always working ahead. We’re constantly looking forward to tomorrow.” mullaneybrothers.com