TradeNames: For well over a century, menswear shop Kennedy & McSharry has sustained itself through quality clothes and discreet charm, writes Rose Doyle

Kennedy & McSharry has all of the discreet charm traditionally associated with the bourgeoisie. Always has had, ever since Michael McSharry and John Kennedy first set up their gentleman's outfitters in Westmoreland Street in 1889.

It was the place to go then, suitably close to O'Connell Bridge and the huge, resulting pedestrian traffic, makers of the finest classic suits and coats, shirt and collar manufacturers too, hatters, hosiers; the lot in fact, all of it sold to customers with an attention that was tactful, attentive and, well, discreet.

Changes since then have been the necessary ones, nothing more, all of it in the interest of keeping things as they were while moving forward.

Kennedy & McSharry is up the road in Nassau Street these days, and personal tailoring is more limited, styles different. But it's still a one-stop shop for the man who wants to dress, and even co-ordinate, from the inside out and get help doing so, the place to go for suits by Magee to Baumler, for blazers, shirts, knitwear, hats, long johns, gloves, underwear, cotton handerchiefs.

Chairs from the original premises wait beside laden counters, a table inside the door has displayed Kennedy & McSharry merchandise since 1889. There's time and there's choice, all ensured by Neil and Tony McSharry, the third generation to run things.

Tony is the older of the two, grandson of founder Michael McSharry and first born son of his son, Michael, and wife Evelyn. He's in the business since he finished an apprenticeship in Brown Thomas in 1963. Neil joined 10 years later, his route to a life in the family business a little more circuitous but equally committed once he arrived.

And now there's a fourth generation on board. Sarah McSharry, daughter of Neil is, she says, the first McSharry woman to join the business. She's primarily involved in accounts but, as in all family businesses, is fast learning to multi-task. Her cousin Dermot, son of Tony, is an important part of things too, looking after stock control but, like everyone else, an all rounder.

Tony and Neil tell the Kennedy & McSharry story, prompted now and again by Sarah who, inter alia, learns a thing or two.

The first Michael McSharry arrived in 1880s Dublin from a small farm background in Kinlock, Co Leitrim. He served his time in Arnotts, as did John Kennedy, from Dundrum. When they decided to go out on their own they got themselves the premises at 24 Westmoreland Street, lived overhead and had their shirts manufactured there too.

"The business grew," Tony says, "and when 3 and 4 D'Olier Street, which was the old Regent Hotel, became available they bought that too. This meant you could walk right through the shop from Westmoreland to D'Olier streets. They ran the hotel for a while, but leased it out during the 1940s."

Warm, woolly underwear was a big seller in that first half-century. Cloths mostly came from England, or were Irish made. Mainland European cloths, fine wools and such, weren't contenders.

"Everything was heavier then," Neil says, "whether Crombie coats or the navy suits everyone wore. Otherwise men wore a tweed jacket and flannel trousers, always grey."

"We did country clothes, but never on-top-of-your-horse stuff," Tony says, "and had a very big clerical trade of all persuasions."

Michael Collins bought his hats there; an invoice, duly paid for shows where he bought a hat, shirt and collars.

Tony, the keeper of memorabilia, also produces an accounts book for 1899. On February 1st that year the shop took in £20.11s.11d. On May 1st, 1901 the figure was £27.18s.7d, the same day in 1905 yielded £17.4s.5d. On July 8th, 1911 the shop closed to honour "the king's visit". It had closed years earlier too, for coronation day in 1902.

Michael McSharry played as well as worked. He bought an Armstrong Siddeley car in 1927, in Express Auto on Dawson Street. It had a Cotswold Open Touring body and cost £163. 10s. 0d. a price which included number plates and road tax.

Swimsuits, in pure wool in the 1940s, cost from 7/6d to 11/6d.

When Michael McSharry married Evelyn c. 1900, they rented (and later bought) a house on Rathgar Road. They had three sons; Michael Timothy, Brendan and Joseph (who died in his 20s). Michael McSharry died in 1959, when he was 98.

John Kennedy, who never married, declared he would get out "as soon as one of the boys came into the business". Michael T obliged, when he was 15 in 1917, and the Kennedy & McSharry partnership was dissolved in 1919. The name, a 30-year-old tradition by then, stayed. Brendan, in time, joined his older brother in the business.

Michael T married Donegal woman Ena O'Donnell and, as well as Tony and Neil, had three other sons (Brian, Michael and Rory) and a daughter Miriam.

Neil is mildly indignant at the suggestion that Kennedy & McSharry might have eschewed flares in the 1970s. "We've gone with all the fashion changes," he says, immaculate himself, as is Tony, in Magee, fine wool pin stripes.

"We wouldn't ever have done jeans," Tony says, "but everything above that. Colours came in the 1970s, matching shirts and ties were a big change. In 1963 when I started in the business we did mohair suits and drain pipes. When I started, too, we only had one rack of ready mades, we were still doing made-to-measure suits. Men had a suit for Sunday and one for everyday wear. Uncle Brendan, for instance, wore and had the precisely the same, navy pinhead suit remade for himself all his life."

A mid-1970s fire in the Regent Hotel changed everything. "In truth it was a blessing," Tony says, "the pedestrian flow and traffic had changed and it was time to move. We looked around and settled on this stretch of Nassau Street, which had just been developed. We kept our customer base, readymades became very, very big - though we've kept on with a small amount of tailoring. We see ourselves as a classic, modern shop."

Their father, Michael, died in 1986, spending time daily in the shop until the end. Brendan, who married late, had no offspring and died a couple of years before him, was also involved all his life.

Kennedy & McSharry have diversified too, though not radically. With the 1980s swing to leisurewear they opened a specialist, upmarket sportswear shop in Wicklow Street. Sean Kearns, who'd been in Westmoreland Street, took over managership.

When Lacoste, a long time Kennedy & McSharry brand seller, asked them to open the first Lacoste boutique in the country, they converted the shop in the late 1980s. It's still going strong, a women's and children's shop now located in the basement. In 2001 they opened a second Lacoste Boutique in Liffey Street.

"Dealing with an international company has given us insight on trends," Neil says, "which is good for our customers of all ages."

The company, he says, has "become even more personalised in recent years, maybe because there are fewer of us independents doing this sort of personalised, classic menswear. The influence of women on male fashions has grown - very few men come in nowadays without their wife or girlfriend. Those who do always say, as they're paying, 'can I return it if the wife doesn't like it?' It's a positive influence, a good thing."

Sarah and Dermot, for the fourth generation of McSharrys, have brought diverse experiences to the company. Before joining up in 2000, Sarah studied business and French, then worked in aquaculture.

Dermot studied languages and is currently doing an MA in linguistics part-time.

"In a business our size everyone plays a role," Neil says. "In another few years they'll both be on the shop floor seven days a week, just as I am."

Sarah laughs, accepting this as a "natural progression!"