Celebrating 50 years next year, Rory's Fishing Tackle shop is a key social hub in Temple Bar , writes Rose Doyle

RORY'S FISHING Tackle emporium in Temple Bar will be 50 years old next year. Hard to believe, given its special place at the heart of the city's art/tourism quarter. For anyone who fishes, freshwater or sea or has even done the Temple Bar stroll, Rory's has always been there, a core and central part of Temple Bar.

But this has only been true since 1959 when a young Rory Harkin, energetic and mad about fishing, opened a fishing tackle shop at 17A Temple Bar. Today's iconic status wasn't a vision he was born with although, sitting with him and daughter-heir-apparent Mary over coffees, you might wonder.

Rory Harkin is so well known he might have invented the village that is Temple Bar, or at the very least be an uncrowned official. No one passes without greeting him, all exchanging news and snippets, goodwill and wit abounding as they do, still, in any of Dublin's older locales. Harkin's is a world within a world in Temple Bar, one where priorities are sorted and life a passionate affair. Especially when it involves fishing and the activities it supports.

Harkin grew up in Rathgar and, saving a few years in Tipperary's Rockwell College, has lived in Dublin all his life. His father, Patrick Harkin (the ESB's chief engineer for years from the late 1920s), met his mother, Pauline Coughlan (the first Catholic woman to work for the Bank of Ireland in College Green) in New York where they married.

They had four children: Brian (deceased), Aileen, Pauline (deceased) and Rory, "the babby", he laughs, "born in 1940. We lived in different houses in the Dartry/Rathgar area and I used to spend any spare moment I had fishing the Dodder. My father was a fisherman too, lived for it. I couldn't tell you why I love it so much but since I could walk I've wanted to fish. River and lake, never the sea, though I've done a little of that too."

Fishing's shaped and made Harkin's life. He was a founder member of the Dodder Angling Club. "I was 17, only a gasur at the time. The Dodder was a lovely wild river coming down from the mountains then; still is except there are walls and buildings along a lot of its banks now. Without the club there wouldn't be a Dodder; the anglers keep an eye on any sign of pollution and get on to the Fishing Board. They do walking checks. The committee is always on the ball. It's marvellous for kids, the club. Most fish caught are released."

He was sent to Rockwell because he "wouldn't study in Mary's Rathmines or in Synge Street. All I'd do was make flies, or go off fishing. Then I did business studies in Blackrock Academy; Ronnie Drew was there too. I didn't stay long but learned something. Elvery's had a fishing tackle shop in Nassau Street where I used give a hand and eventually got the job running the fishing tackle section."

It was 1959 and he was 17. When his father, in the ESB in Fleet Street, saw a shop lying idle at 17A Temple Bar, he suggested his son might rent and go into the fishing tackle business himself.

"I moved in in 1959, paid the massive rent of £16 per month, including rates, got the place ready and opened for business on February 21st, 1960. My first sale was a Boblex Spoon (pike spinner) for 10/= and that day's takings were £5.5s.9d. The second day I took in 4/4d and for the whole week £21. 6s.6d. I stuck with it, my father giving me a hand, both of us fishing any spare time we had! It was tough in the beginning. The 1970s weren't bad but then came the 1980s recession and that was very bad."

He sold hooks, rods, reels, lines, the live bait he went out digging for at 4am and in evenings. "Hard work, but people didn't seem to need so much then as now."

He played hard too, running in marathons for disabled anglers in New York, London and Belfast, cycling, fishing (he competed with the Irish fishing team in the international trout fishing competition of 1973). He is still "living in Tír na nOg, still cycling out and up the mountains".

Rory Harkin married Miriam Brooks in 1969 and she quickly became as integral to Rory's as the man himself. She died in January this year and is sadly missed. "We'd have married earlier but there was no money coming in," Rory says. "Foot and Mouth made for rough times in 1968 and between that and the rod licence wars and pollution on Lough Sheelin we were nearly wiped out. I've been part of the fight against pollution since the 1970s, it's one of our biggest problems in Ireland today."

In the late 1970s, when his parents died, Rory and Miriam Harkin moved into the family house in Churchtown. They had two daughters by then: Áine (1970) and Mary (1972). In the early 1980s, thanks to a persuasive architect friend, he bought 17A Temple Bar. "Temple Bar was dead, I wanted to move but he persuaded me, thankfully. There was absolutely nothing around here then, just small little shirt factories, a few residents. Our customers remained loyal and the redevelopment didn't really affect us. Things picked up in the 1990s, the what-ya-call-it tiger used be in the streets! Things have changed in fishing with a lot of rivers closed now, lots more catch-and-release."

Miriam Harkin was a much-loved feature in Rory's. "She was always a bit of craic," husband and daughter assure, "and so popular. She would make tea for customers; the shop was as much a social centre as anything else. She's still missed by customers, by us all."

Rory's also used to sell guns. A 1980s break-in ended that line of business, "though we still do ammunition", Mary says, "and sell archery equipment and accessories, a full range of clothing and footwear and knick-knack things for the tourist trade. You'd be amazed how popular our T-shirts are - we get requests for them from all over the world."

Mary Harkin too has been "fishing since I could walk. I love the excitement of catching and the opportunities of going places I might never see otherwise, being close to nature." She's part of the business now, after 15 years spent, "doing my own thing, gaining experience I can apply here to build on what we have and expand, develop our internet presence.

"I've been fishing 30 years, was on the first Irish ladies fly fishing team for 13 years and fished for the full team (men's Irish Trout Fly Fishing Association) in the 1990s. Dad and myself tie our own fishing flies, it's a big passion."

The shop, she says, "is like a club, so many people from all walks of life coming in here, all the same in their love of fishing". Tom Cruise bought wellies in Rory's, Ozzy Osbourne, Bono, Larry Mullin, Jack Charlton, ex-presidents Paddy Hillary and Bill Clinton and more have all bought fishing tackle. So too, these days, do "lots of Chinese and Eastern European people, who are mad about fishing. The Polish are big into it, and the Latvians and Lithuanians."

Rory Harkin wants Mary to "take over the reins" so he can "go fishing when I want to" but is far from through with the shop himself and won't be retiring anytime soon. When he does, "the only way I'll be leaving is in a coffin!"

Rory's wild and wonderful T-shirts, and other pieces of iconography, are on www.rorys.ie