Trade NamesFrom manufacturing furniture to retailing it - and a few sidelines in between - McCarthy's has been trading in Limerick over three centuries, writes Rose Doyle
Furniture is not what it used to be. Time was when pieces were made individually and to order, when P McCarthy & Sons of Limerick in March 1907 could write to customer Rev C Mangan, CC, advising him that his wardrobe would be "ready early next week when we will send it to Kilmallrick as requested".
The economics of buying and selling aren't what they used to be either. McCarthy & Sons in October 1924 sold a pram for £6.10s.0d. Their customer paid a deposit of £1 and paid another £1 every month until, clearing the account in February 1925, the pram was hers.
McCarthy's has been well placed to observe economic, social and furniture changes during the 176 years and five generations since Peter McCarthy set up as a cabinet-maker in Francis Street, Limerick, in 1830. Don (Donald) McCarthy is the fourth generation managing director and custodian of the family, and company, story.
What he doesn't remember he's researched and, on the eve of a momentous move on the company's part, tells what he knows: "A big fire in 1974 in William Street destroyed many, many records and ledgers, ours and others," he's filled with regret, remembering this bit, "so what we know of the beginnings I found in the valuable archives of the old Limerick Chronicle, the oldest newspaper in Ireland, you know."
To my shame I didn't know. Assured that I do now, he goes on: "As near as we can pitch it, the company was started in 1830, in Francis Street where the Arthur's Quay shopping centre is today, by my great-grandfather, Peter McCarthy. He'd learned his skills as a joiner and seems to have come in from Co Limerick.
"He married Mary O'Donnell and they had two sons, Stephen and Frank, and two daughters, Julia and Mary Ann. Stephen, my grandfather, went into the business. The company migrated to Cecil Street in the 1850s - it was easy to acquire property then, no one wanted it - and set up a shop. The cabinet-making and upholstery was transferred to Parnell Street, beside what is now the railway station. Limerick was a much smaller city then but its bacon and clothing factories fed and clothed the armies of Europe."
McCarthy's moved with the business times, developing and expanding into areas outside furniture making. "They were making lots of money by the 1860s," Don McCarthy says, "and my grandfather, Stephen, built a terrace of five houses on the Ennis Road. They're still there but were sold off years ago, unfortunately! If we had that property today . . ."
He dwells briefly on the possibilities before going on. "In the 1870s they expanded further and acquired premises at 38, 39 and 40 Georges's Street, now O'Connell Street. My grandfather, Stephen, married Mina Purcell from Croom, Co Limerick, and they lived over the shop in George's Street. There was a factory at the back. Peter, their eldest son, was born in 1891. My father, Joseph James, who would be known as JJ, was born in 1893. Donald, their youngest son, was born in 1900 and died in 1920. They had two daughters, Claire and Margaret."
In between times the McCarthy family business had acquired Limerick's Gaiety Cinema at 45 George's Street (now Clancy's Electrical), the place to view a silent movie or listen to a concert.
"Mary Pickford's and other films were shown there," says Don, "and there was a piano in the pit. The ivorys would be thumping away with the images above on the screen. They sold it in the 1930s."
Undertaking and auctioneering businesses, run by Frank McCarthy, were also part of the family empire. As the 19th century came to an end craftsmen from the furniture-making side of things created the still much admired wood panelling and confessionals in the Dominican Church in Glentworth Street.
"Early in the 20th century," Don McCarthy goes on, "they bought and lived in 2 Pery Square, a beautiful Georgian terrace house which is now a museum, thanks to the Civic Trust raising funds and refurbishing it. By 1910, when he was 19, Peter had joined the firm. My father was still in Mungret College, now gone. In 1922 they leased numbers 38 and 39 in what had by then been renamed O'Connell Street, to Woolworths for its first store outside Dublin. They moved themselves into number 40, a smaller building.
"Around this time my uncle Peter married Margaret O'Dea, whose father had set up O'Dearest Mattresses in Dublin in the late 19th century. Peter went to Dublin after my grandfather's death in 1924 and made O'Dearest a household name. He was a great business man; I remember him telling me how they used spend £10,000 a week on advertising in the 1950s when they didn't have much money.
"My father, Joe McCarthy, had by now gone to Manchester to train in the retail end of things. My grandmother, Mina McCarthy (nee Purcell), brought him back and into the business when Peter left and he became, in time, MD. He married my mother, Mary Killeen, and they had three sons; my brothers, Joe and Peter, myself and my sister, Anne. In 1935 he acquired an old grain store at 19 William Street; there were grain stores of all kinds around at the time. That's where we are to this day."
Renovating William Street, creating four floors over basement with all but the top one full of furniture, took a few years. The top floor housed the upholsterers, French polishers and joiners. In 1937 number 40 O'Connell Street was sold to the ESB and, in the 1950s, the mass production of furniture put an end to even the scaled-down manufacturing end of things. The factory by the station had closed long before and the premises on Cecil Street been leased out.
"We still had a vibrant retail business," Don McCarthy reassures, "which my father ran until 1963 when he died. My grandmother, Mina, had died seven years before, in 1956. The 1940s and war years were lean times. Petrol was scarce and deliveries were made by rail and horse-drawn flat cars. In 1943-44 James McQuane, one of the firm's employees, was mayor of Limerick. In 1959 we remodelled the frontage; Harrisons of Dublin, famous for its work on Kilkenny Castle, did it in marble."
Work which, sadly, was destroyed by the aforementioned fire of 1974. Donald McCarthy, "after Clongowes and the Crescent, both Jesuit schools, and a couple of years doing commerce in UCD", joined the firm in 1959. "My late brother, Joe, and I ran things together for a while. In 1966 I married June Glynn and we have five children. The 1974 fire took a nice chunk out of William Street but we'd bought another premises in adjoining Thomas Street, so we were able to run the business from there until we rebuilt and reopened in William Street in 1977."
Don and Joe McCarthy decided to go their separate business ways in 1991. Don McCarthy's son, Donald junior, became the fifth generation of McCarthys in the firm when he joined in 1989. He looks after the everyday running of things with his sister, Susan, who is keen on interior design. Another Don and June McCarthy offspring, daughter Judy, is married in Limerick; a third, Victoria, is a solicitor in Mullingar; and son, Andrew, "the troubadour of the family", teaches English in Japan.
"We're almost 70 years in William Street," says Don, "it's all I've ever known and now we're moving! For a long time there was no great change in the furniture business but there's been a sea-change in the last five-to-10 years in Ireland. We've had to move with the times, can't get left behind. Parking's become a problem, customers are 'time poor' and you can't blame them. Our trade gobbles up space and we need to be able to display. We'll have a much bigger range in the retail park we're moving to on the city's outskirts where we'll continue things for the fifth, direct line of McCarthys."
