The local shop is fast disappearing, but it still plays a role in cultivating a sense of community, writes Brian O'Connell.

'How much are 10 John Player Blue?"

"We have this every time, Seanie. Ten John Player Blue are €3.60."

"I thought they were €2.50."

"No Seanie - always €3.60."

"Go on, give me 10 so."

Pat Twomey is in the middle of his lunchtime trade.

Situated at the butt of Parliament Bridge, a stone's throw from Cork's financial district, Twomey's is one of the last independently-owned grocer's shops in the city and part of a dying breed nationwide.

Seventy years ago, Pat's father, Jerry, began this small outlet at a time when family-owned corner shops were two a penny.

"I remember growing up there would be five or six shops on a street. Now you'd be lucky to get one," says Pat.

Inside Twomey's, little has changed in the past 50 years, with monetary calculations done by hand, and products stacked floor to ceiling. The one glaring token of modernity is an expensive coffee machine sitting rather awkwardly in the corner. Drinks, cigarettes, sandwiches and parking discs are the most popular items, and aside from basic pleasantries, few customers have time to stop and chat.

"The chat still goes on - I mean you'll always get chat in Ireland - but everything has gotten faster. People have commitments, and deadlines to meet, so there's not as much of a social element to this trade as before. It's changed a lot."

Statistics from AC Nielsen indicate that Ireland's independent local shop sector is fading fast, having halved in the past two decades, from a little over 6,000 premises in 1985 to just under 3,000 today.

The rise of multinational, convenience culture is laying siege to the traditional corner shop, once a focal point for community groceries and gossip. In the UK, corner shops are going out of business at a rate of 2,000 a year, with a British Parliament Commission reporting that by 2015, non-affiliated independent convenience stores and grocers are "unlikely to survive". Even Tony Blair lost his favourite Italian deli in Islington last year.

The English experience - where 24 per cent of villages are now without a local shop, and multinationals control 92 per cent of the retail sector - should serve as a stark warning to Ireland.

The Irish market, though, has one fundamental difference to the UK model, which may go some way towards ensuring that villages are not left without a shop to service them, argues Colette O'Connor of industry magazine Shelf Life.

"The industry is controlled in a different way in Britain. Certainly it looks very pessimistic there at present. The symbol group sector, such as Spar or Centra or whoever, was never as developed there as ours here, and there were few planning guidelines in the UK until very recently."

Yet the fact remains that in rural Ireland in particular, shops remaining independently owned are finding it increasingly difficult to remain in business. Rising costs, crime, increased competition and changing shopping patterns are all contributory factors.

While O'Connor admits that Ireland's traditional local shop is facing increased pressure, she points to the fact that ultimately it is the customer who decides.

"The purely independent shop is a thing of the past, in rural areas especially. The corner shop in Dublin always had the population to sustain it. Consumers may lament the loss of the village shop, but if they only buy a newspaper and 20 cigarettes there on a Saturday morning, then you can't expect them to remain in business."

For some, however, the demise of the corner shop is seen within the broader context of social change in Ireland. With local post offices and pubs facing similar problems, the overall pattern seems one of erosion of traditional community focal points.

"The shop meant an awful lot to the community," says O'Connor. "In the past, for instance, if Joe or Peggy were not in for their groceries by a certain hour, then the shop owner knew something was wrong. So there was an element of community care attached to the outlets. It's harder to maintain that in the bigger shops."

With responsibility for the independent retail grocer sector in Ireland, RG Data is uniquely placed to assess changing retail patterns. Director general Tara Buckley points to the rise in property prices as adding another nail in the coffin of the corner shop.

"There have been issues in the recent past that have impacted on them. In some cases, property has become more valuable than businesses. In other cases, children of shop owners are interested in doing other things, and end up selling up and getting out of the business."

Yet Buckley is not wholly pessimistic about Ireland's small independent retail sector and takes some positives from the changing patterns.

"A lot of them are adapting and turning their businesses into local convenience stores. In other words the traditional role of the corner shop is changing. The shops are putting in more space if they have it. there is little doubt that the rise of the 24/7 multiple, with one on the edge of every town practically, has had an impact on shops in outlying villages."

One of the problems Buckley points to is difficulty getting an accurate overview of the exact situation in Ireland, given the lack of statistical material available. "We are looking at the area, and asking the Government to examine how we manage statistics of retail development," she adds.

All of which is small consolation to those families facing the stark daily realities of a threatened working environment. Noel Howard, proprietor of Howard's on Steels Terrace in Ennis, Co Clare, is realistic when he considers the future of his well-known local shop.

"I'm third generation here but it won't go beyond me. My two lads wouldn't have any interest in being in the place. And you wouldn't blame them, with the long hours and the six-and-a-half days a week I'm working."

He's not overly nostalgic though, and accepts the reality of the situation as an unavoidable casualty of modernity. Yet he remains proud of his family's retail tradition.

"My father was born here in 1914, and it was going before that. It was originally a tea-room, dealing with the custom from the fairs in Fair Green across the road. When my grandfather died in 1925 my grandmother needed a bigger income so she started up the shop as well."

Increased competition from supermarkets and homogenised, branded shops in the town has already had significant impact on Noel's business practice. "My main trade is with the school kids. I get them in the morning, at lunchtime and after school around 4pm. There was a time when people would come in from the country, leave their bag and their list in here, do their business in town and collect their groceries on the way home. Now we only get a few people who do the weekly shop here. And when they pass on, the custom will die with them."

The squeeze on the profits also means longer working hours. "I start at eight in the morning and finish around 7.30pm. We open on Sunday mornings too but trade has slipped with the dwindling church numbers."

What Noel lacks in financial muscle to compete with the likes of Mace or Tesco, he makes up for in the sense of community his shop helps to cultivate with its customers.

"I'd know 99 percent of the people who come in here, and if I don't know them by name I know them by face," says Howard. "We have regulars whom you'd keep an eye out for and if they didn't turn up you might have to do a bit of investigating. And I always look for the youngsters to see if there's any bullying or blackguarding, either by their own or by adults. Yet all that will end with me."