The Korean War was raging, Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn were starring in The African Queen, Noël Browne resigned as minister for health, and Cork soccer star Jackie Lennox and his wife Eileen opened a chip shop on Bandon Road on the city’s southside.
The year was 1951 and now, almost 75 years and 14 million bags of chips later, Jackie and Eileen’s son and daughter, Brian and Frances, have taken the decision to close the door for the final time on Sunday night.
Brian said the decision to close with the loss of 30 jobs had not been easy. “From a business perspective, we are at our busiest, the queues are unreal, but the stress of trying to run a business on our own, it’s difficult. And finding staff has been a huge issue too,” he said.
While Brian and Frances are the current custodians of the chipper, their seven siblings – Mary, John, Peter, Martin, Eileen, Duncan and Louise – have all worked behind the counter, serving up the finest of chips and battered cod and haddock to generations of Corkonians.
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Mary explained that their father Jackie grew up near Manchester where he trained as a pastry chef. After playing for Blackpool FC, he returned to his father’s home city of Cork where he set up a cake shop in the Blackpool area on the city’s northside and met their mother, Eileen O’Callaghan.
Jackie’s mother, Mary Lennox, visited from the UK and suggested they should get a deep fat fryer. The young couple then bought a cottage on the Bandon Road on the southside of the city, demolishing it and building a specially designed chipper.
Among the many visitors over the years were musicians. The Dixies and The Clipper Carlton were regulars in the 1960s while the late 1970s saw a young Dublin band called U2 call in for chips.
“U2 were only starting out and they were playing the Arcadia, so they used to drop in after the gigs – later on my parents bought the gold disc that U2 got for record sales for their 1983 War and put it on the wall and that always got plenty of admirers,” recalled Brian.
With Jackie’s career at Cork Athletic FC, with whom he won two League and FAI Cups, the shop proved popular with the sporting fraternity – Barrs and Nemo GAA players, Cork Hibs, Celtic soccer stars and at least one well-known Kerry rugby player among their patrons.
“Moss Keane used to sing to my mother when he came into the shop,” Mary said. “He was a character after a few drinks, and I remember one night he stood on the scales for weighing the potatoes and he broke it and every time he came in afterwards he would remind us of it.”
Another regular was Cork All-Ireland winner Dinny Allen. “We’d be out and about Douglas Street and Turners Cross, but Lennox’s was the best chipper around – the food was top notch, I was a fish and chip man with mushy peas – I’m getting hungry just talking about it,” he laughed.
Brian recalled a bag of chips costing just 5p when he started, a time when “Ireland was a very religious place”.
“I remember on Good Friday we would serve a tonne of potatoes and half a tonne of fish – I remember one day, a fellow asked for chicken and the queue turned on him.”
So how will the family feel on Sunday when they close their doors for the last time? Mary, the eldest and Brian, the youngest, almost echo each other as they speak of calling time on a business that has been not just a central part of their lives but also of the life of Cork.
“I will be heartbroken – I’ve been crying since we kind of knew it was going to happen so it will be a very sad day,” said Mary, before Brian chipped in: “We’re there since we were born – I thought we might get to 75 years but it’s just a step too far, so Sunday will be a very sad day for us all.”
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