On January 16th the world of Irish antiquity lost a stalwart with the passing of Oliver Usher. The Kells-based auctioneer, who spent 44 years in the trade, fell into the industry by chance. His interest was first piqued by his mother’s and Aunt Margaret’s’ passion for country sales, but it was container loads of furniture from Scotland that eventually saw Oliver apply for a licence and membership of the IAVI (today the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland).
He credited antiques dealer John McGrane in Drogheda with training him on how to conduct an auction, and began monthly house clearances on the first Friday of each month. before purchasing the former Regal Lager brewery in Kells as his sale room.
“A legend in Kells,” is how Meath-based auctioneer Tom Potterton remembers him, recalling that “he dreaded any mobile phone ringing when conducting a sale – and that was before you could bid online”.
“Even though I only met him a handful of times he was always the gent – a really old school country auctioneer – honest as the days are long and very hardworking,” recalls James O’Halloran of Adam’s on St Stephen’s Green.
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Estate agent and auctioneer Michael Farrelly of Sherry FitzGerald in Kinnegad spent the last three years helping Oliver at auctions as he battled with Parkinson’s disease. “I have known Oliver all my life and the crowd at his funeral, where the whole of Kells turned out to say goodbye, shows how much he was respected. He had a name for being an honest broker, and you knew you’d always get a fair price”.
Oliver admitted to The Irish Times that he was “pushed kicking and screaming” into the world of online sales as it broke with tradition for Meath’s oldest auction house. “Even five minutes before the first online sale – he couldn’t get his head around to the fact that we were selling 600 lots to an empty room,” recalls Farrelly. He adapted immediately and took the entire process in his stride and “he’d go to the ends of the earth to study and research a piece in case there was something special about it”, says Farrelly.
Farrelly points out there were really two Olivers. Firstly, the professional antiques dealer and auctioneer whose gavel sold everything from a herd of deer to a 19th century bookcase from the family of Joseph Mary Plunkett, one of the signatories of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic in 2016.
The “second” Oliver had a passion walking and books – especially those on local Meath history, according to Farrelly.
“I used to go and visit him every 10 days between treatments, and we’d sit beside the fire and chat. He was reading a book on wells and their religious and curative properties. He was also involved in a project called Meath Field Names, where he sat on the steering committee who gathered in excess of 24,000 field names across 850 townlands.
Oliver is survived by his son Robert, daughters Sarah and Karen, and wife Aideen. His family will continue the monumental work he began almost half a century ago in Co Meath.
