End of an era as Declan bows out of Ballymore grocery trade

It’s an emotional time for Declan Rooney, who has bowed out of his grocery business at High Street in Ballymore.

It’s some adjustment for a man so long in the business that he can’t even remember the first time he served a customer, but he will still operate the pub and the undertaking business – and indeed, regulars will still see him in the shop for the next two weeks as he winds down the post office business based on the premises.

However, Declan admits, as he walks through the front door and greets the new team running the enterprise – Bhupendra Choudhary and Vikram Singh – he has to remind himself that it’s not his shop any more.

It was Declan’s father, the late Tommy Rooney, who set up in business in Ballymore 70 years ago.

“In 1950, he set up in Low Street,” explains Declan. “He came here from Fermanagh. He had served his time in Cavan and he ended up in Daly’s in Mullingar – it was where Kilroy’s on Patrick Street is now.

“That was the shop at the time in Mullingar – if you needed it, they had it; and there was a big staff there at that time. He was the manager of the bacon counter.

“My mother, Maureen – she was from Castlerea in County Roscommon – was a chiropodist and she used to go to different clinics around the country, and whenever she was in Mullingar, she used to stay with our Auntie Jo, whose husband Ned was the sergeant in Mullingar at the time, and Auntie Jo said to her ‘there’s a lovely boy working in Daly’s – you should meet him’. So that’s how it all happened.”

Momentous

The year 1950 was to be a momentous one for the young couple: the ‘lovely young boy’ took the brave step of buying a premises at Low Street in Ballymore; and he and Maureen got married.

Together Tony and Maureen raised a family of six, and 20 years after their arrival, they expanded in to High Street

“From the time we were that height we were working in Low Street,” says Declan using a hand to indicate a spot just above his knee.

Not everything came neatly boxed: tea and other dry goods, for example, used to come in bulk: “We used to have to package the tea: Rooney’s Red Tea and Rooney’s Green Tea. And we used to have to package the sugar, the raisins, the sultanas – everything. We were just nippers and we were all doing that,” he recalls

It was an old style traditional Irish country shop, and at a time when people did not travel to towns to do their shopping, it met most of their needs. “We had a hardware shop in it; and a drapery – we sold wellingtons and socks.

“But there were no supermarkets at the time,” Declan points out.

His father was innovative: he kitted out two trucks and had them travel the highways and byways of the area as mobile shops, and some of the customers actually made their payments with hens’ eggs, which Tommy dispatched on to businessman Ned Mulvey in Barry in Longford and to the Devine family, also in Longford, who were supplying eggs to the Gateau cake factory in Dublin.

“At that time a basket of eggs would pay for what you see people bringing out of supermarket in a trolley now,” says Declan.

Bartered

Butter was also bartered: “I remember people waiting on a Friday for Mrs Moffatt to come with her homemade butter: they knew she used to make lovely butter; and people would know who was coming in with good eggs.”

In a small village, Rooney’s was actually a significant employer with approximately 10 people on the payroll and as many as four of them ‘living in’. The business wasn’t just catering for domestic needs, but as a wool merchant, it also handled the fleeces of sheep shorn locally.

Fifteen years after arriving in Ballymore, Tommy Rooney bought Joe Cormack’s shop at High Street, giving him a foothold in the eastern and western halves of the village known as having “two ends and no middle”.

It was a small country pub and like all little pubs at the time, it had a small grocery section.

“I remember coming into it for penny sweets as a kid,” recalls Declan.

Over time it was extended, and High Street became the heart of the business, and the Low Street premises was converted to residential use.

Carmelite College

Declan joined the business formally in 1972, even though at school, he never anticipated doing so. He boarded at the Carmelite College in Moate for five years, and decided to study accountancy.

“I had no earthly interest in the shop. But I failed honours maths and I went back to the Carmelites to repeat maths, but all the lads I had been boarding with were gone – I didn’t like it and I left.

“Paul McGrath – who was from Ballymore and who went on to be a TD – was back from England and he was a maths teacher in Mullingar, and so I went in to him three times a week for grinds, so when I got my honours maths, I started doing accountancy, but I actually couldn’t stick it and I subconsciously found myself drifting into the business here; and I’m here ever since.”

Declan, who is married to teacher, Thérèse, is a proud father of four and a grandfather of one. His daughter, Bláthnaid Power – mother of Declan and Thérèse’s grandson lives in – Dubai; his sons are also scattered: Darragh lives in France; Shane is in Galway and Declan Junior lives in England.

All have their own careers, and had no interest in following in their father’s and grandfather’s footsteps: “They’ve al done their time; they’ve seen the hours; it’s the hours that is the killer: we would be open from maybe 9 in the morning until 1 or 2am,” says Declan.

Nonetheless, despite the long hours, Declan, a keen sportsman, made his mark in the world of GAA.

“I wasn’t too bad,” he concedes.

“I played for Westmeath all the way up along: I played under 14, under 16, minor, under 21 and senior.”

One of his proudest achievements in the sporting sphere was not as a player, but as a trainer: “I trained the national school team in Ballymore for 12 or 14 years. There had been no team there for years. We finally won the Comórtas na mBunscoil – and I bowed out then.”

He and Thérèse have always loved travelling – and he intends to do more of it now that he will have more time on his hands, even though he is continuing to open the pub three nights a week, and will carry on with the undertaking business.

He would not, however, like to stop working completely: “I would be going from 100mph down to nothing.

“Covid is after teaching me: I thought retirement would be brilliant, but I realised during Covid that I don’t think I’m able for retirement!”

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Series of blows hit rural nightlife

Some commentators believe it was the smoking ban and the clampdown on drink driving that drove customers out of Ireland’s rural pubs.

Declan Rooney who has spent all his life in the the bar and grocery trade sees it somewhat differently: he agrees they were factors but he ascribes the biggest change to the millennium.

“Remember they were going to charge to go into pubs? The publican shot himself in the foot when they decided they were going to charge people to come in and get a drink: people decided to have their own little house parties - and it’s been in free fall ever since,” he claims.

Ironically, Covid-19 has revived some of the things about the traditional Irish pub that made it so special, Declan believes (speaking before last week’s level 3 lockdown was announced).

“Since we started back the conversation and the storytelling is back: you see there is no television on; you cannot have background music, and the conversation is back.”

At one stage, Ballymore was a major nightlife hub: when Rooney’s ran the Corrida nightclub, it was packed every weekend as organisations from around a wide hinterland held dinner dances and other social occasions there.

“It was huge but it was hard work,” he recalls.

“In the 1970s and the 1980s, every Friday night was booked out.If you take Ballymore alone we had Ballymore GAA, Ballymore Gun Club, Ballymore ICA and they all used to run functions; you’d have Loughnavalley ICA Loughnavalley GAA; you’d have the same for Tang and Drumraney.

“The 52 Friday nights would be booked out solid. And then drink driving started changing everything.”

Moving with the times, Declan started bringing live bands to the area.

“We opened it with Big Tom; no one knew who Daniel O’Donnell was and I had him for £500 the first night I had him here.

“At that time with the big bands I used to have to guarantee them £2,000. I had to sign guarantees. I’d drop dead if I had to do it now!”

Happily there was never a night when he did not get the crowd that he needed to cover the band’s costs.

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Ballymore ‘a great village’

“I think Ballymore is a great village, and what I love is the way that it has managed to keep its village identity,” Declan said, although he is saddened at the way rural Ireland has been declining.

There was a time when Ballymore managed to sustain six pubs. It had an independent post office, three grocery stores; a full-time hairdresser; a garage; even a restaurant.

Ballymore now has only four pubs; Rooney’s is the only grocery store; there is a takeaway open at weekends but the local garage closed in the last two years.

“When we lost our priest I could see another change even then: there was no Mass on a Sunday and people loved chatting after Mass. At least that is back again and people are able to go back to the graves after Mass and wander up to the shop and meet up in the shop.”

While delighted that Bhupendra Choudhary and Vikram Singh are taking over the shop and planning to expand, Declan is deeply saddened that the village is now about to lose its post office which is within the shop.

“It’s absolutely horrific,” he says, becoming visibly upset at what the loss means for some of the regular customers who rely so greatly on the service.

“Two years ago, An Post was doing a big overhaul and they were offering one-off retirement packages to postmasters and I was offered a package to close the post office. I refused it, because I did not want to post office to go and I thought that by refusing it that we would be able to hold it.”

When in recent months he informed An Post that he had leased the shop to new tenants, An Post just was not interested in offering the newcomers the opportunity to continue with the post office contract.

“I’m serving a month’s notice; I am closing on October 23,” says Declan.

“People are of course upset; I’m upset.”

Customers are being advised that they can move their business to Streamstown – but it’s not easily accessed from Ballymore.