Was it very run down before it was knocked?
Didnāt think so. Sure i was only a young fella
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So do I showing my ageš¤£
Feature: The rise and fall of Cannockās
limerickleader.ie | July 29, 2014
Cannockās department store was a mecca for Limerick shoppers, until its sad decline and closure in 1980. After uncovering some rare pictures, Leader archivist Grainne Keays tells the story of a real local institution.
Some years ago I found an old letter in a trunk in my family home. The letter is dated September 20, 1894 and signed by Rev. James F. MacMahon of Woodville, Pallasgreen, Co Limerick, a Church of Ireland clergyman. It is addressed to my great-great-great-grandfather, Edward Keays, who the author greets as āMy dear Friendā.
In the letter Rev MacMahon grumbles about his ailments, laments the behaviour of the youth of the day and gossips about his neighbours. Some might say that elderly gentlemen have not changed very much in the intervening 120 years! One of the titbits of gossip that Rev. MacMahon passed relates to the Cannockās department store based at OāConnell Street in the city. He says: āMichael Ryanās daughter, May, was married yesterday to a buyer at Cannockās in Limerick, a very nice young man very steady with a salary of about Ā£250 a year and Ā£900 saved in hard cash. They are gone on the honeymoon to Killarney. Not bad, you will say.ā
A sum of Ā£250 was a superb salary in 1894 and thus Rev MacMahon felt this young man was quite a catch for Ms Ryan, who hailed from New Pallas. Though intended as light-hearted gossip, his comments also reflected the very real contribution that employment in Cannockās made to the economy and to society in Limerick.
Cannockās was more than just a shop; it dominated the streetscape of Limerick and formed the focal point of the cityās retail activity. It gave gravitas and elegance to the city centre.
While digitizing photographs in the Limerick Leader archive in recent months, I noticed that we had quite a few photographs of Cannockās and it seemed a pity that our readers had never seen them.
The purpose of this article is to give some context to the pictures we feature today and in the coming weeks.
There has been a drapery business on the Cannockās site on OāConnell Street (formerly Georgeās Street) since around 1814. John Arnott and George Cannock, both Scotsmen, bought the premises in 1850. Cannock retired from business in 1865, Arnott having sold his share in the business to Peter Tait (to whom Taitās Clock is dedicated) in 1858. George Cannock died in 1876 by which time Kilmallock man, Michael J. Cleary and James Tidmarch had effectively taken over the running of the store.
Tidmarsh also died in 1876. Cleary would dominate the stores fortunes until his death in 1896. Under further changes of management, both the storeās wholesale and retail divisions prospered. In 1961, the company undertook a huge rebuilding project which was to change the streetscape forever; many would argue, not for the better.
The OāConnell Street store was sold to Penneys in 1980 and Cannockās moved to William Street. This was far from successful and the business went into liquidation in 1984.
In seeking to understand what kind of place Cannockās was, I spoke to quite a few people who knew it intimately.
Mike Cussen from Ballykeeffe, now the maintenance man in the Limerick Leader office, began his career as an apprentice to Dan OāSullivan, who was the electrician on-call at Cannockās.
Mike spent much of his time in Cannockās between 1974 and 1979 providing lighting and wiring for new displays at the store and electrical maintenance. Larger, more disruptive jobs had to be done in the evenings after customers left. Florescent tube lighting was the āin thingā at the time, he recalls.
When trying to describe the ambiance of the store, Mike said it was a bit like the old comedy show, Are You Being Served? featuring Grace Bros. department store. There was a pecking order that was observed rigorously with management upstairs, with secretaries in nearby offices, senior counter staff supported by bright young underlings, all supervised by a distinguished looking and eagle-eyed gentleman, the floor walker (a la Captain Peacock). According to Mike, Cannockās was THE place to shop in Limerick, the best of merchandise and top class service. He was most impressed by the fact that Cannockās had an in-house graphic designer/window dresser (John Buckley, pictured right) who was constantly renewing and upgrading the displays in the store.
Mikeās greatest challenge while at Cannockās was not the work but the distractions caused to him by the beautifully turned out young girls at the cosmetics counter ā and how to get past them without being spritzed with latest scent from Paris and being slagged on the way home for smelling like a perfumery.
Josephine OāNeill also kindly agreed to speak to me at her home in Monaleen. Jo Sweeney, as she was then, worked in the office in Cannockās from 1955 to 1959. She worked with Mary Fitzgerald (daughter of the managing director at the time, John J. Fitzgerald) and Joan Hayes. Jo remembers a āhuge computerā appearing in the office for accounts around 1957 but only one member of staff, Josephine Lynch, could operate it.
Jo, too, drew comparisons with Are You Being Served? with its hierarchy, its layout and its ambiance. In Joās estimation, top-class service and overall aura of class were the secrets to Cannockās success at the time. It was a beautiful shop, inside and out, with a grand staircase and the absolute best quality merchandise. It was simply an elegant place to shop. Refinement was a by-word in Cannockās. Bad language wasnāt tolerated by the girls in the office. Offenders paid 5p to a swear jar for the African Missions. Customer service was second to none. If a female customer was standing at counter waiting to be served, a floorwalker would swoop in and offer her a chair. A comfortable customer was a happy customer in those days.
In Joās opinion, after the renovations begun in 1961 and completed in 1963, the shop was never quite the same. She would agree with Finbarr Crowe, author of a fine two-part history of the store published in the Old Limerick Journal in 1985-86, that the rebuild was a āphilistine exerciseā and the store never again had the air of grandeur and sophistication that it had pre-1961.
Jo enjoyed her time at Cannockās and for the most part had only good things to say. Everybody she spoke about was a āfantastic gentlemanā or a āgreat ladyā with one notable exception. This particular man, no longer with us, had āhands everywhereā. Office girls peeped around corners and doorways to make sure he wasnāt in the corridor before venturing forth. As Jo says, nowadays that sort of thing is called sexual harassment but in those days you didnāt know what to call it. Thankfully, this behaviour was very much an aberration at Cannockās.
While chatting to Helen Ryan in the post office in Murroe, I discovered that Eileen Foley, a Murroe native, also worked in Cannockās and she kindly agreed to talk to me about her experiences. Eileen (nee Shinners) began working in Cannockās in 1966 for Ā£3.5.3 per week and she stayed for seven years, working mostly in the wholesale haberdashery department, where small shops from all over the city and county and further afield bought their stock. Country shops very often placed orders over the telephone; their goods were parcelled up and sent to them on the next bus. Customers were demanding and if the order missed the bus, they had no hesitation in complaining vigorously.
Eileenās overall verdict on her time there was it was a lovely place to work. Her manager was Paddy Liddane, who was something of a legend in Cannockās, having joined the business in 1922. Eileen worked with Elsie Byrnes. They all got on fantastically well. On Saturdays, when the wholesale section was closed, she would work with Jack Meaney in retail haberdashery.
Cruiseās Hotel, which was across the street from Cannockās, provided the store with many customers. American tourists, in particular, would come across to Cannockās to buy Waterford crystal, Irish linen and other goods. Cruiseās also provided the backdrop for the highlight of the year for Cannockās staff, the annual dress dance. Female staff spent a good part of the year planning what to wear. Every staff member was entitled to a discount and could buy goods on āapproā. According to Eileen, the dress dances were fantastic nights but I suspect the real thrill was the preparation: choosing the dress (or the material with which to make it), shoes and accessories and paying for it all in instalments on payday, Tuesday.
Finally, I spoke to Maureen OāConnor of Corelish. Maureen is married to my great uncle, Paddy. The then Maureen OāNeill worked in Cannockās from 1961 until 1963 and again from 1971 until 1973. She mainly worked in the calico (curtain fabrics) department with occasional forays into linens and haberdashery. Maureen, like the others I interviewed, spoke of her horror of a great tragedy which struck Cannockās in February 1964 when two employees were killed in a hotel fire while on business for the company in Galway. Denis Ryan, a commercial traveller, from Crescent Avenue, OāConnell Avenue, lost his life in the blaze, as did Frank Tuohy, shoe buyer, a married man and father of three very young daughters, of Greenfields, Rosbrien.
The funerals of Mr OāBrien and Mr Tuohy were held together at St. Michaelās Church in Limerick and both men are buried in Mount St Lawrence.
Michael Harkin, director of Cannockās, was quoted in the Leader as saying āthe entire firm was shocked at the double tragedy. Both were popular young men and their loss to the firm would be very greatā. The memory of these men and their horrendous deaths lives on for many who knew and respected them at Cannockās.
I would like to thank Mike, Jo, Eileen and Maureen for taking the time to talk to me of their time in Cannockās and for helping me identify many of the people in the accompanying photographs.
Cannockās, throughout its existence, was one of the Limerick Leaderās main advertisers. On 29 June 1963, to mark its first sale in the new premises completed earlier in the year, the store took out a nine-page advertising feature. It boasted of its āsuperior furniture, carpets, bedding, tailoring, childrenās wear, electrical goods, hosiery, millenary, hardware and haberdasheryā.
The feature added: āThose who felt that the old familiar Cannockās had gone forever were very pleasantly surprised to find that fundamentally it had changed very littleā.
Wishful thinking, it would appear. It seems to me that the modern premises, a divided management, and a new strategy of stocking cheaper goods tarnished the old Cannockās image permanently. It suffered a crisis of identity, confusing and thus deterring customers.
What nowadays might be called a mission statement for Cannockās appeared in a commercial directory in the 1890s: āThe babe from its entrance into the world and in its progress through the various stages of life to its final exit may here at Cannockās find every requirement for personal comfort and adornment and every article of house furnishings from which he may make suitable selection.ā
These continued to be the grandiose aspirations of Cannockās for almost the next 100 years. Its demise was a blow to Limerick and I agree with Finbarr Crowe that the city centre has never quite recovered from the loss ā in the early 1960s ā of Cannockās beautiful faƧade and its iconic clock.
Note: the Limerick Leader has many other fine pictures from Cannockās and weāll publish these in the coming weeks. Anyone with memories of Cannockās is asked to contact Grainne Keays, author of this piece, via email: grainne2208@gmail.com or through the Leader offices at 54 OāConnell St.
You wouldnāt get away with knocking that facade there days
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A Burrito Bar and all
There are a couple of streets, Lower Mallow Street and Cecil Street for example, where it does look like the buildings are being left in disrepair intentionally so that they can eventually be knocked. Not of the standard of Cannockās but a part of Georgian Limerick that should be maintained if at at all possible.
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Wasnāt there a bar up in Patrick Street called the Hogan Stand ??
Shameful it was allowed to happen
A lot of stupid shit perpetrated on the people of Limerick, but knockingvthat is well up there.
One from the 50s.
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They are a long time at that. Didnāt he organise a load of submissions in favour of the plaza the last time or something along those lines. It could do with a stop I guess. You wouldnāt need to make one between limerick and Galway but if you were travelling a bit further on either end thereās no where to go
He raised a load of the dead in support of it around Clarecastle
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A licence to print money those yokes.
Obama plaza must make millions a year
Even the āplazaā in Mallow is cleaning up Iād say.
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