A bookshop and arts centre run by a prominent Irish poetry publisher has been saved from closure after a GoFundMe campaign raised more than €60,000 – enough to buy new premises in a former pub.
Salmon Poetry, which has published more than 300 Irish and international poets including Elaine Feeney, Carol Ann Duffy and Rachel Coventry, established a bookshop and literary centre in a leased building in Ennistymon, County Clare, in 2012. The publisher hoped to eventually buy the building, but the owners ultimately decided to use it themselves, and in March last year told Salmon that it would have to vacate the premises by the end of August.
“We were frantic,” said the publisher’s founder Jessie Lendennie. “Property prices here are astronomical.” A cousin of Lendennie’s had died and left her some money, but it “wasn’t enough”. Lendennie had a look at a couple of alternative locations, but they “would have needed tons of work”. At this point, she was becoming “more and more desperate”.
Eventually, the publisher found a possible new location: an old pub on Main Street. The owners wanted Salmon to have it, and “hung in there” while the publisher raised the funds to complete the sale.
Before starting the GoFundMe page, Lendennie worried that people might think “Salmon’s having to beg”. Yet, she started the fundraiser on 28 August, and it raised €20,000 in just over a week. “I just couldn’t believe it,” she said. One of the first donations was €1,000 from Kennys bookshop in Galway. “It was so touching. The note was ‘We’ll always have your back’.” Around 700 individuals donated €60,325 (£51,892) throughout the course of the fundraiser.
The former pub dates from the mid-1800s, and retains a 19th-century feel, said Lendennie. The publisher did have to remove the bar counter, as it took up too much room. Salmon plans to hold a variety of events including music, poetry and workshops at the new location, which was officially opened on Saturday by senator Martin Conway.
Salmon Poetry, which is run by Lendennie and co-director Siobhán Hutson Jeanotte, was established in 1981 and has since published over 600 volumes of poetry, with a particular focus on new women poets.
Lendennie said that GoFundMe donations came from people who had never heard of Salmon but wanted to support independent bookshops. While eBooks are convenient, “having the actual physical object is obviously important to a lot of people”.
