One of Ireland’s oldest family butchers, deli and grocers closed last weekend after 104 years and three generations as a family-run business.
Kieran’s Deli on Drogheda’s main street, known to locals for its quality meats and hot and cold deli foods, made the difficult decision to hang up their aprons for good on March 26.
A long-running family business, it has served the people of Drogheda since it opened in 1918 and has survived brushes with the Black and Tans in the 1920s as well as a fire in the 1950s.
Current owner Niall Kierans, 59, remembers working behind the deli counter from the age of 10 and has seen the whole cycle of life go by on the town's West Street over the years.
His own children have also served customers from behind the counter, making them the fourth generation of Kierans’ to have worked in the shop but they don't want to take on the family business.
“I stood behind this counter at probably 10 years of age initially as a kid,” said Niall. “I got my education, went to college and came back but I’m certainly full time here just shy of 40 years.
“In my many years here in the business, I remember kids arriving in prams and now they’re arriving in with their own prams. People who were very young when I started are now grandparents themselves. You see the whole gamut of society over 30 or 40 years.
“Even our own staff, our most recent member of staff to join us was 14 years ago and the longest was with me over 40 years. We certainly did a good job of retaining staff over the years. They were very loyal to us and I’d like to think we were very loyal to them.”
Niall’s grandfather, Michael, and his great-uncle Owen ‘Ownie’ Kierans, who served as an Alderman, founded the shop as a grocery and provisions store at 105 West Street before it moved across the road to its current premises on 15 West Street.
“My grandfather, Michael, and his brother Ownie set it up,” said Niall. “Two remarkable men. There was a selection of other brothers who came into the business at different times but they were the driving force initially.”
The shop has seen its fair share of turbulence over the years including a hostile encounter with the Black and Tans in 1922 that was chronicled in Ted Green’s book, Drogheda: Its Place in Ireland's History.
“My grandfather and his brother [were] accosted by the Black and Tans in 1922,” said Niall.
“They were heading to the bank with the day's takings and a revolver was pulled on them. The two boys legged it off down the street and got away.
“Back in the 50s there was a fire in the basement, when it used to be kind of a grocery shop, and they had to march through molten wax to put out the fire because the candles that they had in stock had all melted.”
There are also some pockmarks on the outer stone facade of the shop that are from gunfire shot by the Black and Tans from a machine gun.
The shots were aimed at the neighbouring premises that was owned by the Tighe sisters, who were Republican sympathisers, but they left their mark on walls of Kieran’s Deli.
The business has evolved over the years, first selling groceries and different meats and later branching out to sell sandwiches, deli foods and offer catering services - which Niall believes was the key to its long-running success.
“Initially it was a grocery shop, then it sold ham and bacon, then it went into poultry and then they went into cooked chickens and from that became a deli business that does outside catering,” he said.
“It was an evolution over time. If we were still the original business we were back in the day we’d be gone long ago. It was adapt or die so we kept adapting.”
However, the time has come to close the shutters for the last time, a decision made over two years ago, before Covid, that was made for personal and business reasons.
“There’s an awful lot of uncertainty in retail, there’s a lot of change that has come down the tracks over the last few years,” he said.
“We’ve had a lot of disruption nationally and even locally. In 2005 we had extensive roadworks here on the Main Street in Drogheda and we had two very tough years, we lost 40% of our business overnight.
“It took about 10 years trying to build it back. We were only a year into recovery and the Celtic Tiger collapsed. In the last two or three years pre-Covid we were only getting out of the adverse of the Celtic Tiger and then Covid came along.
“We had other things like the foot-and-mouth scares, all these things over the years all compounded to make the operation a lot less attractive.
“Probably most importantly the decision was two-fold. For me, on a personal level, it’s wiser for me to be checking out three years too early than one year too late.
“My fear was if I continued in business for another few years and things got much worse than they already are, I might regret not making a move earlier.
“And most importantly, for my staff, who have been a great bunch. They’ve seen us through thick and thin and some really tough times.
“If we make the call now, we maximise their chance of getting suitable alternative employment of their choice rather than maybe in a couple of years time having to maybe close and then discovering there aren’t the same job opportunities out there for them.”
When the news that Kierans’ Deli was closing was made known to the public, many locals were left heartbroken and reacted with sadness to the news.
“I was quite humbled by the wave of comments from people I did and didn’t know,” said Niall.
He continued: “The family has had a strong connection locally and the people of Drogheda have been wonderful to our respective families, which we greatly appreciate.
“We know it’s sad to be calling it a day and pulling the plug but we just feel the time is right.
“Obviously it’s 104 years old, sometimes I feel I’ve been here for all of it.”
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