OLDEST SINGER IN TOWN.. Josie O’Hanlon is still fond of stitching on his Singer sewing machine that he bought in 1950
A LOCAL drapery store in Irvinestown remains one of the focal points in the town, over 90 years since it first opened its doors. J O’Hanlon based at Pound Street, Irvinestown has spawned four generations of the O’Hanlon family and remains as popular in 2015 as it was in 1920.
Josie O’Hanlon, now 96, has been in the shop for 80 years selling goods to the people of Fermanagh and beyond.
Whether its boots, shoes, catering wear, boiler suits, jeans, overalls, working trousers, bed linen or underwear, “anything at all you want you will get it here.
If there’s something you can’t get you can always get it in here,” explained Josie. And if you need your trousers or boiler suit trousers turned up? No problem, Josie has you covered with his Singer sowing machine, bought at a market in Glasgow back in 1950.
It all started back in 1916, when Josie’s father, also named Josie came to Irvinestown from Mary Street, Dundalk. He met and married Catherine Carolan of Main Street, started a clothes shop and had 14 children including Josie.
Now he and his son Joe run the store which remains a vibrant shopping spot in the town. Josie told the Herald how he started his retail adventure.
“I started the shop from when I left school around 1935/36 and have been here ever since. I remember an exam up in the school and the marker came up to my father and said Joe ‘where you sending him?’ and he said ‘nowhere, I want him up in the shop’ and I have been here since.
“The shop began with selling second hand stuff that we used to buy in Glasgow and went on from that into new stuff. My father used to deal in rabbit skins, empty meal bags, brass, copper, all that type of stuff and I bought stuff like that in the early days too.”
In his 80 years Josie has seen the retail market change dramatically and has many a story to tell; to selling stockings to women soldiers in the second world war to trips to Glasgow for merchandise.
“Soldiers used to come in here, airmen used to come in here during the war and the WAAFS (Women’s Auxiliary Air Force). I used to sell them grey stockings as they used to wear stockings in them days. There was a wee Scots airman out there and he got wind of it and he used to buy them from me and sell them on to the WAAFS also.
“I remember during the war there was a wee fella came in here he was a French Canadian and he used to come in to chat or for a drink down the town, but he used to love going down to Pettigo. At that time you could go into Pettigo, but you couldn’t go in with your uniform. I had a lovely sports jacket and he used to come in and borrow it to go to Pettigo. He used to love to get the jacket and said ‘Joe I will buy that jacket off you’, but I wouldn’t take money for it. He was called Mike and was a pilot, a small wee fella, but lovely and he used to write to me.”
“ I also remember a plane going over the town in flames, a plane from Castle Archdale it went over this town here. It was after coming from Mass on a Sunday and I was standing at my granny’s on the main street and I remember this plane coming up from the direction of the town clock so I said to my granny go up to the main street as it will hit our house. The plane came over the town and there was the flames flying out of the windows, I never forgot the sight. She landed about two miles out the road.”
Despite his advancing years Josie remains a key figure in a thriving business.
“We’re still busy. People are in the shop every day and we’re doing a good trade. I sell to people from Lack, Ederney, Kesh, even from Enniskillen, they come down here to get items they can’t get up there.”
And does he have any plans to retire?
“No not at all, I’m doing the bloody old Vat for them now. If I quit I’d die, it keeps you going. I still enjoy it.”
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