Tom Dunne's Music & Me: Our favourite shop offered a glimpse into another world
Tom Dunne with John Hyland at his shop in Dún Laoghaire.
My local corner shop is closing and taking with it its proprietor, John Hyland. A newspaper vendor to you, a minor god to me. He is one of my last connections to a world that no longer exists, a lost Amazonian surrounded not by rainforest but newspapers and magazines.
Its closure hastens my development into one of those who give directions via landmarks that don’t exist anymore. My dad was the master of this.
“Turn left where the Metropole was, go past where Nelson’s pillar was and then, just next to where the old tram stop was, that’s the place!”
He could direct you to anywhere in Dublin using bars, venues and even streets that had disappeared in the 1950s. It often had a wonderful 1916 undercurrent to it. He would refer to one house as, “the one with the door that was damaged by the Tans”.
Yes, The Black and Tans. Inchicore to him was a living museum.
Naturally, this was a world I wanted nothing to do with. I was watching Top of The Pops and Match of the Day. I was happy to go to school in a 1916 Theme Park but after school it was George Best, Slade and clackers. Time travel shows, big at the time, meant little to me. I felt I time travelled every day.
Next to our bus stop was a shop called Hyland’s which one day started to specialise in newspapers and magazines. Ireland was mostly Titbits and Woman’s Own at this point, but here suddenly were Newsweek, Time, Life, National Geographic and magazines on cars, photography, history and hobbies. Newspapers, too, from all over the world.
It was like a new river of knowledge had started to flow into the neighbourhood. I wandered in sheepishly eyeing the shelves. It was my first time to ever see the music papers, the NME, Melody Maker and Sounds. Its owner looked at me and said, “And if something you want isn’t there I can order it for you”. It was John.
Hyland’s became a ‘destination’ newsagents. People would go out of their way to get their papers there and stock up on more rarefied treats like the New York Times Book Review. This was a golden age of papers, when it took two adults to lift the Sunday Times and three weeks to read it.
Later John moved the shop to Dun Laoghaire where it became Alex’s. He then sold this about 15 years ago and moved across the road to the tiny premises he inhabited until this week.
The legend of the shop and John started to grow at this point. It was now open almost 24 hours a day and 365 days a year. A visit to it on Christmas Day was mandatory.
Despite its tiny size, it seemed to stock everything. All papers, regional and international were kept for seven days, the Sundays for four weeks. He sold milk, bread, matches, batteries, coal, firelighters and boxes of ‘gift wrapped’ chocolates. Magazines were piled high, and John knew where everything was.
Other parts of his legend grew also: That he would give credit if people were stuck and not charge at all if they were broke. Late night the shop was a beacon for taxi drivers, night works and others less fortunate. You’d see him there at midnight and then you’d see him again, at 6am, delivering papers in his car.
We moved to Dun Laoghaire in 2007. The magazines I had first seen on the shelves of his shop in Inchicore, and the music in them had since become my life. Both my time in the band and then music radio had originated from passions that were ignited in the pages of NME and Sounds.
The music press had moved on though. It was now the era of Q, Mojo and Uncut. I searched the little jam-packed shelves for the ones I needed until I heard a familiar voice over my shoulder. “And if something you want isn’t there I can always order it for you.”
When we heard John was closing we called over. He greeted my daughter with the words “ah, my best customer”, and gave her and her friends free sweets. It transpired later she’s been emptying the coin jar for years to buy stuff. And she thought it had been the perfect crime.
Safe travels, John, and thanks, from so many, for so much.
