Books are my business: book buyer Tomás Conneely

As well as being the main book buyer in thebookshop.ie, Tomás also looks after cataloguing, emails, promotions, and most of the social media

Tomás Conneely: 'I love opening a box of vintage books and seeing what’s in it — I would do that for free.'

Tomás Conneely is a book buyer with thebookshop.ie. which was founded by Dónal Condren in 2013 and is based in Co Tipperary.

How did you get into bookselling?

I’m originally from Rosmuc in the Conamara Gaeltacht in Galway, and I did an MA in history at NUIG. 

My first job in a bookshop was at Dillon’s, Gower St in London, where I worked for a few summers. It was a quirky, independent shop at the time, it’s now a Waterstones. It was a great learning experience.

My first proper job was in Fred Hanna’s bookshop on Nassau St in Dublin, where I worked from 1996 to 2000.

 I loved it there. I learned so much from Fred Hanna Snr, who was so knowledgable about books — he was like a walking encyclopaedia. 

The former taoiseach Leo Varadkar worked there part-time for a while; he was a student in Trinity at the time. He was lovely, but he was very talkative and spent more time conversing with customers; they put him in the basement with the school books. 

Eason bought out Fred Hanna’s, so then I went to work with Eason in Limerick, where my wife is a librarian.

Can you tell me more about the bookshop.ie and what it does?

The main focus of the shop was and is used books at low prices — from €2.50 to €5. 

We sell all types — fiction, Irish, children’s, vintage, non-fiction, collections, books to furnish a business, for example, those instant libraries you see in hotel lobbies. 

Also, in recent years, we have begun selling books from independent and small publishers in Ireland. 

We try to give an Irish online option for the purchase of local books, or an Ireland supply option to books that would otherwise only be sold on Amazon.

We have also purchased stock in full from a number of bookshops that closed after the lockdown. 

Most of our other stock comes directly from a range of charities, for bulk stock, or direct from customers. 

Recently, in partnership with An Post, we have started buying books directly back from customers — we grade and resell them and pay per book in vouchers that can then be used to buy more books, which helps to continue the virtuous cycle of recycling, as it were.

What does yourrole involve?

I started working with thebookshop.ie in 2017, initially looking after rarer and antiquarian books, now, as well as being the main book buyer, I also look after cataloguing, emails, promotions, and most of the social media.

I work mostly from Limerick, a legacy of covid that we carried on, and I also ship and stock some books here, but the large bulk of the 65,000 titles are in Tipperary. 

There are three of us who work full-time — Dónal, Gheorge, who is originally from Moldova, me, and three part-time staff, plus we get occasional family help from Dónal’s father.

What do you like most about what you do?

I love opening a box of vintage books and seeing what’s in it — I would do that for free. And also finding a book for a customer that someone read a long time ago, or couldn’t find elsewhere.

What do you like least?

Very little, or I wouldn’t be doing it. In a small business you have to do everything, and learn how to do it if you have not done it before.

Three desert island books

I am reading an advance copy of the new Dónal Ryan novel, Heart, Be at Peace, which is due out in August; it is a sequel to The Spinning Heart. 

It’s excellent, with a grittier, darker side than in some of his earlier books, although I would perhaps recommend reading or rereading The Spinning Heart beforehand.

I’m also reading So Once Was I, by Warren Farrell, which is a fascinating history of Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin, it’s just out from Merrion Press and is an excellent debut history book from a very talented author.

I’ve just finished 1913 — The Year Before the Storm by Florian Illies, a very clever short book that traces the lives of notable artists, writers, politicians and ordinary people in the fateful year before Europe imploded.

• thebookshop.ie