In a puff of smoke, 107 years of history snuffed out

For years the smell of pipe tobacco acted as a kind of GPS that told you you were in the vicinity of M&P O’Sullivan, the cosy tobacco shop on Academy St in Cork City.

If the wind was southwesterly, it would often waft around the corner to Patrick Street and let you know you were heading in the right direction.

Even non-smokers would often venture into the shop located across from what were once the offices of the Irish Examiner just to get a whiff of nostalgia and to bask in the warm, pungent aroma that bespoke cloth caps, tweed jackets and fiery briar pipes.

But yesterday those fires went out as the company closed the shop, bringing to an end 107 years of the O’Sullivan family’s involvement in the tobacco business in downtown Cork. It was a day of mixed emotions for James and Pat O’Sullivan, the brothers who are the third generation to run a business started by their grandfather, Patrick.

“The shop had run its course,” says James who cites the recession, declining tobacco sales and new legislation that bars the display of tobacco products as the reasons to shut up shop.

Although sad in particular for Jane O’Callaghan, who came on board for two weeks and stayed to run the shop for 25 years, James is hopeful for the future.

“We still employ more than 40 people at our wholesale premises in Wilton so we are still very much in business,” he says.

So much so that the fourth generation of O’Sullivans have begun to learn the ropes. James and Pat have been in the business since the late 1970s and now their offspring are entering the fray. James’s son, Eoin, 21, starts in Wilton later this month and Pat’s two sons, Patrick and David, are already involved.

Jane has fond memories of her time in Academy Street, when it bustled with staff from major firms such as ESB, Aer Lingus and the Examiner.

“It’s terrible that we are closing and the customers are in bits, too,” she says. “It was always about the customers for me. It wasn’t like going into Tesco where nobody knows you. People would come in for a chat as well as to buy something. I knew some of those customers better than I knew my own family.”

The last straw, says Jane, was when the Government banned the display of tobacco products. “That crucified us,” she says. “Having to put stuff in a cupboard meant we could not introduce new products because we could not display then.”

As she began serving one of her last customers — one ounce, carefully weighed, of Erinmore pipe tobacco — she still managed to display her trademark smile.

“I am very sad that it is closing. I have met some great characters over the years here — and a few beauties too! We will shut the door around five and then it’s off down the end of the street to Jim Cashman’s pub, as usual.”

The final curtain for the Academy Street shop put James in nostalgic mood, too. He recalls the legacy built by his grandfather, a gifted businessman.

From Clondrohid near Macroom, he came to Cork city in the early 1900s. He started as a grocer’s assistant (or “messenger boy” as James put it), before leaving over a dispute with his boss over time off. Within six weeks he had opened a tobacco shop on Princes Street, in what is now Rossini’s Italian restaurant.

“His brother Michael was an accountant, who was the ‘M’ in M&P O’Sullivan. Another brother, Jerry, had a grocery shop in Washington Street. And Daniel had a bicycle and gun shop in Cooke Street. Another brother, my namesake, James, had a chemist’s shop. They were all great business people.”

His grandfather was particularly cunning, says James. “At one stage the firm actually manufactured tobacco. Folklore has it that there was a tobacco factory closing on MacCurtain Street, then King Street, in the early 20s. He waited until they scrapped the tobacco machine, went and bought it for scrap and then got someone to put it back together. He then managed to get government contracts for the supply of tobacco to national institutions like the army and the prison service in 1925.”

His grandfather was fondly known as “Paddy Coupon”, after the brand of tobacco his factory made. “Everyone called him that,” says James. “I remember one time someone coming up to me in the street and asking me: ‘Are you one of the Coupons?’ ”

James’ father Paddy Jnr was something of a prodigy, attending UCC at the age of 15 and graduating with a Bachelor of Commerce. He expanded the firm into a former dancehall in Victoria Cross in 1977 when James joined the firm. Since then, the business has grown further and is now run from 30,000 sq ft premises in Wilton.

Thinking big is part of the O’Sullivan heritage. “I came across a letter some years ago written to my grandfather,” said James. “It referred to a joint venture proposal he had made. The proposal was rejected but there was an invitation to visit. It was signed by Sidney Rothman, Pall Mall, London. He never went but one of these days, I am going to fly over to London and tell them my Granddad sent me.”