Hidden Treasures at Cork's newest home interiors hub

Carol O’Callaghan seeks out a new home interiors hub in a surprising location on Cork’s Marina Walk.

For a few short years, Cork’s MacCurtain Street was the city centre’s home interiors hub, with boutiques selling sophisticated paint brands, luxury fabrics and European and Irish designed accessories.

Florists made sculptural bouquets and antique dealers and clockmakers thrived, but now only the clockmaker remains after the economic slump swept some out of the city — and others out of business altogether.

Time moves on, and while MacCurtain Street is reinventing itself as a go-to place for popular eateries, home interior outlets are shooting up again — but elsewhere.

In a surprising location, where leafy Victorian suburbs meet the popular riverside Marina walking route and sandwiched within a bustling industrial estates, is a little haven of luxury called Paul & Co.

Owned and run by Corkman Simon Paul, it sits in a warehouse setting amongst an eclectic mix of neighbours on Monahan Road Industrial Estate — neighbours that include a sports injury clinic, an architectural practice and a call centre, with, of course, the obligatory café, although Simon will not see you go without your caffeine fix as you browse the shop.

Visiting was like popping in on a friend — but one who has great taste, is delighted to see you, and abandons the washing up and laundry to sit with you and enjoy the surroundings. At Paul & Co, the welcome included sinking into a pewter- coloured sofa that epitomised comfort, with unctuous coffee topped by a caramel brown crema that reminded me of something similar in Naples, served in heavy glasses and completed by the Neapolitan style weather we enjoyed that week.

Boxes of stock awaiting unpacking were abandoned in situ, but far from being a marker of inefficiency or untidiness, it’s a testament to the fact that if you see something you like, whether it’s an Edwardian style glass trifle bowl on a pedestal, or the sofa I was sitting on and didn’t want to get off, it can be bought and taken away on the spot. And stuff moves fast here, as the boxes testify.

There’s none of this nonsense about it being a shop model and having to wait ten weeks for delivery, unless, of course, you want several.

This means the quick disassembling of room sets lovingly created to feature, perhaps, an eye-catching contemporary bedstead; a screen with Japanese script; a statement piece of lighting and a comfortable old armchair — or a console table with outsize vases which Simon had filled with elderflower he picked himself.

It’s also indicative of a constantly changing stock for passing shoppers who include ladies and babies enjoying a daily constitutional along The Marina, to young professionals looking for something different.

But it’s not all about things, although you could lose yourself in the variety of things available, especially in the lamp-lit first floor, which could take a long time to reach as you’re likely to be arrested by a series of framed reproduction etchings of historic characters hanging on the stairs wall.

It’s hard to resist trying to guess who they are, among them a few poets, statesmen and battle-worn warlords.

Returning to the ground floor, Simon walks me though to a room that is filled from floor to ceiling with shelves crammed with fabric sample books from chic ranges like Colefax & Fowler, Jane Churchill and Canova.

Not only can the general public access this and place orders, or even have curtains made up, it’s also used by interior designers who can spend an afternoon researching with a coffee thrown in, a surprisingly generous thing to do given that Simon is himself a busy interior designer.

Walking back to the main section of the shop, my gaze lights on a carved panel that might be stone or plaster, an eclectic touch amongst the furniture and accessories, which prompts Simon to tell me they also offer a product-sourcing service which can cover anything from luxury furniture and accessories to salvage.

I find myself trying to sum up Paul & Co’s mix of vintage and new, revamped and salvaged, comfort and originality, industry and generosity, interior design services for modern settings and a recent 1916 commemorative project at Dublin’s GPO, (Simon Pual and Sarah Murphy working together on the Princes Street entrance), and then I have it.

They’ve thought of everything, and it’s novel and interesting; where a littering of brown boxes is no longer unpacked stock but the promise of things new and exciting.