Boyd's Shoe Shop and its founder Jim Boyd

The journey from Killeshandra, Co. Cavan to the South Kildare village of Castledermot was made by Jim Boyd almost 90 years ago. Jim, who had served his apprenticeship in a drapery/shoe shop in Cootehill, was joining Copes of Castledermot, then one of the biggest employers in the south of the shortgrass county. A few years later Jim took up employment with Shaws in its Duke Street premises where the legendary Sam Shaw was in charge. For the next four or five years the County Cavan man had charge of the busy shoe department in Shaws at a time when late shop openings on Saturday nights were a feature of the commercial life of the market town of Athy. With a population which had remained fairly constant over the previous 100 years Athy in the 1930s was a busy town, with a wide range of independent shops. Jim Boyd seized the opportunity to open his own shoe shop at No. 37 Duke Street. The premises had at different times housed a sweet shop, a bakery and a tailors business. For the next 85 years or so it would be a shoe shop in that part of Duke Street which in its earlier years had as neighbours a wide variety of businesses. Across the street was Lily and Teresa Kanes’ sweet shop, Jim Fennin’s grocery shop, Brophy’s public house and Finbar Purcell’s butcher shop, with Conroy’s public house at the corner of Green Alley. On the same side of the street as Jim Boyd’s shoe shop were to be found Sam Wards, P.P. Doyles pawn shop, Molly Bradley’s sweet shop, Mrs. Farrell’s tea rooms and on the corner of Woodstock Street the unforgettable Ernest O’Rourke Glynn’s shop. Jim Boyd carried on a successful business for many years. As with all other shop owners of that time the proprietors and their families lived over the shops which lined the main streets of Athy. Jim died in 1986 and his wife, formerly Elizabeth Harris from Mountmellick, whom he married two years after he opened his shop, died in 1995. Their son Basil, who had joined his father in the shoe shop in 1961 carried on the business and his recent announcement of the impending closure of Boyd’s shoe shop will bring an end to the oldest business in this part of Duke Street. Although Basil was born in No. 37 Duke Street, like so many other local shopkeepers, he stopped living over the shop many years ago. The change in recent years in living patterns within the centre of Irish towns has had an impact on the vitality of provincial town centres. It has led to a substantial under use of badly needed living accommodation which government agencies and local authorities have failed to deal with. Basil Boyd has witnessed, as we all have, the gradual decline in the commercial strength of our town which fifty years or so ago was regarded as one of the most successful market towns in Leinster. Local shops attracted customers, whose custom and loyalty was retained by the judicious availability of credit and family account books. I well remember my own parents having credit accounts in Jim Fennin’s grocery shop, in Shaws, as well as M.G. Nolans where I presume payments were made on a monthly basis as my father’s wages were paid. There were no credit cards in those days, nor did many have bank accounts. Credit Unions were still in the future, while few people had any access to business with the three local banks which once graced Athy’s main streets. Strangely with a population more than fifty per cent smaller than it is today, Athy of yesteryear was a thriving and busy town. Local shop businesses did well, yet today with a much larger population the empty shop premises which marks one’s journey through the towns main streets speak of changing times. Centralisation, so beloved of governments past and present, saw the quite recent loss of Town Councils throughout Ireland. In our Irish provincial world centralisation saw the loss of rural Post Offices and rural Garda Stations. Here in Athy we lost the Chamber of Commerce while the development of major food chains led to the closure of independent grocery shops on our main streets. Local public house numbers have dramatically declined due to a tightening of the drink driving laws and perhaps a reluctance by family members to commit themselves to a job which requires an extraordinary time commitment. Our main streets are changing and with the soon to close Boyd’s shoe shop in Duke Street another memory of a once thriving Athy business will soon be lost. To Basil, his wife Norma, who coincidentally like Basil’s mother comes from Mountmellick, and their daughter Orla all of us extend good wishes for the future and heartfelt thanks for 85 years of service to the townspeople of Athy.