Cork vintage shop owner: The stories behind the pieces we sell excite me...

A COUPLE who will be married 30 years in April have taken their relationship to the next level and have started working together.

Rita and Ian Holding have backgrounds in finance and engineering respectively, but their shared passion for antiques and vintage furniture has spurred them towards their latest challenge.

Rita has been trading as RH Vintage Interiors since 2017, from a purpose-built studio in the garden of their Rosscarbery home. By the end of last year she could scarcely keep up with demand for her carefully sourced furniture pieces and found herself at a crossroads: expand into a new space and scale up? Or scale down what had started out as a modest cottage industry?

Ian, whose background is in engineering started his career in marine engineering and boat building on the River Thames. And now they’ve just moved lock, stock and barrel into a new shop in what is the old creamery at Connonagh, between Rosscarbery and Leap.

Rita says she developed her love of vintage furniture almost out of necessity, when she and Ian were a young couple and looking for affordable pieces to furnish their first flat in London. And three houses later her eye is pretty much on the ball!

She grew up on a farm in Durrus, the second youngest of nine, and was recruited by a London bank after her Leaving Cert.

She met Ian, from Surrey, when they were both 24 and the couple, who have two boys, spent 24 years in London where they each enjoyed successful careers.

“Ian was the driving force to come back to West Cork, he really loved it here when we’d come on holiday. 

"I was a little hesitant initially as at the time our boys were aged seven and 10 and we had a really good life in Surrey. It was also the start of the last recession in 2008!” she recalls.

But it was a move they’ve never regretted. They bought a house near Rosscarbery and both worked initially for business and communications provider PGi in Clonakilty.

“But there was always something at the back of my mind to start my own business and I made that jump five years ago when I launched RH Vintage Interiors, sourcing and selling vintage furniture from a studio at home.

“As long as I can remember, it’s something Ian and I have loved – we would spend weekends at markets in Camden and Portobello and we’d drive the kids mad on holidays browsing shops!”

Her eye for a good piece, at a good price, meant her business took off rapidly.

“I used to travel several times a year to the UK to international dealer fairs and auctions, but with Brexit that all just got too complicated so now I source furniture from Europe and around Ireland. You also build relationships with people and they start to contact you. That’s what I really love about the job, that and the stories behind the pieces excite me.”

The pandemic didn’t impact her business and fortunately she already had an online presence, but she did avail of the Trading Online Voucher introduced by the government to upgrade her website.

This means she has a customer base from all over Ireland, and of course it helps she’s located in a popular holiday destination like West Cork. In fact, their new premises is just beside the award-winning independent homeware retailer, Old Mill Stores, making Connonagh a slightly unlikely, but very convincing interiors destination in itself.

Rita says there’s an ever growing interest in sustainable furniture; and there’s also an awareness of how great vintage pieces can look when mixed in with newer items.

And she says programmes like RTÉs Home of the Year also help create a surge in interest.

As well as selling vintage and antique furniture, Rita offers chalk painting commissions while Ian focusses on furniture restoration.

“Like all couples, we drive each other simple sometimes, but this is what we love doing and we’re really excited about the future!”