A gem of a jeweller... Liam set to shut Market Parade shop

AFTER 38 years of trading in Cork city, Liam Lynch Jewellers will permanently shut its doors next month.

Sentimental heirlooms scattered all over Cork stem from this store in Market Parade, beside the English Market.

Liam, originally from Ballingeary, explains how he finished school at 17 and began life as a jeweller.

“I was looking for a job and my friend told me that they were looking for people inside in WM Egan & Sons, so I went in and asked and got a job. It was as simple as that really: 31 and 32 Patrick Street, a beautiful building it was. They had four floors with 45 staff working for them.”

That’s a huge staff, I say.

“They had an ecclesiastical section, about 25 in the workshop, and then another 20 doing everything else, mainly men,” says Liam. “I served my time there, like you did in those days, five-years as an apprentice.

“I learned so much. Mainly silver engraving, but I learned all about gold karat, 9k, 18k, 24k, and so on. I also learned all about diamonds, their different cuts and weights and colours. I stayed for 17 years.”

Liam explained silver engraving to me and jumped up to fetch an old engraving tool.

“This is about 50-years old now. And I’d sit like this and cut away like this…” Liam puts a jeweller’s loupe to his eye, akin to a magnifying monocle. “To sharpen it, then you’d just run it across some oil stone.”

Liam adds: “An old friend of mine, Pat Buckley, we started our apprenticeship together in Egan’s and he’s still at it today, he loves it! He still engraves jewellery, whereas I stopped using that skill when I took on the business. I found myself very busy selling and buying stock, and if I was engraving I’d get disrupted when called by a customer, so I left the skill behind really. There’s very few people in the world can do what Pat does!”

Liam showed me the signet ring he was wearing.

“See that now, Pat cut that. That’s the Lynch family coat of arms. A machine couldn’t engrave quite like that. Pat and I actually made a broach for the Queen together when she visited.”

A cuckoo clock is going off in the background. Do many people still them??

“Oh they do! A family from Midleton just bought four off me! Ah, I’ve been very lucky over the years with customers. We opened in June, 1985, and on the first Saturday a lady walked into the shop and said, ‘I don’t know who you are, but I wish you well’. And over the years I’ve had her whole family come into me. Kids, grandkids, and even great-grandkids in prams. They’ve bought engagement rings and weddings rings and all sorts. I’ve been very lucky.”

“That same opening day, I remember I only had two signet rings and a young couple walked in, and luckily enough one of the signet rings fitted his hand perfectly. It was a good sign, to be able to sell something on the first day like that.”

The shop is now packed with different kinds of stock. What was it like on opening day.

“I’d have one small box of stuff, a big gap on the shelf, then another small box,” Liam laughed. “But over the years you build up as you go.”

The Liam Lynch name adorns the arch above the entrance to The English Market..

“Well, t’was just a bit of marketing at the time,” explains Liam. “I put the clock there and I had the shop name painted there, but I never asked for permission. And the caretaker at the time, he was a great fella and a good friend, he’s gone a few years now, he was asked by the building manager, ‘Who gave permission to put that there?’ And the caretaker was quick and replied - ‘You did!’ And the manager was thinking, I did? Did I? Jeez, I must be losing it!’”

Liam laughs. “He was looking out for me because the manager never said a word to me.”

Liam met his wife, Angela, working in Egans, and their son, Eoin, came on board with the business 15 years ago. He introduced computerised engraving into the business.

“I can’t do any of that, I stay away from all of that,” says Liam. “When Eoin came on board he had the acumen to work with all that and it’s fantastic. See, if we were doing 50 coins, let’s say, for a sports awards - we provide UCC and MTU with their medals - Eoin could do 50 coins before lunch, whereas I would need four days.”

Liam showed me his workshop.

“Tis a bit messy now, but I think most jeweller’s look like this! Now that’s the engraver there now.”

Liam gestured to a machine that looked very upright, with smooth metal and plastic, wires, and a small digital interface. “This here is my old machine.”

He gestured to a much older, antiquated contraption, with a complicated manual apparatus, twisting arms and knobs and measurements. Small number plates sat positioned on it with a date spelled out. He leaned in with a small love heart-shaped jewellery box to show me how it worked.

Patricia O’Callaghan, who worked with Liam when the shop opened, has been an extremely loyal worker, a great asset to the business.

“She was here in the very beginning, and was probably here for nearly ten years before she left to rear a family. She then came back and has been with us for the last 18 years. She’s been just brilliant.

“Patricia is so knowledgeable with jewellery and with sales, there’s many a time I would pass a difficult customer onto her and she would make the sale, no problem. And there’s times when people come in and would ask for her. She’s been fabulous! I suppose we couldn’t have done it without her.”

“Now I’d never say that to her face!” Liam added with a laugh, “She was foolish enough to come back and work with me!”

“But, on a serious note, we’re a great team, myself, Patricia and Eoin. We work very well together and I’ve been very lucky. You know, there’s times Patricia would work through her lunch if we were busy, she’s a credit to the business.”

How’s the retirement sale going?

“It’s going brilliant! Although I’ve never done one before so I have nothing to compare it to! And I won’t be doing one again. This is it!”

“I have enough bottles of wine now to keep me going as people keep dropping them into me! It’s been brilliant so far. I’m going on 73 now so I’m past retirement age, and for the last few years, I’ve thought, I’ll get through Christmas, ah sure, I’ll go till the summer, ah sure, I’ll go again till Christmas, until eventually I said to my landlord, ‘Look, I need a letter from you saying I need to be out by this year or I’ll never leave!’ He said, ‘No, you’re too good for that!’”

The only way Liam could begin closure proceedings was by requesting his own, bespoke eviction notice.

Any plans for when you close, I ask.

“I have no fear of finishing whatsoever. I’m part of the Bandon Walking Group and I love walking! So I’ll be with them a few days a week. And I love fishing, reading, and watching television. I have two wonderful dogs at home, too, and I’ll be walking them every day. A setter and a springer.”

“When I was young, I always wanted a train set, and last year, what did they get me? A big train set! So I’ll keep busy with that, too.”

Jewellery holds deep meaning for people. Given how Liam and his store have consistently provided precious items, marking milestones in peoples’s lives, for so many years, it’s fair to consider him a cherished member of the Cork community.

He has given the city 55 years as a jeweller.

Yet, like a true gentleman, Liam’s humility and gratitude took nothing for granted.