Cork postmaster: We’re as important as the pub and church...

TED Burke hadn’t taken over Liscarroll Post Office very long when he was approached by a man who wanted to open an account.

What was so unusual about that?

“There wasn’t anything unusual about it,” says Ted, who is originally from Newmarket. “Except the amount of money was quite large. The man wanted to lodge €20,000!”

Ted was unfazed.

“We went through the IDs and the various applications necessary to open the account,” he recalls.

Ted had a question.

“I said to the man, can I ask where you got this amount of money?”

The man was upfront.

“I sold a pile of hay,” he said. “I have a big farm of land.”

Ted did the business, and he got a phone call two days later.

“I got a call from An Post,” says Ted. “They said that there was an account open two days ago and where did the large amount of money come from?”

The people in An Post in Dublin were perplexed.

“When I told them that the customer, a farmer, had sold hay, they wanted to know what hay was!” says Ted.

“I found that quite amusing as we are so familiar with hay here in rural Liscarroll; but in Dublin, they weren’t sure what hay was!”

Ted was able to pinpoint for them where the money came from.

Three days later, he had another visit from the same man, who wanted to open another account.

“He arrived in with another €20,000 to lodge,” says Ted.

“I asked him; did he sell more hay again? And he replied that yes, he did sell a big supply of hay. His sale turned out to be legitimate alright,” says Ted.

“What tickled my fancy was the fact that the people in Dublin didn’t know what hay was!”

Ted used to be a stainless-steel fitter before he became a postmaster.

“I’m also a coach driver,” says Ted. “I travel all over the country. I’m talking to you from Derry today - Joan and the girls are looking after the post office.”

Ted and his partner, Joan, took over Liscarroll Post Office in 2011 from Dan Canty.

“Dan’s son, Donal, was supposed to take it over,” says Ted. “Unfortunately, Donal got leukaemia and he passed away. He was a lovely fellow.

Dan had to stop running the post office, and we applied when it was advertised. We were successful and we took over the post office.

“At first, we had no intention of taking it over, but we were happy we did. We are in a good area, Liscarroll is a great community. Joan and I love living here.”

Ted and Joan are in a busy commuting area. 

“From 6am, the traffic is flowing from Foynes and Newcastle West. Many commuters stop off into the post office and into the shop.

“Dan closed the adjoining shop when he had the post office. I decided to open another shop,” says Ted. “There was good room to expand.”

What about Covid?

“The shop still went pretty good,” says Ted.

“People weren’t travelling. They wanted to stay and shop local. The main reason we opened the shop is here, in a rural village, there was no shop for the elderly. And I said, why not help them out?”

Ted and Joan know all their customers on a first-name basis.

“We know everyone within a radius of 20 to 25 miles,” says Ted. “Unfortunately, most of the old-time characters we knew are no longer with us, which is sad. We miss them, and we missed a lot of people during Covid who couldn’t leave their homes.

“The world changed so much during Covid. The meetings, the pub culture, the cost of living, everything changed.

“When I meet people in the post office or on the coach, they talk about the changes and the local pubs which are mostly empty; there is nobody in them.”

Liscarroll Post Office is different.

“When the customers come in, we have a job to get them out again!” says Ted, laughing.

The post office is a central meeting place and people love to linger and chat together. It might be the only opportunity they get to talk to someone all week.

“When someone familiar is missing, like on pension day, their sister or daughter will phone us and tell us - ‘John won’t be in today, he is sick’. So, we think about them until we see them again; you wonder if they’re OK and look forward to them getting better and coming back again.”

Someone always checks in.

“We’d often ask the postman to check on someone who is ill and make sure that they are OK,” adds Ted.

Liscarroll Post Office in the main street is open for business six days a week - until 1pm on Saturday. The shop is open seven days a week.

It is a community hub that is a mine of information, from organising events, to seeking information for a lost dog, to job opportunities.

“We try and promote the post office as best we can,” says Ted. “We offer so many services in this modern age, from banking to social welfare to postage returns to money exchange, sterling for instance.

It is hard to know how long the post office can last; there are so many rural post offices closing down; it is a shame as the post office is a valuable entity as well as neighbourhood care.

“The post office is a go-to, one-stop shop, a one-to-one service that remains vital, especially given that there are so many bank branches closing down.

“We might be facing a cashless society going forward, but cash is still king for older people. Many of them don’t have a bank account and they like to see what they are getting into their hands on pension day.”

Ted loves being part of the community. 

“It’s a bit like the pub and the church in the village,” he says. “If you haven’t a local post office, you have nothing. One helps the other.”

Ted and Joan have a tight-knit team.

“We have a staff of four, three of whom came here on work experience and ended up staying!”

So, like his loyal customers; they were hard to get rid of once they entered the affable, friendly, goodwill atmosphere of the post office?

“That’s right!” says Ted.

Jordan, Abigail, Clodagh and Charlene always know the customer is right.

“One customer always likes to have a fresh apple tart on a certain day, the girls know this. They are really clued in to the customers.”

Liscarroll often welcomes a famous visitor who is connected to the village.

“Michael D. Higgins is a frequent visitor here,” says Ted. “He is a cousin to Dan Canty. Michael D’s mother, Alice Canty, was born here.”

So there’s always an eye out for the arrival of our President?

“Word gets around fairly quickly, especially in the post office!” says Ted.

Looking out from behind the counter, Ted always has his eye on the impressive Norman castle in Liscarroll, the biggest such structure in Munster.

“I am looking out at it every day,” says Ted. “I called my shop Castle View store.”

“We’re in the middle of the village, we cater for everyone,” he adds..

“Hopefully we can keep going. I’ve no plans to retire anytime soon.”

Even if he has a Lotto winner?

“That might happen some day,” says Ted. “We’d surely celebrate; then I might retire!”

* Next week Chris visits Ballintemple Post Office.