Quay Co-op’s Arthur (80) makes move to 'scale back' workload to five days a week

One of Cork’s most tireless champions of progressive causes has spoken of his decision — at the age of 80 — to scale back activities to just running a bookshop five days a week.

Arthur Leahy has been a force for social justice in Cork for more than 45 years, since his earliest days as a prominent and public advocate for LGBT+ rights when he was involved in organising the first Irish National Gay Conference in Cork in 1980.

He and partner Laurie Steele made history that year when they appeared on RTÉ’s Week In, becoming the first openly gay couple seen on Irish television, at a time when homosexuality was still criminalised and the Aids crisis was in its earliest, most fearful days.

Centrally involved in the establishment of The Other Place LGBT Community Centre in Cork in 1991, he sat on the board of the Gay Project and was a key figure in the Cork Marriage Equality campaign.

In the early 1980s, Mr Leahy helped establish the Quay Co-Op on Sullivan’s Quay and since then it has been at the heart of social justice advocacy in the city, campaigning for women’s rights, LGBT+ rights, and environmental justice.

When he was presented with the 2025 Spirit of Mother Jones award, Mr Leahy said Ireland in the 1980s was “a very repressive society, and it’s such a short time, it’s 40 years, there have been such huge changes”.

Mr Leahy said that in its time the Quay Co-Op became a safe haven for many in the city. For several years, the Quay Co-Op served as the headquarters for the Cork Rape Crisis Centre, which is now the Sexual Violence Centre Cork and based at Camden Quay.

From 1982 until late last year, the Sullivan’s Quay building was also home to the Quay Co-Op vegetarian restaurant, which by the time it closed, was the second-oldest restaurant in Cork.

Running a restaurant is “a young person’s game”, Mr Leahy told The Echo, and with most of the members of the co-op at retirement age, the decision was reluctantly made to close it after 44 years.

However, a new restaurant has opened in its place, with the vegan My Goodness Food company opening for a pop-up trial run in December, and the premises is currently being refitted ahead of a full reopening at the end of this month.

There had been several expressions of interest in taking over the restaurant space, Mr Leahy said, but My Goodness was the best fit.

“We worked with My Goodness before, about 10 years ago, so we knew them, and they’re the closest to the original concept of the co-op, and they’re probably more regimented than we were, in that they’re vegan, so we would be very confident that they will carry on the tradition of the restaurant,” he said.

The co-operative will continue to run the shop, bakery, and bookshop as separate enterprises, with Mr Leahy in charge of the bookshop, which he started some years ago by donating his own book collection.

“You don’t need to be so young and energetic to run a bookshop,” he said. “The bookshop is being run as a charity at the moment, and it raises about €400 to €500 a week, which goes to charities, mainly in Palestine,” he explained.

Mr Leahy said not having to worry about the restaurant has taken a lot of pressure off, but he admitted he does not plan on slowing down anytime soon.