Business gem! Cork jewellers celebrates its diamond anniversary

SEVENTY-five years ago, a new jewellery shop opened in Patrick Street.

Its first shop front, aimed at luring in customers, was a simple affair. It comprised of a 3ft x 2ft glass case, which was brought downstairs from the workshop two storeys above each morning, secured by a padlock to the wall, and taken away again each evening.

It’s a world away from the current, glittering shop window of Keanes Jewellers on Oliver Plunkett Street, with its exquisite displays of sparkling diamonds and designer watches.

That little rented workshop, at 25, Patrick Street, was the bedrock upon which this family enterprise was built.

The year was 1948, and a young watchmaker named Patrick Keane started out repairing watches and clocks. Two years later, he and his wife Eileen moved to a small shop at 94, Oliver Plunkett Street.

All these years on, their son Gerard remains at the helm of the family business.

“My father apprenticed in Egans, then worked for a few years afterwards with Michael (Micky) Roche. He was a very fine watchmaker and had many loyal clients,” said Gerard.

However, he largely credits his mother with the success of the Keanes Jewellers business. Originally from the North Main Street, where her family had Ryan’s provision shop, she was a natural entrepreneur.

“She had a very strong personality, a pocket dynamo who’d say ‘Be adventurous’,” said Gerard.

Eileen supported Patrick when he struck out alone, and was busy herself building a mini-empire of her own, with grocery shops in Ballinlough, Paul Street, and Sundays Well. Patrick did the books for her at night.

The teenage Gerard, eldest of Patrick and Eileen’s five children, would race from school to help his parents out.

“I would string pearls and clean alarm clocks. Eventually, I got promoted to cleaning the inside of a pocket watch.

“I’d also call to UCC on the way home from Pres for a gallon of cream and haul it across the Shakey Bridge to the shop in Sunday’s Well. Or, on Sundays, carry a wicker basket full of blocks of ice cream from Sullivan’s wholesalers in Grenville Place.”

Eileen also established a fruit and vegetable wholesale business. At 15, Gerard left school to work in this new enterprise, driving a Bedford truck around West Cork selling oranges, Dutch tomatoes, Spanish oranges, Italian pears and bananas.

He was getting the finest commercial education imaginable, dealing with people on a daily business, managing the ebb and flow of sales, and balancing expectations with the reality of deliveries.

Although Gerard did go back and finish his education, graduating from UCC, the hard graft of these early years served him well his entire life.

The core of Eileen Keane’s business philosophy was focused on people. “She had great heart,” said Gerard. “People always remember her sitting inside the door of Keanes on the right, welcoming visitors to the shop.”

Gerard says she taught him “how to care for people, to have heart and empathy for staff”. And he feels blessed with the now 60-strong Keanes team, some of whom are there 30 years.

“Her kindness is where it all started,” said Gerard. “My mother was like the accelerator in the car and my dad, the brake. She was always positive and optimistic and he always exercised caution. He was solid as a rock, but I always supported mum.”

The drive to succeed was something she nurtured and cultivated in her eldest son. “We were a team,” Gerard said.

In 1953, they were offered a shop to rent in the old Clancarthy buildings, previously a wine, spirits and tea wholesalers.

“It was a huge step for us. The shop was tiny. When we moved from the hustle and bustle of Patrick Street to Oliver Plunkett Street, it was considered a big gamble as the street was so quiet.”

Over the years, they rented the two shops either side of the first. “We were branching out, but so was the consumer.”

Keanes were shrewd.

For those who wandered into town on a Saturday afternoon, after they got paid, to pick up something fashionable to wear for the weekend, they dedicated one shop to costume jewellery.

For cinema-goers, who liked to stroll around town window-shopping after a film and a cuppa in the Pavilion, they held off erecting the protective window-grills over the diamond displays at closing time at 6pm, returning later that night to do so.

When a fourth shop, 95a, came up for rent, Gerard and his mum opened the first card shop in Cork. It was a roaring success, particularly at Christmas.

When Gerard felt they needed a shop front in Patrick Street, in 1961, they bought Michel’s, near the Old Bridge restaurant. A month later, Gerard married his beloved Ronnie and headed off for a week’s honeymoon to Majorca. “My father was unimpressed with me leaving when the shop was only newly opened!” he laughed.

Keanes has a true family ethos.

Gerard said: “I was the eldest. My brother Fergus (known as Fudgie) was five years younger, Pat five years younger than him. My parents worked in five-year cycles, I think! Then came Catherine and my baby brother, Tim.

“We organised for Fergus to apprentice to a large manufacturing firm, Thomas O’Connor in Dublin, to learn the repair end of the business.”

On his return to Cork, Fergus set up a repair workshop around the corner from Michel’s.

“When my brother Pat joined us, he spent a year in Dublin and London studying the watch business. Catherine managed the Swiss Gem, as well as doing most of the buying for Keanes, at which she was excellent. Tim took over Michel’s and stamped his own personality on it.”

Fifty years ago, in 1973, Gerard was offered the opportunity to purchase the entire Clancarthy buildings premises in Oliver Plunkett Street and Cook Street.

“We now owned the entire building with space for a large shop with workshops and offices overhead. A huge purchase for us at the time, but the banks were always very supportive.

“We always strove to buy and be our own bosses. We never liked renting.”

Thereafter, the business grew, with additional shops in North Main Street, Winthrop Street, Killarney, and Limerick added to the portfolio.

Keanes are heading into a busy time of year.

“Christmas is always hectic in the jewellery business. It is the highlight of the year for engagements,” said Gerard. “We have sons coming into us to buy their engagement rings, because their parents did.”

“Seventy-five years on, we are still piercing ears for kids, and will fit a strap to your watch or do minute repairs.”

Largely thanks to Pat’s efforts, Keanes secured the agencies of top brands such as Rolex, Patek Phillipe, and Omega.

“During our most recent renovation, we expanded the shop floor to create dedicated showrooms for these,” said Gerard.

“Customers have become more discerning and more knowledgeable, particularly regarding high -end products. We appreciate that. They expect a bit more, and we are very happy to give it to them.”

Gerard has served as President of the Cork Jewellers and of the Retail Jewellers Association of Ireland, as secretary of the Committee of the Chambers of Commerce, and was the first Corkman to be invited to become Master Warden of the Company of Goldsmiths of Dublin.

He and Ronnie have four children and 11 grandchildren, and the future of the business seems secure. Gerard’s son Ger handles the diamond end of the business, and Pat’s son Patrick manages the watch brands.

“It is ultimately very satisfying looking back over the 75 years and realising that Keanes is an identifiable brand and a big presence in Cork city,” said Gerard.