M&P O'Sullivan Ltd 100 Years

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M. & P. O’Sullivan, Celebrating 100 Years, 1905-2005 were wide ranging, embracing all disciplines and his understanding intuitive. He reserved a special place for the national games, maintained a close association with the GAA throughout most of his 67 years, and was one of the few who could recall in detail the Cork, Munster and All Ireland campaigns going back to the thirties. Paddy O’Keeffe, his close friend, after whom Pairc Uí Chaoimh was later named, was secretary of M.&P O’Sullivan prior to his appointment as general secretary of the GAA. Having joined the family company in 1944, Paddy O’Sullivan (junior) helped lead and guide the business through several important stages of expansion, especially the overseeing of the growth of the grocery trade. In the fifties and sixties, the company went into tea blending and sold the famous brand Silver Pot Tea. The tea was delivered to Princes Street in 100lb chests by cart and drey. The tea was then hauled up to the first floor for blending and packing. The company produced different blends signified by the colour of the packet Paddy O’Sullivan (Junior), under the watchful eye of Paddy Hyde. Paddy O’Sullivan was advised on tea Managing Director, 1963-1990 blends by his good friend and tea expert, Bill Beamish. Originally, most teas were imported from Africa, Ceylon and India. Kenya was the first country to modernise production and produced cut torn curled tea, which is still the main basis for modern teas. These were all blended to different formulae, depending on the required quality of the finished product. Each wholesale call for M.&P. from west Waterford and south west Kerry included a parcel or two of tea. There were coupons on the tea for so many labels so you could claim a gift. From 1964, the ground floor of the Princes street shop was divided in two distinct sections with retail and wholesale. Despite the poor Irish economic climate and very few opportunities for employment, there were fifteen staff employed circa 1960 in the wholesale department and two in the retail side. During this time, Paddy’s (Junior) brothers, Michael, Barry and Teddy O’Sullivan worked in the company. Joan Murphy (nee O’Sullivan) was also involved in the company in the sixties and early seventies. 18
19 Frank Barry, now financial controller of the company, joined the Princes Street shop in 1963. He notes of the early days; “It is an extraordinary story in the sense of how we survived in Princes Street and how the business endured there for so long…a lot of it was down to Paddy who had been on the road for years and who had built up great contacts and a personal rapport with many of the customers…the family continued the ties from that…the firm still is built on a personal basis. In the early days, the absence of computers meant all orders were written in triplicate and totted up. Stock-taking was originally maintained via hand written notes, which was a long process with stock priced at various pounds, shillings and pence. Goods were stored on three levels and hauled up by a hand operated lift. Heavy canned goods were kept on ground floor. Business was labour intensive with breaking cases and assembling and weighing being the order of the day. In the grocery trade, there were no pre-packed goods. There was a special way of hand sealing various products such as tea and sugar. CIE had a contract to supply large containers of food via the delivery of goods by drey horses pulling large carts.” Frank Barry, Company Financial Controller, 2005 Pat O’Sullivan also recalls; “In the 1960s, it was a far more personal business when I came at fourteen years of age to work with my father on Princes Street during my school holidays. My first memory and one of my first jobs was the ‘block laying’ of biscuit tins. It was an art. The tins were stacked ten and twelve high. It was all manual handling... there was a manual lift but there were parts of the building that you had to climb three flights of stairs. Every wholesaler was working under similar conditions. We had a bench inside where orders were assembled, where cases were often split into dozens and half-dozens...my father was on the road a lot of the time. He especially travelled to west Waterford to places such as Lismore and Midelton in East Cork. People shared their business with three or four wholesalers at that time”. Pat O’Sullivan, Company Director, 2005
Page 1: Edited by Kieran Mc Carthy
Page 4 and 5: M. & P. O’Sullivan, Celebrating 1
Page 12 and 13: Producers and Staff in Mary Street,
Page 14 and 15: Guests at the opening of M.&P. O’
Page 36: E7.50 PROCEEDS TO CORK CHARITIES In

M&P O'Sullivan Ltd 100 Years

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