Roscrea Tidy Towns - a community effort

Since its establishment in the early 1980s, Roscrea Tidy Towns has been supported in its endeavours by Bernie’s SuperValu Roscrea.

Out of curiosity, the following information was researched from the Newspaper Archives, and has been reported here, not word for word, but sentiment by sentiment.

The first of the snippets from the Nenagh Guardian of May1968 records a court appearance by Bernie, where he was looking for a wine licence for his then V. G. Supermarket. From the article we learn that Bernie had been store manager for Mr. Dermot O’Sullivan, Portlaoise, who owned the premises.

This premises became Bernie’s first property – it is currently unoccupied and was once a store operated by Moran’s.

Without publishing the complete article, Bernie was granted the licence at this court sitting.

From the second snippet that comes from the Tipperary Star of June 2004 where it records that Bernie moved to his current premises in 1979. This premises had been the ESB shop. The article was celebrating Bernie’s 25th Anniversary.

In it is recorded the plethora of community supports undertaken by Bernie – from clubs and organisations to schools. The store had grown and then employed over 50 locals.

Since their establishment in the early 1980s, Bernie has been a supporter of Roscrea Tidy Towns. In fact, Bernie was one of the founding members of Tidy Towns. This year, the support has been massive.

As part of their heritage brief, Roscrea Tidy Towns has been erecting memorial plaques to historic persons and/or noteworthy occasions.

Imagine our surprise when one of the noteworthy historical persons we wished to commemorate turned out to have been born in the very location of Bernie’s SuperValu Store.

The person we researched was William John O’Brien. A short account of his achievements follows.

William John O’Brien who was born in Roscrea

William John was born in 1860 and migrated to South Africa in 1878. He got on very well in South Africa. He became a director of several diamond companies.

He was a man before his time – the hospital he founded was to cater for “all, irrespective of race and colour”. This was in the time when apartheid was at its most segregative. He also established Pietermaritzburg University.

He emigrated to KwaZulu Natal area in 1878. He got his title as he did so much for the city of Pietermaritzburg and the financial well-being of South Africa in his 99 years.

He became a politician - as mayor founded the local university and hospital.

Following their research, Roscrea Tidy Towns approached Bernie’s SuperValu to see if they could install a plaque on the premises and were enthusiastically received.

Bernie’s have also installed a defibrillator this year supporting the community

Then, we approached the sign manufacturers and ran into a problem - the image we had from the internet was not of good enough quality to be used.

Having contacted the website where the image was located and gotten a message to say the original photo couldn’t be located, we were at a loss as to how to proceed. Luckily, there was a local solution to the problem.

We sent the internet image of William to Seán O’Sullivan aka 'The Art of O’Prez,' a local artist specialising in reproducing pencil art portraits from photographs.

Seán was extremely helpful and in a few days the image on the plaque was produced. His work is exceptional.
It’s from the combined efforts of everyone involved – Roscrea Tidy Towns, Bernie’s SuperValu, Tipperary Co. Council and Seán’s artistic work that suggested the title for this article.

Roscrea artist Seán O’Sullivan produced the plaque's striking artwork

The plaque was installed by Signiatec – the manufacturers – in October and the official unveiling of the plaque took place on December 5th. The plaque was sponsored by Tipperary County Council and Bernie’s SuperValu and Roscrea Tidy Towns wish to thank them most heartedly for their support.

Roscrea Tidy Towns would like to wish all their volunteers and supporters a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year.