Closure of Offaly village's only grocery store commemorated in verse by local poet

The end of an era in Killeigh with the closure of Gorman's shop has been commemorated in verse by Daingean poet, Jim Brennan.

In his poem, “The Shop 1924 – 2024”, Jim looks back on the history of the famous grocery store over the past century.

The current owners, Frank and Liz Gorman, started trading there 35 years ago.

“We've had many happy memories since we came here in 1990,” Liz Gorman told the Tribune as she and her husband, Frank, and their two employees, Melissa Gorman and Ciara O'Brien, prepared to close the shop last Saturday.

There has been a shop on the site of Gorman's for 100 years this year, starting with Buckleys, then the Mahon family, through Danny Coughlan and family, Marie Louise McEnroe, to Frank and Liz Gorman.

The closure of Gorman's comes following the closure of the post office and Langton's in the village leaving no grocery store to serve the people of Killeigh and district.

The Shop 1924 – 2024

It's a warm morning in Killeigh

The sun is casting shadows across the green

The Irish Free State still an infant,

The shop window is full of surprises.

The ponies and traps, the ass and carts go by.

The pennies, shillings and trupenny bits, the half crowns

and the ten bob notes are rattling the till.

The women in their shawls

The farmers and farm labourers in their stout boots

The bread and tea, sugar and spices, the soft sacks of flour

The bulls eyes, the sweet things

The weighing scales, the balls of twine

Holding the years together.

The shopkeepers serving and minding their people

And if money was tight,

A prayer book of credit,

A page of promises to pay up the reckoning

All the penny toffees and the gob stoppers

All has not vanished,

Gorman's shop lives in the memory of our living and our dying

And the story of or growing and our going away

we closed our doors on St Patrick's weekend 2024

and go to tend flowers for the butterflies and the bees

and a long contemplation of the light.

(Jim Brennan is a native of Daingean and a published poet)