Family Blog

Julie recently had an interview on The History Show on RTE Radio One with Myles Dungan, where they discussed her new book: People Like Us. Listen back on the RTE Radio website here: https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/22604444/

John Desmond Parsons was born in Athlone, oldest child of George and Grace Parsons. He was my father, Andy’s, big brother. He was known as Des. Des was deaf. He attended Portora Royal School, and was in the same class as Samuel Beckett. Des was very clever.  He studied Mathemaatics in Trinity College Dublin. He was a degree prizeman in 1929, a scholar of Trinity College in 1928 and won the Michael Roberts Prize in 1927 and the Loyd Exhibition in 1928. 

Here is a paper that Des wrote that was published in the Edinburgh Mathematical Journal in 1931. It was entitled ‘Solution with Axial Symmetry of Einstein’s Equations of Teleparallelism’. Tristan McLoughlin, Associate Professor in the School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin , said of it that it was ‘technically it’s a sophisticated, professional work and it seems to have been carefully done. So while I don’t think it’s an important paper, it’s obviously the work of a talented, professional researcher which speaks highly for someone at the early stages of their academic career.

Des became the manager of the Parsons Shops when his father retired. Dorrie Killeen who worked for him as book keeper spoke very highly of him. He married Beppa Sharkey, a Montessori teacher. They were both keen golfers. Des died in 1968 and is buried in the Parsons family grave in Dean’s Grange cemetery.

The shops: the two in Athlone, the one in Moate, one in Ballinasloe and one in Mullingar.

Good shops: successful businesses; everyone bought their shoes in Parsons; everyone knew them. And Athlone. A prime place on the corner. The kind of place you’d meet your girlfriend. Stand outside the shop and watch the world go by.

A terraced, five-bay, three-storey on a corner site. Red brick with channelled brick pilasters between bays and terracotta detailing to openings and to ground floor Called by the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage an ‘important and visually stimulating addition to the streetscape of Athlone’.

And in 1909 John Parsons builds a new shop:

Replacing the original building where John and Mary were already living upstairs and where their six children, Alfred, George, Edith, Emma, Violet and Charles had all been born.

In 1911 Parsons became a limited company, the share holders:
George Thomas Parsons, Granaoge, Athlone, merchant;
Grace Kathleen Parsons, Granaoge, Athlone, married woman;
their signatures witnessed by George McClenaghan, Clerk in Holy Orders, Granaoge, Athlone;
and Emma Charlotte Parsons, 27 Fitzwilliam Street Dublin, spinster, her signature witnessed by T.A. Fannin, merchant, of 41 Grafton St, Dublin.

And again in 1938 the share holders changed thus:
George Thomas Parsons, boot merchant, Dromore, Greystones, Co Wicklow;
John Desmond Parsons, boot merchant, of the same address;
their signatures witnessed, by G.A. Overend, solicitor, 24 Dame St, Dublin.

The staff and the managers, all worked for years for Parsons. Everyone knew them. Like Gerald Canavan, from Bridge Street, Bantry, Co Cork who wrote to George Parsons in 1936 looking for a job. He’d seen the advertisement for a “boot salesman” in the Irish Times. Wrote that he had eight years experience, and could assure him that.

I have a thorough knowledge of the business and have no doubt you will find me most satisfactory, should you be good enough to give me your consideration.

Gerald Canavan, the first Catholic to become manager of a Parsons’ shop, the shop in Moate. He’s remembered for his long ladder with which he could reach the loft above the show room . Remembers by Elizabeth Ross of Moate, told to her by an elderly man called Kieran Gavin:

and we were amazed at the agility of this man, running up and down to get the right shoes to satisfy the customer.

Gerald Canavan to whom George Parsons left fifty shares in the business when he died in 1948.

The shops, selling farmers’ boots, nails in their soles; school shoes; summer sandals, everyone got their summer sandals in Parsons; dancing shoes, everyday shoes, lace ups and straps. They sold them all.

And there was John Salter, from Baltimore in Co Cork, who worked in the Ballinasloe shop, where Joe Price was the manager for more years than you could count. The Ballinasloe shop where my school friend, Shirley Burns, who comes from a horsey family and lives in Eyrecourt just up the road, got her working boots. The boots she wore when she was working in the stables. Not her hunting books which were made in England.

And here she is with her sister, Phyllis, known as Bill on the donkey, and Shirley wearing what she calls her ‘yard outfit’, her boots from Parsons and a leather apron.

And John Salter was ambitious. Left Parsons and started his own shoe shop directly across the road. But no rivalry between the two, John told me , always a good atmosphere. The manager of the Ballinasloe shop, Joe Price, also left fifty shares in the business in 1948.

Charles Mills was the manager of the smaller, second shop in Church St, Athlone

He had been a pupil at Wilsons’ Hospital school in Multyfarnham. His son, Leslie Mills, told me that when his father, Charles, was sixteen he went to the headmaster and said there was an opening in Parsons in Mullingar. So off he went to work in the Mullingar shop and from there to the shop in Church Street, Athlone. There a was a shoe mender in that shop too. Lesley Mills told me Paddy Lynskey was his name and he dealt with all the repairs that came in, dozens and dozens of shoes every day. He’d a big fire going and the radio on. And the kids would go in an spend hours with him. He was a great character.

And when Bob Gibson, the manager died, Charles took over. And he met his wife, Wilhemina Smith, in Parsons in the 1940s. She was the book keeper in the big corner shop which was managed by Tim Sharpe, and Charles did the stock taking for all the shops, so he was in and out all the time.

During the second world war,she was the book keeper in the big shop, the one on the corner. And Charles did the stocktaking for the shops and he’d be into the book keeper with the numbers of shoes and the cost price, all the information she’d need so she could prepare the listings for the annual accounts. And they married on September 4th, 1945.

And it’s interesting to see that unlike most women who married then, who had no rank profession, Mina’s rank or profession is given as clerk.

Mina’s autograph book, a testament to how much the shop was valued.

JOHN PARSONS & SON LTD
ATHLONE, MULLINGAR, BALLINASLOE &
MOATE
“THE FIRM FOR SATISFACTION”
Our Customers Are Life- long Ones
MANY A CUSTOMER HAS SAID
WHEN I WAS A LAD I WENT WITH MY MY DAD
WE BOUGHT ALL THE BOOTS IN PARSONS
NOW I’M A DAD & I AND MY LADS –
(WE) STILL BUY THE BOOTS IN “PARSONS”

And here’s a photograph of Ray Collins, on the right, who worked in the Athlone Shop in more recent times:

The Mullingar shop in the background in this photos. March 1946 as the funeral cortege of Cardinal John Glennon, passes through on its way to Shannon Airport.

In the late 1950s, the manager, Dan Murray, whose photo was used in an advertisement, the headline, “Do You Know This Man” and a five shilling voucher to be cut out. A pretty good marketing strategy for the time.

Dan and his family lived first of all at the back of the shop. The rain coming in from the yard underneath the kitchen door, a range in one corner and a big Belfast sink in the other. Then they moved upstairs. Five flights of stairs and hard work for his wife with five children to mind. On her knees with a cloth and the children running up and down. And many stories about ‘old Mr Parsons, that’s George Parsons. The stories: “Oh, Old Man Parsons would have done this” and “Old Man Parsons would have done that.”

And Joe, the youngest boy, watching his father going up and down the ladder, the wheelie ladder shooting along the shelves of shoes. And always with a cigarette between his fingers. Measuring feet, saying “I put my thumb on the toe and see where the toe is and give it half an inch more.” And watching him parcelling up shoes in brown paper, wrapping twine around them, snapping the twine so it broke.

And the indentured apprentices:
John Clifford Sharpe, St Mary’s Terrace, Athlone, 1941;
Sean Meally, Mullingar, 1949;
Christopher Lacken, St. Francis Terrace, Athlone 1939
James Kennedy, Church Street, Moate, 1951;
Eddie Seaver, Main Street, Moate, 1948;
Alex Trappe, Ganley Place, Athlone, 1951;
Eamon Doyle, Ard Muire, Braylough, Athlone, 1952;
Eric Ross, Moate Co Westmeath, 1949;
And what’s called a ‘ Boy’s Indentured Apprentice’: Dermot J. Robins, 1945

Who among other things, “shall not commit Fornication, nor contract Matrimony, shall not play at Cards, Dice Tables . . . shall not haunt or use Taverns, Ale-House or Play-houses . . . but in all things, as an honest and faithful Apprentice, he shall behave himself towards his said Master.”

All those Masters, Managers we will call them, all remembered in George’s will.

Robert Gibson, of 2 Church Street, Athlone, for more than 40 years of faithful service to my Company, 100 shares;
John Sharpe of 2 Church Street, Athlone, 50 shares;
Joseph Price, Main Street, Ballinasloe, 50 shares
Charles Mills, Garroville, 50 shares.
Gerald Canavan, Moate, 50 shares

And it was Uncle Des, the brilliant mathematician and golfer, unfortunately proundly deaf, who took over running the shops when his father, George died.
And then the shop was sold, first to Densons:

And later to Tom Dillon who had worked for Parsons:

And when I visited it in 2021 this is what it looked like inside:

And upstairs where the family had lived:

and: