Cootehill 300: A bacon slicer that caused ructions…

Jonathan Smyth recalls the trouble an early bacon slicer caused to a bakery owner in Cootehill...

Do you remember the joke about the bacon slicer? The one where the grocer puts a notice beside the machine which says: ‘No babies to be placed sitting on the bacon slicer, because it leaves us a little behind in our work.’ Hopefully, I am sure, that never happened for real in Cootehill’s shops down the years.

One of my memories as a young lad was of going with my father to Thompson Brothers in Cootehill. There, standing behind the butcher’s counter down the back, was Mervyn Browne. As children we were fascinated by the whirr and swish of the bacon slicer, as we stared in wonderment. Everything is new and a fresh cause for fascination to the young. Anytime we were in the shop afterwards, the man at the bacon counter took on a kind of star quality. That must have been the late 1970s or early 1980s. It was a good few years ago. Of course, butchers of the town like Argues, Lennons and McGuirks provided ham over the years too.

Ham is a food for all seasons. It was filling for sandwiches in the winter if visitors called, or in the summer, it became a treat for the picnic basket sent with flasks of tea to some remote part of the farm during the hay or silage making. On the hottest summer’s day, Irish housewives shopped for ham, lettuce, and salad cream for dinner. A punnet of nectarines, peaches or strawberries could appear for dessert too.

As children we liked going to the shops. Paddy O’Leary always had a cheery hello, followed by, ‘there’s something small for the children,’ he would say to my mother, handing over cream eclairs, or buns. At Cassidy’s on Bridge Street, I mind Mr Cassidy saying to my father, ‘would the children like a toffee apple each?’ The shopkeepers showed genuine kindness. A thing, not to be forgotten. In Cootehill, there are many lovely shops still, but I like Hannigan’s, which remains a traditional grocery store to this day.

Likewise, the staff in Thompsons were always friendly to us, and Gordon Farrell greeted us with the words, ‘young Smyth,’ or asked, ‘how’s your grandfather Andy keeping?’ In those days, locals supplied produce and people like Helen Middleton, Bellamont, were a familiar sight, wheeling her bike with a tray of eggs nestled between the carrier basket and the handlebars.

100 years ago

Bacon slicers were a novelty when they came to the town 100 years ago. In 1914, the arrival of an unwanted bacon slicer created a hullabaloo at the well-known establishment of McKay’s Bakery in Cootehill, formerly located behind Vicky’s Pricewise (present day shop). Everything was fine until the machine appeared.

Two months before the slicer arrived at McKays, it sat gathering dust at Cootehill railway station. Stationmaster P.J. McNally spotted it laid up in a corner gathering dust and told the carters to get it loaded up and sent to town. Well, they must have taken a toss of a coin and decided on McKay’s bakery because that is where they left it. The next thing was that the supplier, Jordie & Co. of Dublin came knocking on the door of McKay’s for payment. But there was no way McKay said he was going to pay, and he was emphatic.

Anyway, the whole thing went to court. Jordie & Co. set out to recoup the cost of the slicer, and then a salesman from the supplying company, a man named O’Rourke, said with certainty that an order was received. He even produced a letter suggesting that McKay had acknowledged the delivery of the bacon slicer.

In court they said that John McGahan, one of the railway carters, had eventually taken the slicer to McKay’s where he was rebuffed and told to take it back with him, which he did, reluctantly, no doubt. Having been spoken to by the stationmaster, McGahan went to town again with the machine to McKay’s Bakery. This time they accepted it, when they had heard that the freight charges made out to the railroad company were paid. This left them more inclined to have the slicer brought through the door.

The solicitor defending the bakery was Murphy. He was adamant that his client had never wanted to order the slicer from Jordie & Co. and informed the court that McKay had since gone and bought a different bacon slicer. The one that he bought cost a hefty £28. McKay would have to sell a ‘right amount’ of loaves to pay for the machine.

McKay told Murphy that the travelling salesman came mooching about the place, but he never placed an order with him. The baker knew of several bacon slicers in use about Cootehill and thought that ‘they were all useless’. McKay may never have signed the receipt, but it turned out that it was the young shop boy who signed the railway carter’s delivery docket when McGahan came around the second time.

The Dublin crowd

Jordie & Co. were represented by the Cavan solicitor, Louis C.P. Smith, and even he began to agree with the baker, telling the people that McKay ‘didn’t accept the machine because he didn’t order it’ and besides he did not know how long it was in his shop till it was sent back.

J. Armstrong, a young apprentice at McKay’s, recalled the salesman coming by. He said that nothing was ordered, and he knew rightly what was being dropped off when McGahan from the railway station delivered it. Murphy did not think it was the baker’s job to send the goods back to Dublin. The judge dismissed the case, and it left up to Jordie & Co to arrange return of the equipment.

From our visits, long ago, to Thompson Brothers, the sway of the bacon slicer operated by Mr. Browne still comes to mind. Benny Markey’s was another popular place, and the town descended on the shop when word got around that the new ham was in. Give me freshly cut ham any day, instead of that processed packaging. At least, there’s still one place in Cootehill to go for a fresh pound of ham. Thank God for Hannigan’s bacon slicer!

READ MORE

The Southwell Situation of 1845