Over 60 Years of Kanturk Co-Operative Mart Part 2

By Tadhg Curtin

Part 2 of our Two part feature on Kanturk Mart focuses on the Mart in present day. We talked to a few of its patrons and employees in regards to its past and present.

Seamus O'Keeffe, manager, and John Cott

John Cott, Chairman of Kanturk Mart:

On the old vs new technology:

I suppose with Covid, it looked like the mart wouldn’t be opened because of masks and Seamus O’Keeffe, manager, and John Cott all that... the online was the saviour of the mart. It’s... one of the best things of the last three year, it gives a lot wider audience of buyers, they can go on their phone, bid, ring up, ask for the pen numbers and all that. About 40% of the cattle bought online.

Hopes for mart in the future:

Retirement now is my big hope! (Laughs) We’ve a good catchment area; we’re in the centre of five or six other marts, they’re in a circle around it. Millstreet (now closed), Castleisland, Listowel, Killmallock, Macroom, we’re kind of in the middle of them. The mart was a great success, it’s one of these success stories that you get inside the mart there. You’ve great satisfaction, we came in very green to running a mart, there was no outside, how will I put it, no expertise brought in, but we knew as farmers, we knew the business and we knew what we needed. We recently started our own lorry washing place here, a different clientele then with the lorries. Off farming car wash and valeting. I suppose a lot of them were saying it’d never be a success and this and that, but it went from strength to strength like. It’s a nice thing.

60 years, here’s to 60 more!

Fingers crossed! It has been an enjoyable time as well like, you meet a lot of people you wouldn’t normally meet in your every day, you give it your all really. We had a point to prove too, why would it close? It was a viable operation. Everybody…our customer base, both intake of cattle and buyer base has all increased over the years, we’re on this present year, we’re running around 300,00 cattle through the gates this year, and it’s similar last year.

Seated - Colette O’ Connell & Liz O’ Connor, Standing Geraldine O’ Sullivan, and Michelle Hallihan.

The heart of the mart; The office is crucial for the efficient running of mart day and beyond.

Tuesday is a very busy day in the office as it is Mart Day in Kanturk. Mart day consists of checking in animals in the front hut and then once the sale there would be four people working in the office to ensure a smooth-running dealing with customers. We would deal on a daily basis with enquiries about current cattle prices and general sales of cattle.

Christy McSweeney is a frequent figure seen at Kanturk mart:

Limerick, Fair Field, 65 years ago. I was there with my father, he’d a truck and a farm. He’d buy calves and fill up the truck and sell em below. I does business in marts, but I come just to say hello too. I might buy cattle that I don’t want at all. I’m addicted to farming cattle. It was cows once, I’ve had a bypass and I’ve had two new hips put in. I’m all repairs, but I’m good from the neck up! In my opinion. From 1 to 10 today, I’m 8, I like the buzz. Wheeling Dealing, Del boy, those sitcoms, I love those, but some days I’d get fecked out of it by some fellas, and some fellas I get praise, but you play the game. You don’t get sour, or cross, you might get cross for a few minutes, but you let it go, you don’t carry it with you. I stay pleasant for the day, for myself. There’s no day in my life I give up, I just talk direct sometimes. I try being honest for today.

Denis and Seamus have seen decades of change in the mart

The cow Denis sold on the day made €2,350

Denis Frawley, patron of the mart for many decades:

I’ve been coming here since it opened with my father, 1959. I’m 75 now.

You’ve seen a lot of changes?

There isn’t much, it’s better. I’ve seen cattle being sold for a fiver. Things are getting better all the time.

Pros and cons? Was farming easier in the past?

T’was harder but…t’was easy too. You wouldn’t have to do a whole pile. The biggest herd of cows when I was young was about 30 cows. Whereas, you’ve 400 cows now, we’d only 30. Denis and Seamus have seen decades Do you think technology has helped? I of change in the mart. t’s made things easier. But in the mart? It’s making things better all the time. Even if they got bad a bit, they’d come back. I see fellas spreading manure my time by hand, out of a bag. Now they’ve these big machines they spread it that way. A better way.

Memorable moments?

I have one – there’s a place below there, I don’t know, is it closed now, an eating house. The owner came back from England or America, he opened up that, and he had the first record player, you’d put money in to play a record, it was below in the corner. T’was grand all together. ! My father used come on a horse that time. He’d tie the horse with his neighbour out the road, that’s how it started. We’ve come a long way since. The cow Denis sold on the day made €2,350

Present Committee of Kanturk Co-Operative Mart Back Row L-R Michael Forde, Tim O’ Connell, Kieran O’ Callaghan, Willie Aherne, John Daly, Dermot McCarthy & Michael Bourke. Front Row L-R John Stokes, James Downey, John Cott (Chairman), Seamus O’ Keeffe (Manager), J.J. Curtin & Denis O’ Connor.