At a time when food retailing is in so much flux, there is something redeeming, almost reassuring, about a business that manages to keep so many familiar faces for a very long time.

McInerney’s Supervalu in Loughrea can lay claim to a rather unusual achievement – four of its workers have clocked up 184 years of service in a fourth-generation business.

PJ Mahony joined the company as a trainee master butcher in 1976. Today he manages the meat department of the large supermarket, leading a team of butchers who prepare a huge array of ready to cook dishes.

Gabrielle Price started making sausages two years after that, expanding the range of cooked meats to sell cooked chickens, which was a novelty nearly a half century ago. Cooked hams, beef tongues, luncheon sausage, chicken and ham roll, Hazlitt pate were all popular back then.

Last year Gabrielle moved into the health and beauty department where she continues to be a familiar face for customers.

In 1979 Robert Burns started as a trainee in the fruit and veg department, where he is now a manager.

Gerry Burke came on board the same year, taking responsibility for the ordering and managing the promotions. Back then there were 3,000 items on the shelves, today that has grown to 16,000. He is currently working as a checkout operator.

A fifth staff member, Mary Joe Mahony, left a few years ago after reaching half a century in the supermarket. Gerard McInerney remembers the day he interviewed her for the job of general assistant and checkout operator.

“I offered her £4 for wages and I remember she asked for four pounds, two shillings and six pence so we had an argument over the 2/6. I was impressed with her – she was probably only 17 or 18.”

Gerard’s grandfather Michael McInerney set up the business in 1891 on the main street where Billy’s Bargain Store trades, arriving into Loughrea from Ennis.

The business was built around million, animal feeds, agricultural equipment, seeds, fertilisers with just a small selection of groceries as the farming community were largely self-sufficient with their own eggs, butter, milk, vegetables and fruit. Shops supplied tea, sugar, flour, tobacco, snuff, candles and luxuries such as jam, marmalade, biscuits and tinned fruit.

With his brothers – Dan in Ennis and Sean in Ennistymon – he imported coal, guano fertiliser, timber and American bacon.

In 1905 Michael married Margaret Garry from Kildysart and they had five children. The youngest and only son Michael took over the business in 1933, but he died six years later aged 36.

His wife Marie Sweeney who lived across the street was left to run the business and raise five children, the youngest and only son was Gerard, who took over in 1964.

Tragedy struck again when Gerard’s wife Katharine Neilan from Ballaghaderreen died in 2003 from cancer at the young age of 59.

The couple had six children, and the eldest son Michael, took up the reigns of the business in 1994. The fourth generation has now entered the business with his eldest son Lewis working part-time.

Things have changed dramatically in the business in the past 133 years, reflects Gerard. They closed down the mill in 1965, discontinued animal feeds and fertilisers to concentrate on groceries and in 1987 moved to the green where McDs traded until recently with 100 car spaces. By 2005 the supermarket needed more car spaces so relocated to the Loughrea Shopping Centre which boasts 400 spaces.

There are now 180 people working in McInerney’s, which Gerard says is the single biggest factor in its success over so many years.

“They’re such a talented and dedicated team who coped with and managed all the changes. It was not easy for them, but they accepted the challenges and embraced the changes.”

Gerard recalls working regularly from the age of 8 when his dad died, standing on a Black Swan Butter box so that he could reach over the counter.

“I used to spend a day or two collecting goods from the railway on the ass and cart. On Thursdays the people from Dunsandle and Attymon used to come shopping, and I’d bring it up to station – the train would never leave until I got there with the shopping and if I was late it would delay the Galway train.”

Gerard is now 83 and retired during the pandemic, but he still pops in every day to do his shopping by bike. It was just twelve years ago when he decided to go to college for the first time, studying a diploma in history at the University of Galway.

He also took up ballroom dancing, is a regular member of the walking group and once sang opposite Colm Wilkinson in the musical Jesus Christ Superstar staged in the town.

“I have now become the person I used to dodge,” he laughs. “I’d say to staff if I’m more than three minutes chatting to someone to put a call out that I was needed on the phone. Now it takes me a long time do the shopping with all the chatting.”

Pictured: Dedicated service…Gerry Burke, Robert Burns, PJ O’Mahony and Gabrielle Price, who have an incredible 184 years of service between them.