When my grandfather Henry McErlean came down to the big smoke of Belfast at the turn of the last century, he worked very hard, and it wasn’t long before he opened a ‘Spirit Grocers’ on Clonard Gardens off the Falls Road.
There's a great picture of him with the starched collar and tie, stripy apron and hands proudly on his hips, outside its front door from about 1917. Later, he moved his large family to the Glen Road, also in West Belfast, where he built his new shops with the family accommodation above.
Unfortunately, Henry died when his children were still fairly young and much of the business responsibility fell to the eldest son, Thaddeus. He took it on with gusto. I’ve written about my Uncle Deus (or ‘Dessie’ as he was better known) in this column before.
He was a bit of a legend in West Belfast business circles, creating the Glenowen Inn on the site of the old shop and house and starting McErlean’s Bakeries, initially from the basement of the shop and later with my da, Paul, who’d gone to Glasgow to finish his baking apprenticeship in the early 1950s, at the helm on the new factory floor on Arizona Street, just down the Glen Road from the Glenowen.
The bar was a side of the business I’d little or no exposure to, as my young days and early work experiences were all about the bakery, memorably cycling to work with ‘big Paul’ at 4am every morning for two of my teenage summers.
But ‘big Dessie’ was pushing forward on two fronts and became a very successful publican in addition to the burgeoning bakery business. It wasn’t uncommon particularly it seemed, in the Catholic community, for entrepreneurs to have a drinks business as part of the overall portfolio.
Henry’s shop was a Spirit Grocers initially and his brother Teady in Clady had a drinks business as part of his many enterprises also. McErlean’s bar is still going strong in Clady, run by my second cousins. And so, through the 60s, 70s and 80s, uncle Deus built up the Glenowen and became very well known in the pub trade.
Many years later in 2009, I walked into the boardroom of the Federation of The Retail Licensed Trade (FRLT) and there on the wall was the roll of honour of past chairmen of its predecessor organisation, the Belfast and Ulster Licensed Vintners Association. Founded in 1872, the Vintners was the voice of the pub trade across the nine counties of Ulster. My uncle Deus was its last chairman before it became the FRLT.
Five years ago we worked with the FRLT to change its name and rebrand it to Pubs of Ulster. And then last week at the Europa Hotel, in the company of the First Minister Peter Robinson, Finance Minister Arlene Foster and a large selection of leaders from the hotel, restaurant and bar trade, we helped to launch Hospitality Ulster.
My uncle Deus recognised early that just selling drink was not the future of the bar trade and created a food, lounge and function offering at the Glenowen. His son Peter, and his wife Caroline, have moved that on brilliantly at ‘The Cuan’ in Strangford which has excellent pub food, a seafood restaurant, a bar, a fish and chip shop and now excellent four star bedroom accommodation upstairs. That’s the way our hospitality sector has evolved in response to what locals and tourists alike want.
So, it now makes real sense to have a strong, single voice for restaurateurs, hoteliers and bar owners, though of course the lines are more blurred and there are numerous people overlapping those traditional roles, my cousin Peter being a good example.
And the numbers are huge too and a vital cog in our economy. In a week where hospitality and sport will mix in a brilliant economic cocktail at the Irish Open in Newcastle, Colin Neill, Hospitality Ulster’s chief executive, reported that one in 20 jobs here are in the hospitality sector. Those jobs pay out £653 million in wages, generate £88.4 million in tax revenues and overall, the hospitality sector contributes £1.1 billion to the Northern Ireland economy.
As we continue to attract events like the Irish Open and develop our tourism assets and grow our visitor numbers, the hospitality sector will grow in size and importance. And now they’ll need a new roll of honour at the offices of Hospitality Ulster and its first chair, Olga Walls of the Derg Arms in Tyrone, which also offers great food and accommodation in addition to its popular bar, will be the first name on the board.
Uncle Deus finished his stint as chairman 30 years ago, and if he'd heard the Ministers and Olga and Colin make their speeches last week in the Europa and saw the crowd in the room, he’d have scratched his head in wonderment at the pace the sector has evolved and progressed. He’d have been very proud too.
:: Paul McErlean (paul @mcepublicrelations.com) is managing director of MCE Public Relations Ltd.
:: Next week: Eamon Quinn
