Nenagh woman’s triumph over adversity

A NENAGH woman's life of triumph over adversity is being recalled this week as she and her family celebrate 60 years in business in the town.

Carmel Cleary opened the Watch Centre, the popular jewellery store at 25 Mitchel Street on November 6, 1964, loyally serving generations of natives of the town and hinterland ever since.

A native of Nenagh, Carmel, who will be 89 in January, is a daughter of the late James O' Meara, who had a tailoring business in Silver Street.

Carmel married fellow native Philip Cleary from Church Road in October 1964 and, at just 28, opened her jewellery store just a fortnight later.

Carmel ran the Watch Centre single-handedly for many years before taking on staff to help as her family of four children, two boys and two girls, began to arrive.

Philip never worked in the store. He was employed by Frank Flannery, a local businessman in Mitchel Street, before subsequently securing a job as paymaster at Mogul Mines in Silvermines, managing all the wage packets when the Canadian company, Mogul, started mining operations in the locality in the late-1960s.

The Watch Centre is housed in the original Cleary family home that Philip inherited from his grandmother.

A MAN’S WORLD

It was very much a man's world back in the early 1960s and women contemplating a business start-up were not taken as seriously as they are today.

“Philip borrowed the money and I spent it,” laughs Carmel, as she recalls how it was her husband who secured the bank loan to fund the opening of the store.

Even then, Carmel had amassed plenty of experience in the jewellery trade, having started out in the store run by jeweller John Cahill in the town at the age of just 16.

She gained more craft and knowledge on moving to Dubin, serving her time in a well-known jewellery store in Henry Street for a number of years.

The early years in the Watch Centre were challenging, but business picked up as the years went on.

Says Carmel: “When we opened up first there wasn't that much money in the town, really. But when mining operations began in Silvermines it created hundreds of jobs that generated a lot of money in the town. We got a kickback from that. Things just got better as the years went by.”

Juggling the duties that come with working fulltime as a young mother of four children with all the attendant responsibilities that come with running one's one business, never fazed Carmel.

“It's amazing what you can do when you're young,” she observes.

She says her own parents and Philip's mother were great to help out with the childminding duties, affording her the time to concentrate on the business.

TRAGEDY STRIKES

But a real test of Carmel's inherent determination and steeliness came when Philip died at the age of just 55. How was she going to keep the store going as a 46-year-old widow of four children ranging in age from 16 to 9?

“I had to continue - what else could you do?” she says.

A small number of staff were brought in to help get through those challenging years and her children, Seamus, Philip, Maeve and Róisín were all summoned to assist as they reached their teenage years.

It's hard to imagine just how one would not cave in under the pressures that must have come from the loss of such a supporting husband and father.

But, Carmel interjects: “You just have to get on with things - I never felt sorry for myself. After Philip's funeral I just had to get up the next morning and open the shop.

“You have to have a positive outlook, really. When Philip died, I couldn't die too as a mother of four children. I had to get up and go and the shop had to be opened - and it was.”

Carmel couldn't drive at the time, but went on to take lessons and got her full licence on her first test.

Looking back over all the years, did she find the people of Nenagh and hinterland good to support the business? “Oh God yes,” she declares, emphatically. “You see, I was a Nenagh native, and I was known by my maiden name Carmel O' Meara, not Carmel Cleary. Nenagh people support their own.”

RÓISÍN'S ARRIVAL

After doing business studies and marketing in college in Dublin, Carmel's younger daughter Róisín returned to Nenagh in 1991 to help out with the business. Róisín had just had “the make or break” conversation with Carmel. “I was given the talk about, ‘do you continue the business, or what do you want to do?’,” Roisín recalls. Like her mother, she says the people of Nenagh and surrounds are great supporters. “We have been lucky that we have a loyal clientele and good hinterland.

“Nenagh is a very good town itself, but then you have customers coming from Ballina, Killaloe, Borrisokane, Portumna and Borrisoleigh. We find they all seem to gravitate to Nenagh.

“Also, all the local businesses support each other. If I don't have something here in this store I will send them on to one of the other jewellery stores.

“You keep supporting your own, and Nenagh is good for that - and always has been. It's a great town.”

Carmel has now been working in the jewellery sector for a total of 72 years - and she has no intention of retiring any time soon.

“I still do a bit when I'm needed,” she says. “I continue to sell a few things and I give out repairs and I open up the shop most days.”

The many years of experience and craft and knowledge she has gained are still very much vital to the success of the Watch Centre.

She gives an example:“Only last week a watch came in with a broken catch. I was the only one in the store who could fix it straight away. You gain a lot of experience on different things over the years.”

Carmel is very thankful that despite her advancing age, she is still healthy, and her memory is very good.

Glancing back over her life, she says: “I couldn't look for better. It was a big blow when Philip died so young, but I have had a very good life since.

“You know, life is what you make of it. And I'm very lucky with my children and my grandchildren.

“I loved the business, and still love it. I love the customers coming in and talking to them. They are great company.”

Though Philip is now gone for 43 years, it's obvious from the way Carmel speaks about him that the old fire still burns.

He was the man she fell for instantly from the second she met him while out for a walk in the town all those years ago. She says it was he who gave her the confidence to open the shop in the first place - very much the individual who was the man behind the woman. “Philip thought I could do anything,” she confides. “He was there for me all the while.”

Summing up her life of almost nine decades, Carmel concludes: “I have great memories - life is what you put into it.”