Brady’s celebrate 100 years in business

An Elphin business surpassing one hundred years

Cathal’s grandfather Patrick outside the shop on Main Street - August 1935

A business institution in the heart of Elphin, Brady’s Funeral Directors and Travel Agents has this year celebrated one hundred years in business.

Now in its third generation of the family, the business is in the hands of Cathal Brady and his wife Mary (neé Carroll) who hails from Kilmore. The family enterprise was started by Patrick Brady back in 1921.

The business continued under the stewardship of Patrick’s son Sean (Cathal’s father) from 1948, the year of Patrick’s untimely death, until Sean’s own untimely death in July 1987 following a short illness.

Despite the ups and downs of any business, the Brady brand name has continued to endure and survive thanks to its professionalism, knowhow and attention to detail in ensuring the two arms of its business are run efficiently and smoothly.

Cathal himself has been in the business since 1987, the year of his father Sean’s passing, who died at a mere 63 years of age after a short illness. Visitors to the family Funeral Home will be aware of his portrait that hangs in the hallway of the building.

After Sean’s death, Cathal took over the running of both the Funeral Home and Travel Agency. And while the principles of the former industry remain constant, the latter business has evolved significantly in those 34 years.

Looking back, Cathal recalls that time vividly, proving that the fates can intervene in life when we least expect them: “I had been working in Dublin at the time in 1987. After Christmas, my father had the flu. I had already been helping out in the business, helping my Dad with the Funerals.

“My brother John had gone to the USA. My father in the Easter of ’87 had been diagnosed with cancer and he died in July. I had been working with Quinnsworth (the well-known chain of Supermarkets) before working with my brother Aidan, who had opened a restaurant on Drury Street in Dublin.

“My father’s death was a shock to us all. He had been working in the business for thirty-nine years. He had been Treasurer of Roscommon GAA County Board for twenty six years. He was born in Killina, between Tulsk and Elphin and he married my Mother Mary (nee Leyden) who was from Knockvicar” says Cathal.

Like all the shops of that time, the Brady business sold a cornucopia of goods. Cathal’s grandfather Patrick was an Undertaker and maker of coffins. As well as being a Travel Agent, he also ran a grocery and sold Pierce machinery and operated a bakery too!

“My grandfather bought the business off the Hurst family. My grandmother Kathleen (nee Collins) from Smithfield just outside Elphin helped to run the business – she was known as one formidable lady!” says Cathal, smiling.

“But really both my grandfather and grandmother were a ‘double act’ in the business. She operated an ‘open house’ and Friday every week was the big day for business where she’d sell the old IRL coffee and soup from the stove in the kitchen!

“My grandfather started the Undertaking business immediately on taking over the firm. There were five businesses locally where you could buy coffins. He operated a horse drawn hearse until 1953 until he bought a new Vauxhall Wyvern motorised hearse.

Despite the challenges of economic recession in the 1920’s and 1930’s during the formative years of the Irish State and the privations of war and further economic stagnation in the 1950’s, the Brady business flourished.

Perhaps that prosperity was due ironically to the harsh climate of that time, which triggered considerable emigration. As a fledgling Travel Agency that soon got its wings, Brady’s was very often the first point of call for those taking the emigrant boat or plane, as the business was originally an Agent for the Dublin Steam Pack company.

While Patrick passed away in 1948, Kathleen continued to support the business until her passing in 1977. The bakery itself operated until the 1960’s, which heralded the beginning of a focus more on the Undertaking and Travel side of the business as consumer habits began

to change and evolve. “My Uncle Kevin did run a ‘Travelling Shop’ which finished in 1969. Those types of shops, whereby you went to the customer rather than the customer coming to you, were very popular in the early years, before business began to change. “In the early days of the shop, we had customers from over a ten mile radius from the likes of Ballinagare, Mantua, Killina, Kilmore, Tulsk and Ballinameen. The business sold animal feed stuffs up to the 1970’s and by the 1980’s, the grocery had finished. “My father began to concentrate more on the Travel Agency then. He had a business in Carrick-on-Shannon as well as the Undertaking business” says Cathal, who is the third youngest in a family of nine – eight brothers Declan, Fintan, Aidan, John, Paul, Cathal himself, Coman and Enda as well as one sister, Gina. From the early days, the Brady family, and particularly Sean also developed the Undertaking side of the business: “My father always kept a quantity of coffins as well as ‘habits’ (the funeral garment worn by the deceased as they were laid out in their coffin). But going back to my grandfather’s time, there was a full undertaking service from day one.” “The hearse was also the big thing for a Funeral and still is. Often, you would collect a family member and go with them accompanied by the body of the deceased to the mortuary. Today, you still collect the remains of the deceased and bring them to the Church. It’s a very important part of the business. Sean Brady Despite a good formative business grounding in those early years, the untimely passing of Sean meant the mantle now passed to Cathal. “I remember when my father died, Gina said to me ‘you’d better wait around for a few weeks to help out’. Little did I realise, 34 years

on, I’d still be waiting around!” laughs Cathal.

“I was only twenty years of age when I started out. I had little experience other than driving the hearse occasionally for my father. I had to learn fast, but two to three years into the job, I learned pretty quickly – I was thrown in at the deep end”, recalls Cathal.

But the young man was a good learner and the principles of the trade that he learned in those early years, are principles he continues to hold dearly: “I learned a lot from my father. As the Undertaker, you always have to be careful and mindful how you speak to the family of the deceased.

“It’s important you show empathy and compassion but it’s also important to detach yourself a little to allow families concerned to come to terms with their loss, which is very particular to them. You invest a lot of yourself in the job and you’ve got to understand that people have a lot to sort out and a lot to do at the time of a death or Funeral.

“One of my main roles is to advise people what to do. That could be anything from the type of coffin they choose for their loved one, to a reading or a prayer or ordering flowers. My father was a charismatic individual and a good judge of people with a good sense of humour which helps – he had the ability to say the right thing at the right time.”

“My mother was another people’s person. She always loved meeting and helping people in the business. She was always a great support to my late Dad, as she was to me when I was starting out”, says Cathal.

As the country began to modernise, so too did the concept of the Funeral. The move which began in the 1980’s, saw a shift from the traditional style of wake in the family home to a more formalised structure of the deceased reposing in a Funeral Home.

Moving with those times, Cathal opened his own Funeral Home in 1990, which in his own words, “has proven to be very successful”, adding: “some people still like the tradition of the deceased reposing at their home, but there has been a shift.

“Other people like the idea of the deceased reposing at the Funeral Home before being transferred to the Church for Funeral Mass on the evening before or on the morning of the Mass. There’s also a preference for the Funeral Home, combined with the body of the deceased being returned to their home on the eve of their Funeral.

“The embalming side of Funeral Directing has grown considerably in recent years and we have an embalming room at the rear of the Funeral Home. More and more people are going for cremation of their loved one, rather than the traditional burial. There have also been changes in coffins that are being used” says Cathal.

But of all the rituals that have been affected by the difficulties of Covid-19, arguably the traditional Irish Funeral of people coming together, paying their respects, giving the deceased ‘a good send-off’ as it were, was the most undermined.

For all that though, Cathal believes that those rituals, handed down generations, will return and endure. “The first lockdown was extremely difficult, not just for families but also for us as Undertakers. I really felt for families who couldn’t have people at their Funerals.

“It is going back to the way it was with Funerals but it has changed. People are now looking at the ‘one day Funeral’ whereby the deceased is both reposing and being buried on the one day. But I think the ritual of people coming together to look after each other, will continue despite this pandemic.

“The Covid situation was a new one for us

Cathal and Mary outside the funeral home

as Undertakers. You had to try and guide the family as best you could under the restrictions. Many deceased leave instructions but because this was a new situation, it was even harder.

“It was very difficult to say to families that there were limitations on people attending Funerals. Most families were very understanding but you had to look out for them as well. But ultimately you are there for people in time of need – that’s what the job is all about.”

Together with his wife Mary, the couple have three children, Sean, who Cathal says “threatens to do the job in the future” leading to a possible fourth generation of the family continuing the family tradition. As well as Sean there’s also Amy and Aaron.

Travelling through time the Brady way

For the intrepid or not so intrepid traveller, Brady’s was very often the standard port of call when booking a foreign holiday or trip.

However the days of package holidays, arranging tickets for emigrants, returning or otherwise, have changed. The business of travel, has, to a large extent gone online, a fact not lost on Cathal. Recently the family’s office in Carrick closed to concentrate or focus on the online business model.

“My grandfather started selling tickets for the boats, particularly the emigrant boats. He was an Agent for the Dublin Steam Pack company. My father was a founder member of the Irish Travel Association back in the 1960’s” recalls Cathal.

But as the 1960’s came, a quiet revolution was taking place as people broadened their travel horizons. The advent of the ‘package holiday’ and the marketing of travel destinations, particularly on the Mediterranean was matched by an insatiable appetite for people to travel further and to more exotic locations.

“In the 1960’s my father opened a Travel Agency in Carrick-on-Shannon in addition to the one he already had in Elphin. If you had a travel licence, as my father had, you dealt with all the operations. Luckily my father was very friendly with Joe Walsh, founder of JWT (Joe Walsh Tours).

My father organised diocesan pilgrimages initially. I think the Bishop of the time may not have been too happy with ‘rival pilgrimages’ being organised by my father, but I think it all worked out well for everyone in the finish!” recalls Cathal.

“My father was also an active member of the Irish Travel Association. It was my grandfather who used to say in the early days of the business that Brady’s was the destination where all you needed was ‘a good pair of working boots and a one way ticket to England!”

“Emigration drove much of our travel business in the early days – about 80% of the total business went to the UK and the rest to New York. As time went by into the 1960’s and 1970’s that extended into continental European markets.”

By the 1970’s, more and more people were choosing to opt for a little or a lot of sun on their backs. Falcon Holidays came to Ireland in the early 1970’s and tapped into the ever growing demand for travel to destinations in Spain, Italy and the likes of Portugal.

“My father and later myself, dealt with all the major travel operators such as Budget, Falcon and the aforementioned JWT. Today, 70% of people book their holidays on the internet. But there’s still a livelihood to be made from package group tours and excursions.

“However Covid-19 has had a major impact with travellers having to do PCR tests. It’s been a nightmare trying to organise trips when restrictions have been put in place or people haven’t been able to travel because of a positive test.

“The last ten years has seen an increase in cruise holidays which have been booked through us. I did a travel course in Dublin when I was younger and used to go to the main travel shows to see the latest trends and meet with fellow travel operators.

“The last three to four years were difficult in the business, what with Covid and the changes in travel patterns.

There have been so many ‘stop-starts’. But people are still booking trips for 2022, so there’s still a level of optimism out there.

“Into the future, we will still be doing travel packages like for Roscommon GAA matches in New York for example or for other sporting occasions. The Irish will continue to be good travellers into the future” predicts Cathal.

“All of us worked hard in the family business – you have to. It’s about anticipating trends, staying true to your principles and being professional and showing compassion and support to people, particularly in the Funeral end of the business.

Many people have helped me along the way. The late Kieran Molloy has been a big help to me but also to my father down through the years – he used to love shining the hearse and was so dependable. My brother-inlaw Anthony (Carroll, Manager of the Roscommon Masters football team) has helped and deputised for me as an Undertaker for over 28 years.

“My wife Mary has also been

a tremendous support” says Cathal, proving there is no ‘I’ in ‘Team Brady’ and the women in the family, stretching back three generations, have been a foundation pillar in their business success story.

One hundred years on, why has the Brady business endured in the face of competition and changing business trends? “When I started I was enthusiastic and that hasn’t changed. If I had to do it all over again in my 34 years, I’d do it the very same. I guess my grandfather and father would say the same.”

For more information please contact us on T: 071 963 5006 Email: cathalbradyfd@gmail.com Web: bradysfuneraldirctors.ie or find us on facebook.

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