Michael Moynihan: Business closures put us in danger of being a city just like any other

Just the day before that news, another closure was confirmed — that of the Tung Sing restaurant on Patrick Street. It opened sixty years ago and was one of Cork’s original Chinese restaurants, a hugely popular spot for decades.

On the same day, we carried the news that another well-loved restaurant was to close — Pigalle Kitchen of Barrack Street, which opened in 2019 but quickly established a great reputation.

The environment is a tough one generally for retail, and readers can no doubt point to their own examples of outlets that are struggling or have closed in recent months. There’s no shortage of examples, unfortunately.

For your columnist there’s a personal link, having experienced all three establishments mentioned above.

Myself and a pal knocked a great evening out of Pigalle a couple of years back, while I can recall more than one outstanding meal in the Tung Sing. I dropped into the latter one evening when home on a visit from the US and was happy to tell the staff I hadn’t tasted better in Chinatown in San Francisco. Looking back they were probably sorry I wasn’t still in Chinatown in etc. etc.

I go back a long way with Moriarty’s, though. My late father brought me down Dublin Hill and into Moriarty’s for haircuts from an early age — so early, in fact, that I can still recall the great graduation stage, the marker that showed you were growing up.

A Saturday eventually dawned when Mick would say he didn’t need the wooden spar that was braced across the arms of the chair for smaller kids to sit on. That meant you were finally tall enough to sit in the chair itself for your haircut.

These are three different businesses in three different parts of the city, and it’s dangerous to generalise about what these developments mean for Cork, or for urban life in the broader sense.

However, the comments from the farewell message issued by the Tung Sing’s owners bear repeating.

Thanking their customers for the support over the years, the restaurant owners said: “Due to the constantly increasing cost and operating expenses that we have incurred we are heartbroken to inform people that the Tung Sing on Patrick Street will close its doors for the last time tomorrow evening, Saturday 6th January.”

In saying goodbye to his customers, Mick Moriarty also acknowledged the support of locals while sketching out the simple realities of business: “The decision (to sell) stems from the challenging reality that the familiar hum of clippers and the lively conversations have dwindled over time.

“The absence of customers in the chairs has led us to this difficult crossroads.

“Despite our efforts to adapt and weather the changing times, it is apparent that the landscape of our beloved community has shifted, and the bustling energy that once filled our salon has waned.”

The challenges to these businesses vary, from the rise in running costs such as those mentioned by the Tung Sing, to the damage done to barbers’ custom by the do-it-yourself approach adopted by some during the pandemic — damage which has not been repaired since lockdown ended. Sadly the end result is the same.

One of the disappointing aspects of these closures — apart from the heartbreak for those directly involved — is that they each strip Cork of just another little bit of personality, and make the place interchangeable with other urban areas.

Cork is a poorer place without one of its biggest, oldest restaurants. It’s a poorer place without one of its newer restaurants.

And it’s certainly poorer without a small local business that has been serving customers for close to a century.

The variety offered by local outlets is one of the keys to any place, one of the basic elements to setting a location apart: if you’re doubtful feel free to remind me of the last time you visited any town, village, or hamlet which had ‘just like everywhere else’ as one of its main attractions.

The reason you visit different places is to experience that difference.

When Cork loses different outlets, shops, and businesses such as those mentioned here, it diminishes the experience of living here. And not just for visitors but, more importantly, for locals. Narrowing the range of options, stripping out public places, removing local businesses, hollowing out buildings and units — none of this is a boon to the community.

To go further, it would be terrible to see the effect of such losses manifest itself in an erosion of Cork’s identity. Such outlets — local and independent — strengthen that identity and give it an anchor in the face of growing blandness and homogeneity. Identikit chain stores selling a dull conformity have their place, no doubt, but that conformity comes with a cost.

We can see what that cost entails elsewhere. Readers are no doubt aware of the controversy which flared a couple of weeks ago when it emerged that Ryan Tubridy’s weekend show on UK radio was to be broadcast on stations here — Q102, Live 95 in Limerick, LMFM in Louth, and Cork’s 96FM.

As a consequence, the Oldies and Irish show on 96FM lost half its running time.

Oldies and Irish has been on air for over thirty years and is one of the most popular radio shows in Cork. Host Derry O’Callaghan was graciousness personified when asked about the loss of two hours’ airtime, but locals have expressed their disappointment, with the county council signalling its unhappiness with the intention to write to the Minister for Communications about the change.

Ryan Tubridy is a skilled broadcaster, but he is hosting a show with little to distinguish it from a thousand others.

The programme his is partly displacing is very different — tightly focused, keenly targeted, and gloriously local. In his comments, Derry O’Callaghan said he was aware his show was “not everyone’s cup of tea”. What he didn’t need to say was that it is precisely the cup of tea — or accompaniment to that cup of tea — that many Cork people want.

This situation is obviously part of a wider narrative. So are the closing businesses mentioned above.

In the latter case, that narrative includes running costs, urban change, transport and dereliction, suburbanisation, the cost of living, and a dozen other factors, big and small, some constant, some ever-changing.

Grieving the loss of businesses is admirable, but it would be better to subscribe to those businesses while they need the custom.

Around the country, you’ll often see signs outside smaller towns and villages which exhort people to do their business in the town in order to keep the town in business.

Is it time to drill home a similar message for those approaching Cork? If not we may be left with a place that is like any other.