‘I started crying in in the shop when I got the news of this lockdown’

Barber shop owner vows to overcome latest closure order

The owner of a chain of barber shops says that if it wasn’t for her commitment to her staff and investment into the business she would shut the doors for good due to the affect lockdown has had on her well being.

Rhona Doogan, owner of Fir Barbers in Navan, Kells and Oldcastle admits that the worry of running a business through the pandemic has had a knock on affect for both her and her staff.

“For 14 years those barber shops have been my baby and I’m telling you now if wasn’t for my staff and investment into the business I would not reopen.

“Watching the news is like watching a horse race, you are so tense waiting to hear something good for your business, waiting to be the winner.

“The highs and the lows are very hard to deal with.

“I started crying in the barber shop when I got the news of this lockdown in front of everyone.

“My staff took it very badly. You can see the morale going down in them, they just weren’t the people they were twelve months ago.”

It is the constant uncertainty that is hardest to to deal with according to Rhona who said:

“Stopping and starting not knowing whether I’m coming or going is very hard to cope with and every time opening back up feeling like I have never been in work before, shaking thinking am I doing right, what do people want.

“My first lockdown was for three- and- a-half months and I nearly lost my life. I had twelve staff at that stage, worrying who I could keep and who I was going to have to let go then I opened up another shop to try and keep all of my staff.

“How do you sit down and divide your workforce from twelve to six, you’ll never be able to do that to people and you will never be able to be put in that position again because they are people I love, they are my best friends.

“We opened back up and spent all of this money and vamped up everything and we had every concoction that said corona on the front. It was very hard because there are people that don’t want any change in your business and other people that want you in hazard suits cutting your hair so it is such extremes.

“After the second lockdown we came back in and we all got together and said right there is a ban on negative talk, I actually put a post up all over social media and put a poster in the shop saying that no one was allowed to talk about Covid because we went from people telling us about nights out, where they going on holidays and funny stories to everyone telling us doom and gloom.

“I just have to keep focusing on the positives and keep going. The vaccine is on the way that’s all I keep saying to myself.”