End of an Era... Joe Tierney hangs up the keys of his Trimgate St newsagents for the final time

For generations of Navan families, a visit to Tierney’s on Trimgate Street was part of everyday life. It was where people picked up their morning paper, checked their Lotto numbers, bought their concert tickets, or simply stopped in for a chat.

Last weekend, that familiar chapter came to a close as Joe Tierney hung up the keys of Tierney’s Newsagents for the final time before retirement, ending more than 50 years behind the counter of one of Navan’s most beloved family businesses. For Joe, his wife Helen and his sons, Adam and Mark, closing Tierney’s doors is an emotional and nostalgic time, marking the end of 130 years of a family tradition.

The shop, believed to be the oldest newsagent in Ireland, opened in 1895.

The story of Tierney’s began with Joe’s grandfather, Joseph Tierney, who opened a tobacco shop. The premises was originally divided between the Tierney and Bennett families, with Joseph marrying Joe’s grandmother, Agnes Bennett. Joe's parents Michael 'Mick' Tierney and Margaret 'Madge' Tierney then took over before the business was handed down to Joe, marking three generations.

The family lived above the shop, and over time Tierney’s Newsagent became woven into the fabric of life in Navan.

Yet for Joe, this moment feels less like a farewell and more like a quiet “see you later.”

Joe first stepped behind the counter at just 15 years of age and quickly realised where his future lay.

He recalls: “Even though I was strong at school, I didn’t have any desire to do anything but work in the shop. There are six of us in the family and I was the youngest, so there wasn’t anyone else who wanted to do what I did.”

Now, after more than half a century, the family chapter is reaching its natural conclusion.

Joe continued: “It really is the end of an era now. My own twin sons are excelling in other fields. There’s nobody coming along, so it’s a natural ending to the business.”

Looking back on his earliest days in the shop, Joe laughs at the thought of sounding nostalgic.

“I hate that cliché of ‘back in the day’ because I don’t feel old enough to reminisce like that, but the reality is, it really was different when I first started here.”

When Joe began working in the late 1960s, Navan was a very different place.

“The population was about 3,000 people and you genuinely felt everybody knew everybody. Now the population is over 30,000 and every second person coming through the door is someone you’ve never met before.”

Business itself was simpler too. Joe remembers power cuts that barely interrupted daily life.

“If the electricity went, we’d throw newspapers over the freezers to keep the ice cream cold, light a few camping lamps and keep going. The till was a wooden till, like a typewriter. We didn’t need electricity to run it.”

Today, he notes, a broadband outage can bring a business to a standstill.

“Everything depends on technology now.”

Over five decades, Joe witnessed enormous changes in retail and in the role of the traditional newsagent.

There was a time when Sunday newspapers were at the centre of family life.

“Our standard Sunday years ago was five Masses. After each Mass you’d have queues of people coming in for the Sunday paper and a block of ice cream. That was the Sunday treat.”

The shop also developed camera film, another ritual that has faded away over time.

“People would pay a fiver to get their holiday photos developed and they’d be dying to come back in and see what was on the roll. We don’t really indulge in physical media anymore, and that’s what newsagents used to revolve around.”

While newspapers are now available instantly online, Joe still believes there is something special about print.

“You can’t replicate the feeling of going into the shop, picking up the paper and turning the pages.”

One of the busiest chapters in the shop’s modern history came when Tierney’s became a Ticketmaster outlet.

Fans regularly queued outside from the early hours of the morning hoping to secure tickets for major concerts, and for many young people in Navan, the queue itself became part of the experience.

“It felt like selling happiness. People lining up outside became a rite of passage in the town.”

One day stands out above all others for Joe during this chapter.

“I remember when we sold over 900 tickets to an Ed Sheeran concert. We were running on pure adrenaline. At the end of the day, you realised you had made 914 people happy.”

Joe was determined that anyone who made the effort to queue should have a fair chance.

“I never closed a door on a customer, and it meant that almost everyone who lined up instead of going online was successful.”

The shop even renovated and installed a coffee machine in anticipation of many more years of ticket sales before the pandemic changed everything overnight.

“Every day was different. That was the beauty of the job.”

Through all the changes, Joe believes the secret of Tierney’s success remained the same.

“Our uniqueness was the relationship between our staff and our customers.”

In fact, he hesitates to call them customers at all.

“They really aren’t customers. They’re friends. It’s a bit of banter. I always tell the staff, ‘If you don’t insult the customers, they won’t come back.’”

The daily conversations became as important as anything sold across the counter.

“It’s coming in at 7am knowing you’ll talk about how badly Man United played yesterday, and later on you’ll be chatting to someone about Meath’s chances at the weekend.”

Those small interactions are what he said he will miss most.

“Sometimes having 30 seconds with somebody can mean more than simply selling them something. A small interaction can make someone’s day.”

Joe speaks just as warmly about the staff who shared the journey.

“We’ve been blessed with amazing staff over the years. When I look back now, they’re all friends, too.”

Long-serving employees Ruby Carey and Elaine Donnelly recently retired, and Joe was touched by the reaction from customers.

“It was amazing the amount of people who were distraught by them leaving. The pleasure for me was coming down and having the craic with them. Our days always flew because we all worked well together.”

For Joe, the atmosphere created by the small but impactful team was at the heart of everything.

“If you enjoy what you’re doing, you’ll never work a day in your life.”

In latter times, Joe's staff consisted of Ben Moriarty and Alex Cullen.

One story, in particular, captures what the shop meant to people. Former employee Kyle County, who left last year to pursue a career at Dublin Airport, heard Joe was retiring and asked if he could return for one final shift behind the counter. He was a teenager when he first began working at Tierney’s.

“He said nothing compared to the buzz he got working in Tierney’s” Joe recalls. “Does that not say something about working here?”

Joe believes the shop gave young people valuable life experience before they moved on to other careers.

“They get their life training here, communicating with the public, and they leave confident and ready for the real world.”

While retirement will bring mixed emotions, Joe is looking forward to spending more time with his family, particularly his three grandchildren, including the newest arrival who is only a few weeks old.

His first trip will be to Edinburgh to visit his son and family, followed by long-postponed travel plans to Thailand and China.

“There’s a lot of travel I want to do. I haven’t been able to do these things properly until now.”

For someone who spent decades tied to the demands of retail, the freedom is a welcome change.

“Even though the shop was very good to me, I could never plan anything around Christmas. You feel an obligation to be there for your customers.”

Still, Joe has no intention of disappearing completely. Having spent three decades on the board of the Convenience Stores and Newsagents Association of Ireland (CSNA), he plans to remain involved in the industry and help friends in the trade whenever needed.

“I won’t be doing nothing,” he laughs. “I think I could go into any newsagent in Ireland and borrow a fiver from them now.”

As the handover approaches, Joe takes comfort in knowing the business will continue as a newsagent and that customers will still be looked after.

“I feel I have a duty of care for all of my customers to make sure it all continues.”

The question he has been asked most often in recent weeks is why he is leaving.

“I take that as a compliment because it means you’re doing something right.”

“We were so lucky with our customers. If we didn’t have the great staff and the wonderful customers, we wouldn’t have such great memories.”

As the doors of Tierney’s close on more than 130 years of family ownership, the stories created within the shop will live on.

For generations of Navan people, Tierney’s was never simply a shop. It was a meeting place, a landmark, a source of friendship and familiarity in a changing town, and long after the final newspaper is sold, that sense of community will remain its greatest memory for Joe, the staff and customers.