13. My father Dermot from 1905 to the end of the Emergency

poultry would be fairly plentiful. Plum puddings in the shops, however, were likely to be scarcer than expected, owing to the shortage of earthenware bowls in which they were sold. While port and sherry were plentiful, white wines, Burgundy and claret were scarce. The remaining stocks of Champagne and gin were gone. Whiskey was no more plentiful than the previous year. However, there was likely to be a good supply of bacon and hams, as the allocations to traders that month were nearly double those of November.⁴¹

However, on 19 December 1945, the Irish Independent reported that ‘a shortage of stout and porter, described in some areas in the country as the most serious since the outbreak of the war, threatens a somewhat dry Christmas. No imports of the special type of wood for the manufacture of casks have been made since before the war so that casks worn out or damaged could not be replaced.’⁴²

At the AGM immediately after the end of the war, Dermot took the opportunity to address the question of Ireland’s contribution to the destruction of

FINDLATERS

Nazism.

I must, on behalf of our Staff, Shareholders and Customers, take this opportunity of thanking our British and American friends for the magnificent way in which they continued to send us supplies of fuel, foodstuffs, and goods for the licensed portion of our business, throughout the war in Europe—notwithstanding the fact that they themselves were in short supply. We will never forget their help. We in Éire did much to help them during the past five years, not alone with manpower but also with food supplies. And I feel that if the true facts were set out better relations would be established between our Governments and our peoples, and it would be clear that we in Éire did more than our part to free Europe from the tyranny which has beset it for so many years.

In thanking the staff he could not resist giving the Department a nudge.

I would [also] like to take this opportunity of thanking our Staff for their inestimable help during the Emergency. They have been sorely tried by the hundreds of emergency orders, altered, revised, cancelled, and renewed often at a moment’s notice. They have dealt with thousands of problems, they have suffered uncalled-for abuse, and they have even been put in the dock for the matter of a farthing. All I can say is, I thank them 100% and I believe they trust your board and myself, and because of their loyalty I look forward to a further year of trading as good as this one.

Before closing, I must thank all the manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors, and consumers for their help and initiative during a trying five years. I must also thank all the departmental officials, junior and senior, for their courtesy and their tact and their understanding of our many difficulties.

Thanking departmental officials obviously went against the grain, for he then launched an attack on government policy in respect of wholesalers (of which of course Findlaters was one).

It is difficult to ascertain the government policy with regard to the distribution of foodstuffs, but we believe that a firm with multiple shops, such as ours, is the most economic method of distribution, provided of course the shareholders and directors are all Irish nationals. It is felt that the government considers wholesalers unnecessary, creating an extra cost between the producer, manufacturer or importing broker and the consumer. This is definitely not the case. The wholesaler in normal times acts as banker or financier to the smaller shops, and divides up the imports in quantities suitable to their needs and to their ability to pay for them, and very often the wholesaler gets very little in return for doing so.

But he had criticism for the one-man shop

To my mind the only uneconomic cog in the wheel of distribution is the one-man shop, which has such unlimited opportunities of defrauding the revenue authorities, trading for cash and giving no employment, and often keeping no proper account books.

With money in the bank, business was on the move:

MY FATHER, DERMOT

During the year under review we have opened new branch shops in Cabinteely and Dundrum. These shops were opened at the request of former customers unable to avail of the Findlater Service by reason of the restrictions of the use of private motor cars and motor vans for delivery purposes, which restrictions, we hope, will be unnecessary in the near future. We have completely modernised our Baggot Street and our Blackrock branches. We have obtained a new lease of our Malahide branch, which is to be rebuilt and fitted on modern lines. These three shops will be in advance of any retail shop in any part of the world. They are completely vermin proof and absolutely hygienic, and as soon as equipment is available special arrangements will be installed for the comfort of our staff and customers.

The new world order slowly became clear as the smoke of war cleared. It became obvious that it was in more than Marshall Aid that the Americans were going to dominate. For the next twenty-five years, the lessons that Dermot had learned in Coopers of Liverpool, and in Sackville Street (as some still liked to called our headquarters), were to be less and less important.