COMMUNITY NOTES: BALLYHAUNIS - WESTERN PEOPLE (NOVEMBER 11 EDITION)
The passing of a Brickens man in New York marks a farewell to a proud retailing tradition and the celebration of a generation who helped carve a path for a wave of Irish emigrants seeking a better life in America’s biggest city.
When Tom Concannon was laid to rest in Yonkers, there were many tributes to his stewardship of Morley’s supermarket on Yonkers Avenue, which he ran for decades with his brother John who passed away in 2016.
Both men emigrated from Brickens to work in the store, which had been established in 1935 by their aunt and her husband, William and Cecelia (Morley) Concannon. A third brother, Liam, also worked in the business, which for a time expanded to several stores.
Tom had visited Brickens earlier this year, explained Eugene Delaney, whose brother Martin worked in Morley’s when, like many Irish, he moved to New York during the 1980s.
“Many Irish emigrants who hadn’t gotten around to opening a bank account had their first cheques cashed at Morley’s,” explained Eugene. “It was the 1980s and a lot of people were going to America, every other week you were bringing someone to Shannon [airport],” recalls Delaney.
Morley’s supermarket is today operated as the Ideal Fresh Supermarket and carries a range of goods appealing to a very diverse local population including a large New York Irish population which has traditionally congregated on a strip running from Yonkers Avenue eastwards into the Woodlawn district of the Bronx.
Retail was a tradition in the wider Concannon family who ran a drapery store on Main Street in Ballyhaunis in the building which now houses Phillips’ Menswear.
Tributes were paid to Tom by the Aisling Irish Centre in Woodlawn, a meeting point for the local Irish community and their American-born children.
