‘Dad working at the Brennan’s Food Shop’

By Amy Brennan, 5th Class

Imagine a place where people are kind and helpful, with a big heart, until something unexpected happened!

In the 1980s, Ellen and Kieran Brennan opened a food shop with their 6  children, Kieren Jr, Kevin, Anna, Michael, John, and Noel (My Dad), who worked there every evening, every day of the week. The shop was based in Ballacolla which had nice people and community.

My Dad (Noel) loved every second of it!

16 years of having the shop. It was like every other day after locking up, get dinner, brush teeth, go to bed, but while they were at home, something unexpected happened. A fire had broken out from the fridge plug. With no time to waste, they all hopped out of bed and cycled as fast as they could to the shop. Kieran rang the fire brigade while everyone stayed back. But Noel was very upset. He had grown up there and had made lots of friends and special moments there.

A few years later, they started to rebuild the shop with the insurance money and sold it to a man who built it into a pub. And a year later he bought the house next door and made that building into a shop and connected the two buildings together.