Ireton’s Gets A New Lick Of Paint

Ireton’s gets TV ready 27APR16

here was a time when he’d be out there, doing all the repairs out front, “but those days are long gone…”

Talking to Leo Ireton this evening about his old family shop on Killincarrick Road, and you can tell the man has always house proud.

Which makes the allocation of funding from the Built Heritage Investment Scheme 2023 a very welcome surprise. There was good news today for 19 of Wicklow’s historic buildings, including Ashford’s Dawn Cottage, Rathnew’s Clemont House, St Matthew’s Church in Newtown, Kilpedder’s Altidore Castle and Bray’s Landsdowne House.

“My father used to look after the place, and then we had the great George Evans doing repairs too,” continues Leo. “George was known as ‘a man with a great pair of hands’, and he always did amazing work. But there came a day when it was only me left, and I’ve long ago reached a point where I can’t keep up with the maintenance.

“It’s a very old building…”

Over 100 years old, in fact. And Leo’s not all that far behind, even if he does tell us today that he’s only “21 and a bit…”.

Having moved from their Kilcoole shop of eight years into this prime Burnaby premises in 1959, the Iretons quickly established themselves in Greystones. And when his parents passed on, Leo continued to work behind the counter, until one quiet day in November 2016, the town’s oldest shop closed its doors.

Since then, there’s been TV commercials, alongside a series of pop-ups and his good neighbours, Nature’s Gold, moving in temporarily in summer 2017 as they had builder Alan Jackson from Baltinglass restore their own shopfront to its original design.

And it’s Alan who’s now working on Leo’s shop.

“I live upstairs, and it’s been great, just having windows that open without having to get a crowbar to them,” he quips. “And Alan does wonderful work. When he’s here, that is.”

You can jump back through Ireton’s Greystones history here, and get Leo’s personal history right about here.