![\"Kathleen](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/95c2135f-c3f0-4ab7-b8e2-eddaaf1340ed.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe shop, which was founded by the late Kathleen Grant on June 1, 1951, is renowned for its large stock of newspapers, including regional titles from across the country, magazines, cards, sweets and minerables as well as its popular deli counter.<\/p>\n
As one of the first Lotto outlets in town, it has sold its fair share of lucky tickets and scratchcards down the years.<\/p>\n
Now, the business is closing as Kathleen Dunne has decided to retire, having spent most of her working life behind the counter.<\/p>\n
“My mother opened the shop after my father\u2019s death,\u201d she recalled. \u201cShe wanted to be able to stay at home, look after her children.\u201d<\/p>\n
Katheen and her brother Michael were born in the shop and she jokes that they thought that they\u2019d be carried out of there but that won\u2019t happen now as life has moved on.<\/p>\n
“It was a small shop in the front room at first and then we moved out until we were able to buy the property next door and built a beautiful big living area,\u201d says Katheen. \u201cWe moved back in 1983 and lived there for twenty years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kathlyn began working in the shop when she was just seventeen years of age.<\/p>\n
“I had a good job Clarks Shoes but my mother persuaded me to come and help her in the shop and my brother Michael also worked in it when he came back from England. He retired during the COVID-19 pandemic as the over 70s were told to cocoon and he never showed up again! \u201c she laughs.<\/p>\n
Looking back at her years in the shop, Kathleen says that they got to know all their customers, although as the town\u2019s populatation has grown, that\u2019s not always the case now.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019d have a lot of regulars coming in and when new people moved to town, we\u2019d order their local paper for them.<\/p>\n
We also stock a lot of specialist magazines and order in any that people wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n
She recalls people queuing outside the shop when The Argus came out on a Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Kathleen Dunne, whose family have run Grants Newsagents for over 75 years<\/p>\n
News in 90 seconds – March 19<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were one of the first to have to Lotto in town and had a lot of big wins. One of our first winners was a lady from the Dublin Road area. She had been out playing bingo and rang my mother around midnight when she\u2019d checked her numbers as she couldn\u2019t believe it. She won something like \u20ac280,000 and was able to buy five houses for her children, which just shows what money was worth back then in the early 80s.\u201d<\/p>\n
While her son Patrick has worked in the shop, with daughter Irene helping out in the deli more recently, Kathleen says that the family have decided it\u2019s time to close the business as they have other careers.<\/p>\n
The family is closely connected with the town\u2019s thriving music scene. Kathleen and her late husband Dessie who had the Clarks’ shoe shop in Dundalk Shopping Centre for many years, were well known singers around town.<\/p>\n
Patrick is a well known musician and is musical director of the S.O.N.G music theatre group, while Irene is a voice coach and her other daughter Catherine teaches just around the corner in the Friary school.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019m sorry the shop is closing, but that\u2019s just life, things have moved on,\u201d said Kathleen, adding that she intends putting her feet up and enjoying a well-deserved retirement.<\/p>\n
\n Who should be our next Face Behind the Counter?\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The shop, which was founded by the late Kathleen Grant on June 1, 1951, is renowned for its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354189,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60,4277],"class_list":["post-354188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-margaret-roddy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}