VIDEO: Pure Cork character Pat talks family and fish

Having found fame after that encounter with the Queen, fishmonger Pat O'Connnell met us to talk about the day job.

Pat - successful businessman, author, Cork Person of the Year nominee is pure Cork boy.

“Sure isn’t it good enough for the Queen?” Loyal customers rhetorically ask, when he hands them their dinner and asks if they are happy with the goods.

“The craic here is as good as the fish,” someone waiting to be served comments to her companion.

K O’Connell Fish Merchants, originally established by Pat's mother in 1963, is still a family business.

Pat's daughter Emma is busy with customers, laughing and bantering with the easy charm her dad has become famous for.

Tall, blonde and beautiful, she defies the stereotypes that lazy minds could ascribe to a fish monger.

His nephew Sean O’Connell is also involved in the family business, helping at the stall and developing the smoke house.

“He’s got a real grá for it,” says his uncle.

Pat O’Connell has always loved fish, though he was not initially keen on going into business with them but, after taking a break to study business he found his way back into the family fold.

“My brother Paul started in the business first. He’s five years younger than me, although he doesn’t look it,” he laughs.

Cork’s English market has long been an evolving icon of Cork, encapsulating and reflecting the character and quality of the surrounding countryside that cradles it.

“I’d like to see the market coming back to being a really fashionable place to be,” O’Connell says, on his hopes for the future.

“We had a few lean years here which was worrying. It’s very serious because this is a real market, full of real small businesses. All the small food businesses on Patrick’s St have gone, high rates and rent have made it impossible for them to survive there.

“We’re lucky that it’s possible to do business at the English Market because it’s owned by the City Council. But it needs to be protected and invested in,” says O’Connell.

He remembers the Coal Quay Market’s sudden demise so he is acutely aware of how quickly a market can disappear.

“The Coal Quay market was thriving when I was growing up. It was a symbol of the city, it had a great sense of Cork character and tradition, and yet it finished so quickly. The council is trying to revive it now but markets are delicate ecosystems that evolve organically. It’s hard to bring them back once they’re gone.”

O’Connell also remembers when the English Market was almost knocked down in the 1980s to build a car park.

“People who don’t understand markets think that you can move people out for a few years and just bring them in again, but it doesn’t work like that.

“What we have here is really special. And it needs to be protected and invested in. Do the Council know how special it is?

“English people come in and lament the fact that similar markets that they had growing up are gone now.

“The market’s such an original resource and treasure for Cork but it needs infrastructural investment, it’s something the city should be proud of,” says O’Connell.

“We get lots of tourists through and they love it but we currently don’t have the aisle capacity to deal with the numbers. And we need to keep space for the locals. We’re a working market and the locals are our lifeblood.

“It’s great getting busloads of tourists through, and they’re welcome, but we need the infrastructure to deal with the numbers so that both locals and tourists can avail of the market."

O’Connell suggests creating a space for tourists adjacent to the market, where they can learn about local food and the history and culture of the market.

He hopes that if tourists understand that it is a working market where locals shop from local businesses, than they could learn to wander through the market in smaller groups, rather than in the tidal waves of 60 or 120 people that regularly sweep through the market, unbalancing the market’s delicate ecosystem and potentially washing out local customers.

“It was never built for those big crowds. It’s great that everyone in Europe wants to visit but we need to establish a balance. I like to entertain but I need to pay wages,” says O’Connell.

O’Connell wrote a book showcasing the market's charms at home and abroad. He says that one of his greatest satisfactions is when he receives letters from Canada and the US saying what a vivid reminder the book is about Cork, her people and the market.

“That’s pure satisfaction,” he said.

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