TradeNamesA Limerick fishmongers has steered a steady course through choppy business waters, writes Rose Doyle

Michael Cusack, in the Limerick of 1910, was something of a go-getter. More than a little courageous too. With the Irish fishing industry in the doldrums - wiped out by a quarter century of draconian taxes on exports of Irish fish to the UK - he decided he would import fish from the UK to Ireland.

So, with his son Michael, he spent £150 on the purchase of a premises at 15 Bedford Row, opened a fish shop there and called it the "Grimsby Fish Stores". The name was an acknowledgement of the English port from which they got most of their supplies.

The Cusack family are still dealing in fish in the city of Limerick. Far beyond it, too, these days.

Paul Cusack, as genial a fishmonger as you're likely to meet, runs today's business, is more than happy to carry on the work of his great-grandfather Michael, grandfather Michael and father René Cusack. He's aware, too, that he's taken up the legacy of innovation and hard work bequeathed by the women in the family - his mother Olive and his grandmother Bridie.

Like all stories of thriving survivors, the Cusack family business scéal is about a great deal of willing hard work, change when it was needed and more than a little enthusiasm for the selling of fish. Paul Cusack says it's all down to "years of extraordinarily talented staff, past and present, and to generations of committed customers".

The Cusacks were always, it seems, something of a lively lot in the city. Sometime in the 1800s one of them was mayor of Limerick and Paul Cusack swears they can trace the family to Limerick Cusacks of the 1600s.

The Michael Cusack who bought 15 Bedford Row worked for Guys, the packaging company, in Cork. "He saw an opportunity," Paul says, "and he took it. He set up and put his son Michael, my grandfather, into the shop. He imported all of the fish he sold, everything but salmon."

Wild salmon, then and for a long time, was exported to London by Cusacks. Stories about the train being held up in Limerick Station while the company packed salmon, and other fresh fish, are legion.

Not everything went as planned. Michael Cusack, fishmonger and grandfather to Paul, died too young at 32. He left a widow, Bridie, and three young sons; Michael, Cyril and René. Their last born, René, came into a world released from the first World War on the 11th hour of the 11th day of November 1918 and was christened Laurence Peace Cusack. The René nickname came later.

Bridie worked. Hard. She more than kept the shop going and she single-handedly reared and saw her sons educated. Michael went to the College of Surgeons in Dublin where he became a doctor. Cyril, as his father before him, died too young when he was just 42. René and Cyril ran the business with Bridie and took over in 1953 when she finally bowed out.

"My grandmother," Paul acknowledges, "was something else. She did a fantastic job - though I only remember her dimly. She worked in the shop from the 1920s. It was her life."

The original Bedford Row location had a lot to do, Paul says, with the success of the Cusack fish business. "It was just around the corner from the centuries old Country Club, whose members made up a big proportion of the landed gentry and retired colonels from around north Tipperary, Limerick and Clare. Their pastimes were huntin', fishin' and shootin', the Country Club was their social club and we were the fish shop they patronised.

"They would have large dinner parties in their large houses and we supplied them with the best of fish until the club closed in the mid-1960s."

"Traditionally, too, we supplied Church of Ireland members with fish for Wednesdays and Saturdays, and Catholics; since we were positioned between the Augustinian and Franciscan churches; for the Friday fast job. When the fast went in the 1970s it put paid to that sector but we were always multi-sector so it didn't really affect us."

René ran the business with Cyril until his brother died in 1962. Before that happened René Cusack had found himself a bride in north Kerry woman Olive Galvin. She came from Patch, between Knocknagashel and Duagh, and was a hard-working part of the business from the early days of their marriage. The name of the shop changed, too, to René Cusack.

The broader fish selling picture had improved with the advent of Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM). "They regenerated the fish industry here," Paul explains. "Brought back lots of skills, put great time and effort into the industry. By the 1940s and 1950s Irish fishing was slowly coming back to life and we were buying local and fantastic brill, turbot, black sole, oysters, lobster, crayfish. By the 1960s and 1970s all of our fish was Irish. We'd always had the salmon business and, from January to July, used be one of the main salmon fisheries in Europe until drift net fishing, and other aspects, changed things. We also exported white fish, like flounder and black sole, caught in the lower Shannon."

Paul Cusack was born in 1958 and sees the 1960s as "the real turning point in the Irish economy. Shannon Development and airport opened up this region touristwise and meant we were able to send fish directly to Geneva. My mother got on her bike," he laughs.

"She was a member of Limerick Soroptimists and went off and made business links across Europe, developing a fresh and smoked salmon export business. This was at a time when women didn't take on such roles. My Dad stayed at the coalface, holding forth and selling fish. She'd ring with an order and he'd make it up. I remember my Dad sending fish on the bus to the nuns in Foxford making the rugs."

The growing business needed greater space and in 1968 René and Olive Cusack bought a premises on Dock Road, installing a new refrigeration and salmon smoking facilities there. They held onto Bedford Row for another two years before. "It was a bit of a wrench, selling the original place," Paul admits. "It's a bank now."

René and Olive Cusack had three children: Brian is a Limerick businessman, while Joan is married in Canada. Paul is the youngest.

Paul, growing up, had always helped out in the shop. In 1976 he went to UCG and studied commerce. "A total waste of time," he says, cheerfully. He came home and went into the business in 1979. "I'm 38 years helping in the business," he says, "since I was nine years old. A family business is part of your life."

He took over the running of things in 1985 and Cusacks these days supplies fish to hotels, restaurants, pubs, supermarkets and private houses in Carlow, Kilkenny, Offaly, Laois, Clare, Limerick, Tipperary and Cork.

The expanding business needed ever more space and in 2005 the company bought and moved its production facility and distribution to the former Chemco Fish Smoking plant in Raheen, a few miles outside Limerick city. They've a new retail shop on St Alphonsus Street, close to where the Dock Road shop used be. Selling and customer care hasn't changed, Paul says, with their smoked salmon prepared as it always was. "Basic lines are the same," he says, "but we now have lobster, crab, mussel and oysters in tanks and available all year round."

Olive, at 85, is no longer involved but René, at 87, still comes in and chats to customers. The customer base is something which has changed. Limerick's new and growing communities of Polish, Chinese, Nigerian, French and German people keep the staff of 16 busy. "The staff," Paul Cusack says again, "have always been loyal. They've given and give of their time and energy and a dedication beyond the call of duty."

He and his wife, Lisa, have five children; Rachel, Kim, Stephen, Peter and Sarah. One of them might go into the business, he says, but he's got a lot to do himself yet.