Paint and wallpaper shop MRCB in Dublin's Liberties celebrates its 75th anniversary this year – and it's still thriving, writes ROSE DOYLE
YOU’RE NOTHING if you haven’t been given a nickname in Dublin. MRCB, the landmark paint and wallpaper shop in the capital’s Cornmarket, has in its time had its initials attributed to Mother Riley’s Currant Buns, to Misers Robbers Crooks and Beggars, to Mister Coghlan’s Boys. All signs of the real affection for a business that has been in and around the Liberties area for 75 years.
The explanation behind the initials is both more interesting and simpler than those dreamed up locally. Marcel Regent and Charles Bigot were French, came to Dublin in 1936, set up a paint and wallpaper shop in Lord Edward Street and gave it their initials as a name. Marcel and Charles are no more and MRCB has been a Coghlan family business for 22 years now, but the original name lives on.
Kevin Coghlan is the Mr Coghlan’s boy running things today. Infectiously enthusiastic, he knew early on that retail was the life for him, and he cares passionately about colour, paints, wallpapers and customers. “Wallpaper manufacturing was a big industry in Ireland when Marcel Regent and Charles Bigot came here. All gone now,” he says, “except for one guy doing hand-painted wallpapers. In the 1700s, Ireland was one of the biggest wallpaper manufacturers and exporters.”
The aside aptly illustrates Kevin Coghlan – a man energetically and imaginatively living for family, business and the present, but with an acute eye to the past. The Mr Coghlan of the nickname is his father, Joe, a man who (with his wife, Nora) worked a lifetime with paints and wallpapers, who took a risk and went out on his own, and whose sons, Kevin, Dermot and Eugene, are now in the business.
The Cornmarket shop is a stylish emporium; 10,000ft filled with light, and with speciality areas featuring walls of paints with names such as Beetlenut and Hot Earth, wallpapers that dazzle, and customers who give the impression of having dropped into a well-liked club. Stella Sparks, their colour consultant, whose name is apposite, is an art graduate who “eats, sleeps and breathes colour” and gives advice. (MRCB is quite separate from next door Farrow Ball, whose paints MRCB also sell.)
Paul Bates is a core part of the company. He been with MRCB for 39 years and is “the most technically minded person in the paint industry in Ireland,” according to Kevin Coghlan.“We open at 7.30 in the morning and Paul’s here at 6.55, ready to go.”
Paul, a perennially youthful- looking Liberties boy, born in the original Crane Lane and now living in Tallaght, remembers the Lord Edward Street days. “It was an old premises and had its own atmosphere. We had mahogany counters and used to ‘sign in’ every morning. I drove a messenger bike with a basket, but, over time, progressed to working in the stores in the basement. In the very early days, MRCB had a horse and cart on the road. Anyone who was anyone in the trade, from the Ring of Kerry to Crumlin, knew MRCB. Still do.”
Cyril J Orme, aka “The French Connection”, was the man in charge of the early MRCB business in Ireland. His son, Gilbert, took over in time. “There was an MRCB shop in Waterford too and EuroColour, which made paint, was also part of the business. The Lord Edward Street shop began in number 2, then they took over number 4 as offices, then number 12 as a wallpaper shop, then number 10. Marcel and Charles came over once a year. Everything was painted the week before they came.”
The MRCB story is sprinkled with the big names of 20th-century paint and wallpaper production.
“Permaglaze Paints, UK-owned but with a factory in Ireland, bought over MRCB in the 1970s,” explains Kevin Coghlan. “Bob Scott, who’d been a director of Permaglaze, bought it from Permaglaze in the early 1980s. We bought it from Bob Scott in 1989.”
So much for the outline; in between there were the usual internecine business moves, the ups and downs which make that world go round. The Coghlan story begins with Joe Coghlan.
“My father spent his early life in Sandymount,” Kevin says. “He got involved in hardware from school and decided to specialise in paint. He worked for HGW, who were bought by Dulux and made UNO and Valspar paints.
“He then went to work for DODs of Mary Street, and eventually went into business with painting contractor Ned Corbett. They opened a paint and wallpaper shop in Meath Street, where I served my apprenticeship, leaving school at 16.”
By now the family was living in Blanchardstown. Ned Corbett, through his contracting firm, was a huge customer but a silent partner. “When Dad bought him out, Ned continued to trade with us. My dad and mam worked together in Meath Street, six days a week for the first two years. I remember Mam catching up with washing and cleaning on Sundays, us three boys peeling the spuds to have dinner ready when they got home. After dinner, dad and me would go to Dunboyne to Ned’s place to make up French polish. We’re still doing French polish. We used to pile into a little Hiace van, Mam and Dad and myself, and commute to Meath Street. My brothers weren’t in the business at the time. It was great fun and hard work and the business went well.”
He remembers when there were 12 paint and wallpaper shops within a square mile of the Liberties. “We sold a lot of Permaglaze, as did MRCB. Permaglaze ran into financial difficulties, as did MRCB. If MRCB had gone wallop it would have brought down Permaglaze so some Permaglaze directors suggested to Dad that he buy MRCB. Some told him he’d be mad, that it was an old, spent company. But he felt it was a good name and would work and he bought it from Bob Scott on September 1st, 1989. On November 1st, this shop became available and he took it on.
“MRCB was actually insolvent,” he adds, almost as an afterthought, “and he had to move quickly to generate money.”
Generate money he did, combining his and Kevin’s retail knowledge, relying on his reputation with suppliers, setting up deals and advertising. “We brought in the first computerised tinting system in 1990,” Kevin says,” which was a big thing.”
Paul Bates stayed with the new owners and first-born son Dermot Coghlan came on board. MRCB briefly merged with ColorTrend but this didn’t work out, so “we de-merged and continued on our own”.
The Meath Street shop was sold in 2002. “Our business is based on service and knowledge and we couldn’t get the right staff,” Kevin continues. “We had great and loyal customers there; Liberties’ people decorate their homes for weddings and funerals, at Christmas, when people return from America.”
Renovations and an expansion of the Cornmarket premises were completed in 2009. MRCB sell over 30,000 different paint colours, solve painting problems nationwide, sell anti-skid, anti-burglar, anti-graffiti and eco-friendly paints. They’re the favoured stockists of interior decorators and architects, of serious DIY enthusiasts and, always, the paint- and wallpaper- buying general public.
With Kevin at the helm and his wife, Joan, as the company’s part-time credit controller, and daughters Lisa (20) Amy (15) and Rachel (10) growing up fast, things look set fair for a third generation of Coghlans to look after a future MRCB.
