Obituaries

Paul Sexton obituary: Businessman who democratised gardening

‘True gentleman’ liked to claim he was Ireland’s oldest Christmas tree seller

Paul Sexton selling Christmas trees in Foxrock, Co Dublin, in 2013. Photograph: Cyril Byrne

Sat Feb 6 2021 - 01:00

Paul Sexton 
Born: June 29th, 1931 
Died: January 10th, 2021

Garden centre owner Paul Sexton, who has died in his 90th year, is credited with making gardening accessible to the inhabitants of 1970s Dublin’s new suburbs.

He opened his first garden centre in Dublin’s Cornelscourt in 1968 and began selling pre-packed roses, fertilisers, seeds and shrubs to supermarket chains. He broke new ground when he contracted packaging work to institutions for people with disabilities. And he became known as a campaigner for the rights of burglary victims when he co-founded the People United Against Crime group.

Born in Miltown Malbay Co Clare, he left school at 14 to work on the family farm. Within a few years, his entrepreneurial streak emerged when he began selling vegetables to local hotels

Garden designer Diarmuid Gavin said Sexton had been a big presence in the gardening industry for as long as he could remember. “He pioneered that wonderful aspect of garden retail – a family-run operation,” he recalled. “Paul was a man who made it possible for generations of Irish gardeners to buy plants, grass seed and the equipment needed to do the job. At a time when the ‘higher orders’ owned gardening, he helped to democratise the craft.”

READ MORE

Born in Miltown Malbay Co Clare, he left school at 14 to work on the family farm. Within a few years, his entrepreneurial streak emerged when he began selling vegetables to local hotels. After his older brother took over the farm, he moved to Celbridge, Co Kildare, to work as a farm manager. On behalf of the young farmers’ group Macra na Feirme, he represented Ireland in cattle stock-judging at the Royal Agricultural Show in Cambridge in 1951. He came second and was presented with his medal by the Queen Mother.

He later moved to Dardis & Dunn seed merchants and travelled the country selling seed to farmers. He was paid by commission, but his high rate of sales bumped up his wage packet so much that the company reduced his commission. He then set up his own seed merchant business and bought an old abattoir on the Dublin quays, thanks to a helpful bank manager who approved a 100 per cent loan. He sold the building nine months later for a tidy profit and bought a site at Cornelscourt in south Dublin. This former mart and marketplace would become his first garden centre.

Sexton built up a retail and wholesale business and started supplying supermarket chains such as Dunnes Stores, Quinnsworth and Woolworths with affordable roses, shrubs, fertilisers and lawn seed. It was timely, with new suburbs springing up all over Dublin and other cities and towns. Large DIY chains would later move in on this market, garden centres would spring up in every town and supermarkets would begin sourcing their own garden produce but, for a while, Sexton helped bring horticulture to the masses.

Horticulturist and garden centre operator Paraic Horkan remembers Sexton arriving at his father’s VG grocery shop in Castlebar with a van full of plants. “He brought gardening into the mainstream when he started selling plants to the likes of Ben Dunne and grocery stores,” he said. “He also put plants in bags with picture cards, which was very suitable for supermarkets because there was no mess. He had a very good marketing head. He was a canny operator.”

Sexton imported roses from Britain, bagged them in soil and sold them back to Britain at a profit. He sold shamrock seeds around the world, packaging them in Avonmore butter cartons.

A chance conversation with a customer who worked in an institution for people with disabilities led to the residents working on his packaging business, on the same pay rate as other workers. He later extended the initiative to other institutions and encouraged them to get into the packaging business on a large scale.

Another chance meeting would change his life in 1970. He went to a dance in Delgany and met young dentist Áine Herlihy. He had car troubles, which was fortuitous, as she offered him a lift back to Dublin. They married 10 weeks later, settled in south Dublin, and had five children.

He opened a second garden centre when he bought a large site in Wicklow’s Glen of the Downs in 1978. It was regularly targeted by burglars due to its remote location. Things took a darker turn when armed robbers broke into the family home in the early 1980s. His children recalled how he “jumped out of the bed in his pyjamas and gave his attackers as good as he got”.

In 1984, Sexton and his close friend, solicitor and councillor Paddy Madigan started a group called People United Against Crime to support victims of burglaries. They appeared on The Late Late Show with Paul’s wife Áine to tell Gay Byrne about the effect such burglaries were having on families and businesses. People United Against Crime later wound down after the fledging Neighbourhood Watch expanded nationwide.

Paddy Madigan’s daughter Josepha, who is Minister of State for Special Education, described Sexton as “a true gentleman” and a great friend of her father’s. “It was easy to have a rapport with him such was his personality,” she said. “I’ll always remember their famous Late Late appearance.”

'He was a very hard worker. I knew Paul from my time on the Superquinn management team 40 years ago and I remember how you would see him on his hands and knees in the Finglas store, packing stands'

For many people in south Dublin, Sexton will always be associated with Christmas trees. He sold his first Christmas tree for five shillings in 1968 but a few decades later, he had built up the business to the point where he believed he was the biggest Christmas tree seller in Dublin. Stiofán Nutty, former chairman of the Garden Centre Association, recalled how Irish-grown non-shed trees were beginning to come on to the market but not enough to meet the demand. Sexton identified non-shed Christmas trees abroad and imported those in their thousands. “Paul was a highly innovative businessman,” he said.

He liked to claim that he was Ireland’s oldest Christmas tree seller and indeed he could have been as, aged 89½, he was still on hand to help his son with the Christmas tree sales in December 2020.

He retired in his early 80s and rented out the two sites. Pat Kelly, of Outdoor Living, which now rents part of the Glen of the Downs site, recalled how Sexton could still be seen with a brush and shovel in his hand when he visited the centre in recent months. “He was a very hard worker. I knew Paul from my time on the Superquinn management team 40 years ago and I remember how you would see him on his hands and knees in the Finglas store, packing stands.”

Sexton had a stroke on New Year’s Eve and died suddenly 10 days later. He and Áine marked 50 years of marriage a week before his death.

He is survived by his wife Áine, children Stephen, Sarah, Senan, Susannah and Shairon, grandchildren, and extended family.

LATEST STORIES