Farrelly’s Butchers: A History #1

The Booze Brothers

t hardly needs to be said, but Anthony and Padraig Farrelly are very, very special people…

Funnier than those other Farrelly brothers, and a prime example of what happens when a child never ventures beyond the same four walls they grew up in, these lads are two happy cuckoos sharing the same cuckoo clock.

Get your coat, love…

Take a good look at those faces. The big happy heads. The sense of two lads completely comfortable in their own shop. Forever and ever. 

Eamonn.

Whereas Tarzan learnt how to survive in the wild by befriending and feeding the wild animals around him, Anthony and Padraig long ago learnt how to survive in a small butchers in Delgany by befriending and feeding the wild locals.

In truth, the lads are carrying on not only a fine family tradition – Anthony Sr having first slapped his meat up on the very same counter 59 years ago – but also a 151-year-old Delgany business.

Man, that’s older than some of the lads’ jokes.

When we swung by on Monday, Padraig waxed lyrical about having some of the original deeds, going way, way back through the decades, and that he and Anthony would root them out by Friday. 

That was today.

No diggity. No deeds.

So, until they do emerge from the Farrelly archives, we thought it best to get the oral history of this much-loved Delgany institution.

We’ll have the second part – along with a trip to the abattoir out back, and those elusive 100-year-old deeds – within the week. Or so. Says Anthony.

Catch up with part 2 here, and some more Farrelly brothers shenanigans right about here. This feature was first published on July 7th 2017.