OUR STORY
THE KEEPERS
We are Kate & Niamh, two sisters from Kerry with a passion for all things home & lifestyle related. We have had interesting careers in electronic engineering (Kate) & nursing (Niamh) and have lived in Cork, Dublin, London, Stockholm & Sydney before moving back to Kerry to work in the family business, Total Cleaning Kerry.
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Finding unique and unusual things has always been something we have pursued. Now we want to share some of these finds with you.
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Keepers is our newest retail venture. We have focused on delivering beautiful home & lifestyle ranges which we believe will add value and retain their charm for years to come.
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And the name? What's the story behind that?
Keepers is a play on the word shopkeeper & the phrase “keepers”/ “it’s a keeper” (those things that you just can’t bear to part with and / or something that is very precious).
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We come from a long line of shopkeepers, and we are the fourth generation. Our family have been catering to people’s needs for over 100 years. Oh, and we are all female.
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So from selling newspapers and tobacco over a hundred years ago to wall art and home fragrance today, we hope you find something you like and want to keep.
OUR SHOP KEEPING FAMILY
The tradition of shop keeping was started by our great great grandmother Kate Cox in the early 1910s. She opened a small corner shop across from her home in Dromod, Co. Leitrim. Anyone wanting to buy something would knock on the front door of Kate’s home, and she would then cross over and open up the shop. She sold bread, milk, tea, flour sugar, eggs, vegetables, grain, newspapers & tobacco.
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Her daughter Mary Ellen O’Connor continued this tradition in the 1940s and widened her range to include more fresh produce, baked goods, sweets & household necessities.
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Our mum Marelda left Dromod in 1965 to go and work for Bank of Ireland in Dublin. She met our dad Tommy on a night out at The Ballroom of Romance in Harold’s Cross, Dublin. He swept her off her feet (literally and more probably figuratively) and they married and then moved back to his home, just outside the town of Tralee, in Kerry. After 4 babies, Marelda co-founded Total Cleaning Kerry in the 1980s, a business selling niche cleaning equipment & machinery which Niamh & Kate continue to run today.
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