I’ve written in the past about the fact that as I was growing up, my parents ran their own business in Mayo.
The company, Heritage Knitwear, made “woolly jumpers” – a term at the time that my father really despised.
And any of you who were fans of Dempseys Den in the late 80′s and early 90′s may be familiar with some of the products made thanks to Ian Dempsey. He even wore a Heritage jumper on the first day of broadcast for the show – video to follow later.
The company specialised in a type of knitting called “intarsia” – a technique that was very labour intensive, but which allowed very distinct patterns and vivid colour combinations to be produced.
Working in a family business
As I was growing up, my sister and I spent every summer, and most weekends, working in the family business. I think that working in a family business gives you a particular type of grounding when it comes to approaching work in later life. As it’s a family business, you very quickly learn that the “buck” stops in only one place and fosters a strong sense of responsibility for ensuring things get done.
My sister used to be sometimes upset that people would have the opinion that just because you were the bosses daughter, or the bosses son, that you got an easy time. We can both attest to the fact that there’s nothing further from the truth. We can tell many tales of late nights and early mornings finishing off orders for dispatch when it was just the 4 family members left behind finishing off the job.
My parents retired from the business in 1999 having sold on to someone else, but unfortunately since then the company has closed down. The labour intensiveness nature of the manufacturing process ultimately meant that cheaper overseas competition made it impossible to compete.
Small Irish company sells to the world
Over the years Heritage Knitwear made woolly jumpers for some of the best known fashion labels in the world including Ralph Lauren, Paul Smith, Aquascutum, Macys, Paul Stewart, Saks 5th Avenue, Nortstrom, Liberty, Gieves & Hawkes, Harrods, Lands End and the J.Peterman mail order catalogue of Seinfeld fame.
Apart from that, a couple of generations of Mayo kids grew up being kept warm by Heritage jumpers. The only problem for my folks was that the jumpers were so hardy wearing, the different generations were all wearing the same woolly jumpers, handed down from one family member to the next.
1982 vs 2002 – Investment turns selfish
One of the key points I’ve written about before here when referring to the family business focused on the fact that Heritage Knitwear was set up in 1982 – a period so bad economically that some people think we’re returning to similar times now.
In 1982, when my father wanted to make a change in order to set himself up, ultimately for retirement, but also to put his kids through college, he set up a business, and hired an average of maybe 20 people per year for 17 years. In meeting his ultimate aims, he provided employment in a small town with the knock on benefits that had.
For me, the great disappointment of the years of the Celtic Tiger, and the legacy we’re left with today, is that when many people went to set themselves up for retirement, they resorted to buying non-productive (socially), almost selfish, assets such as property, or stocks & shares.
When it comes to “enterprise” in Ireland today, many people don’t actually appreciate what’s needed, or what’s involved – they lost touch during the Celtic Tiger. And for anyone who’s left that understands enterprise, there has been such a huge destruction of wealth held in those non-production selfish assets of property and stocks and shares, that there’s very little money left behind now to support fledgling new enterprises – either through investment or as customers.
