‘It’s my time to go’ - legendary Arva baker calls time on five decade long career

Those two idiosyncrasies are fitting depictions of a man who this week has called time on a five decade long association with Cully’s Bakery, a firm and family run business he has single handedly turned into a brand form.

The father of three hung up his well-worn apron, almost 54 years to the day since he entered the business’ former headquarters on Arva’s Main Street.

It was a bold decision taken by Barney’s late uncle, Michael together with his wife Kathleen, to open a venture right next door to the family’s already thriving grocery business.

Daring or otherwise, it was a move which precipitated the proud Arva native’s entrance into an organisation that has readily become arguably the midlands’ leading privately run bakery.

“I remember it well, I went straight in from the Leaving Cert on the Wednesday and I was in the bakery at 3am on the Monday morning, it was that quick,” he said.

That enthusiasm to learn on the job was tempered with a deep seated desire to accrue the necessary skills required of a fledgling baker with more than a tinge of entrepreneurial nous.

Six week and three month stints at Cross Guns Bridge in Phibsborough and Rowan’s Bakery of Rathmines respectively followed before an unexpected chain of events saw the keen footballing connoisseur take on an entirely different role.

“One of the van drivers had to go in for a serious operation and it ended up with me being on the road (delivering bread) for 15 years on and off,” he said.

“I would have been driving in and out of Longford for four days a week.”

Barney’s almost dispassionate take on responding to that call is indicative of a man who, for not just years, but decades, sacrificed his own personal longings for a career and indeed legacy that is as remarkable as it is inspiring.

A successful auctioneer for the best part of 30 years, around eight years ago Barney, by his own admission closed that particular chapter to concentrate solely on strengthening the Cully Bakery trademark.

In 2007, that focus would see Barney oversee the bakery’s transition to a new €1.5m premises on the Cavan Road, something which looked a mere pipe dream when taking over the business’ reins at the turn of the Millennium.

Yet, for all those uplifting illustrations, there is humbling modesty to a man who navigated his own way to the very apex of the region’s business sector.

“If you are getting out of bed at 2:30am to be in for 3am, there’s not too many concerts or that kind of racket you would be going to,” he quipped.

“Don’t get me wrong, you get your holidays like everyone else when you are a baker and I have been going to Lourdes since 1986.

“People would often say to me: ‘Are you not worried about the business?’ But my answer to that is: ‘Sure I am over here, what is the point in worrying?’

“I have had great staff and that certainly helped.”

One of those to come in for special mention was that of his long time site foreman Liam Sweeney.

The Killeshandra native is among a select group of former staff Barney remains in contact with following the Killeshandra man’s own retirement some ten years ago.

The reference to his late workplace sidekick and the need to have a loyal, dependable employee base behind him is a mantra Barney placed a great deal of emphasis on during his tenure at the helm of the Cully business model.

“It’s no big secret,” laughed the man himself.

“I always tried my best to get on with the staff and I think I did. As long as the job was done, the craic was had and I must say I was very lucky over the years with the staff that went through those doors.”

That same sense of appreciation was reserved for the umpteen customers and fellow business owners, who in typical Barney fashion, were likened more as friends than clients and competitors.

“I want to thank all the shop owners and the customers down through the years,” he said.

“I had a great relationship with both of them. Pat the Baker I want to especially thank as I have great time for Mick Higgins and the Higgins family.

“I never looked upon anyone as rivals, the way I saw it was there was enough for everyone out there.”

That mindset was tested by the dwindling fall off in the number of country shops, a trend Barney put at the doors of Ireland’s larger grocery multinationals.

For all of his own opinions on the state of a much broader production sector, here is a man who has the blue and white of his native Arva flowing through his veins.

From serving as club secretary for 18 years, PRO of Cavan County Board for over a decade and Arva Show Secretary for the best part of ten years, the amiable baker has served on practically every voluntary committee his native town has ever encountered.

Add that to his uninterrupted role as Arva local notes correspondent since the early 70s, even the most ardent of cynics would be hard pressed to find a local body or group the name Barney Cully hasn’t been associated with.

“I don’t play golf thank God and I will enjoy my football and look forward to long weekends,” he remarked, as his own thoughts turned to how the word ‘retirement’ might play out in his own mind.

A considerable slice of that time, he joked would be spent with his beloved wife “of 150 years” Eileen and their three children Elaine, Brían who was assumed the running of the family business and Jennifer.

“I am content about things, he said, when asked about whether closing a 54-year-long chapter was something he might regret over the weeks and months ahead.

“The way I see it, it’s my time to go, there is no point in hanging on, it's time to pass the baton on.”

Sincere and as genuine an assessment as you are likely to take in, the unerring legacy left by Barney Cully is one that has and will continue to stand the test of time.