More Sellin’ o’ the Green

Time was when Irish music was hard to find in Los Angeles. It’s difficult to imagine such a thing nowadays when the tin whistle keens from the soundtrack of just about every movie, when the fiddle and the bodhran and the pipes, the pipes are calling from as many shelves in Tower Records as the electric guitar. But in 1957, when Richard Jones made his way to L.A. from Dublin via Canada, it was almost impossible to find Irish airs and ballads unless you headed down to the pub to hear them live.

That didn’t seem right, so in 1960, Jones began the first local Irish music radio program. “The Shamrock Show” was broadcast out of Glendale on KIEV-AM (870), and soon Irish folks from all over Southern California were calling him to find out where they could find things. Things from home. Music, yes, but also Barry’s gold blend tea and McVitie’s biscuits; Odlum’s whole meal and Cadbury Flake bars; brack and ginger cake; Branston Pickles; blood pudding and, most of all, Irish sausage and bacon--the bangers and rashers that are the staple of the Irish breakfast, and dinner, too.

Jones didn’t know where to find them, either--if Bridie Gallagher records were scarce, try finding a decent sausage. He didn’t think that was right. So he and his brand new wife, Annie, decided to open a shop that would sell Irish music, food and sundries.

“It was hard to find things to sell from Ireland back then,” Annie said. “Unless you could afford to go back on buying trips. Now they’ll sell you the whole country if you want, and there are distributors calling from all over.”

Still, for 38 years, in three Hollywood locations, the Irish Import Shop has served as corner market, and cornerstone, for L.A.’s ever-changing Celtic community. At the beginning of the month, the shop got a new owner, Ann Colburn, a 24-year patron.

“We’ve been talking about selling for about two years now. Richard has got lazy on me,” said Annie Jones, her voice laced with humor and the accent of County Tyrone. “No, no,” she corrected quickly with a laugh, “he wants to have a few years to just enjoy. We’ve always been so busy.”

Many of the 38 years of proprietorship, she said, were spent with Richard getting up at 3 a.m. to go to work as a bus driver, then coming into the shop to relieve Annie so she could go home to their four children. Still, they’re helping Colburn with the transition.

“We’ll stay on till she fires us,” said Richard. “And even then we’ll be back.”

The spot the shop has occupied for the last 14 years--on Vine Street just north of Melrose Avenue--is not exactly a place one might go looking for a bit of the old sod. Wedged between a pawnshop and a nail parlor in what is almost a caricature of an L.A. strip mall (other denizens include a check-cashing establishment and a Subway sandwich shop), the tiny storefront with the map of Ireland in the window is easily missed. But anyone looking for Flahavan’s oatmeal or Kerry Gold butter finds it eventually and then keeps coming back. Over the years, the merchandise has expanded from food and music to all things Irish.

“We try to have what people want,” said Annie. There’s Waterford crystal, Belleek china, tweed caps and Aran Island sweaters, Claddagh rings, Celtic cross jewelry, books and cards and plaques of the Irish blessing. There’s kitsch--T-shirts and sweatshirts and shamrock-laden baby bibs, tin whistles and leprechaun dolls and an order of blackthorn walking sticks on the way--but there are also Irish newspapers and videos teaching Gaelic and step-dancing.

Even the food has become more diverse. There’s plenty of British fare--Spotted Dick sponge cake, Batchelor’s beans and Golden Syrup--on the shelves now.

“Food is the one thing the Irish and the British agree on,” said Annie. “And we have a lot of British customers.”

The store is small and crowded, just like markets in Ireland, and there’s as much talking done here as buying. People all over Southern California use the shop as a cultural clearinghouse. Two weeks before St. Patrick’s Day, Colburn was fielding calls about where a person might hire an Irish singer--”Taa, it’s too late for that,” she said--and a bulletin board beside the cash register is chockablock with the business cards of Heffernans, O’Connors, FitzGeralds and Harrigans. Some advertise specifically Irish callings--set dance teachers, pub managers--but others are just real estate agents and plumbers looking for customers in the community.

According to the Joneses and Colburn, that community is not as cohesive as it was even as late as the 1980s.

“It’s not as active as it once was,” said Richard. Then with a great long laugh, he said, “Too many chiefs, not enough Indians is always a problem among the Irish.” When the laugh was done, he added, “the set dancing has got a lot of people together again. ‘Riverdance’ got a lot of people excited again.”

“The Beverly-Normandie area was very Irish when I came over [in 1964],” said Colburn. “There were pubs and businesses, and you could walk anywhere you needed to go.”

“Now there’s no real center,” Annie added.

As the Irish economy continues to boom, emigration is down all over the country--the days when thousands of young people would do anything to get to America are over. “We do get young people in the shop these days,” said Richard, “but they don’t seem to stay around. Nowadays they come over here for a week on business and then go back. Used to be you came over and didn’t go back for 20, 30 years. These young folks, they’re the jet set.”

Before she decided to buy Irish Imports, Colburn had thought of returning to her native County Mayo or Dublin and opening a crafts store or a bed-and-breakfast catering to Americans. Last year she was downsized out of her downtown corporate job and was trying to figure out what to do next when she heard the store was for sale.

“I thought about it and called, thought about it some more and called again, and then I decided to do it,” she said. There were too many coincidences, she said, including the names--”They’re Richard and Ann, and my husband [who is deceased] and I were Richard and Ann. The timing was perfect, and I do believe in fate.”

And unexpected things do happen in the shop. Pointing to a couple of business cards on the board, the Joneses tell of two Irish police officers, or guarda, who recently stopped by. They were in town to extradite a man who had committed a homicide in Dublin, Richard said, and his friend, Pat Murphy, was showing them around--”giving them the time”--and thought they might like to stop in the shop.

Richard happened to mention that Annie was from Northern Ireland. “One of the fellas asked where, and I told him outside Omagh,” said Annie, “and he asked where outside Omagh, and, sure enough, we knew all the same people, although he was 30 years younger than me. But it turned out my brother taught him French in school.”

“He couldn’t believe it,” she said. “Who expects to come to L.A. and find someone from home? But it’s a small world still.”

And a small store as well. Eyeing first a stack of newly arrived chocolate Easter eggs and then the already crowded shelves, Colburn faced one of the first obstacles of keeping shop--fitting it all in. “I’ll never do it,” she said with a laugh.

Although she plans to launch a Web site for the store, she has no desire to change it much--right now she’s too busy keeping up with the St. Patrick’s Day rush. And, said Richard, she’s about to learn one of the secrets of owning an Irish establishment--you don’t get to celebrate the holiday yourself.

“Ah, we’re too tired by the time the day comes,” he said. “We just go home and go to bed.”