McCann’s Bakery - The end of an era

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: Noreen Cunningham/ Newry and Mourne Museum; Category: HISTORY; Published: 17 May 2022

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Over the years employees of McCann’s Bakery won various prizes in the annual Northern Ireland Bakery Competition and in other competitions for their work. The workers pictured here were prize winners in 1970. Left to right: Peter Devine, Foreman, Mickey B. Keenan, Christopher McDonald, Pat McMahon and Tommy Keenan. Newry and Mourne Museum Collection

Newry and Mourne Museum today occupies the site of the former McCann’s Bakery in Castle Street, Newry. We reach the final article in our series of occasional articles on the history of the Bakery by briefly looking at the business from the 1960s until its closure in the mid-1990s.

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The orange delivery vans of McCann’s Bakery were a familiar sight in Newry, south Armagh and south Down in the 1960s. They are shown here, with the bread servers, in front of the Bakery building before Castle Street was demolished in the late 1960s.

The 1960s was a period of redevelopment of the premises owned by the Victoria Bakery, with the installation of new machinery including ovens and new mixing equipment. Part of the impetus for this redevelopment was the demolition of much of Castle Street and North Street, to facilitate the construction of a dual-carriageway in front to the bakery building.

Miles McCann, Managing Director of the Bakery, pictured third from left at the opening of the new extension in February 1969. The extension was opened by M.V. Hogg, President of Newry Chamber of Commerce (pictured third from right). Newry and Mourne Museum Collection

This meant that bread vans could not be loaded in front of the building and a new dispatch and loading bay had to be built at the rear of the premises. An extension to the bakery of 7,000 square feet was planned and carried out by local companies, O’Hagan and Sons, architects and Higgins and Murdock, builders. A new range of water, power and drainage services as well as state of the art bakery equipment including ovens, mixing equipment, prover, conveyor and new flour silos were installed.

The new extension was officially opened in February 1969 by M.V. Hogg, President of Newry Chamber of Commerce and a close friend of the McCann family, followed by a lunch in the Ardmore hotel.

In 1984, Christopher McCann became the Managing Director and the fifth generation of the family to take charge of the Victoria Bakery. This image shows Christopher McCann, back left, Paddy McCrink, Pat McMahon, Pat Evans, Kevin McBride and Joe O’Flaherty. Newry and Mourne Museum Collection

With the opening of the new extension McCann’s Bakery entered the 1970s on a good footing. However, the 1970s was a relatively difficult decade, exacerbated locally by The Troubles, but the Bakery was able to respond to many challenges and opportunities of the period. As the Bakery had its own generator, the business was able to cope with the many power cuts which occurred at this time.

With the accession of the UK and Ireland to the EEC (later EU) in 1973, the Bakery was also able to build up trade for its products in the Cooley Peninsula, which it had not done since the 1930s due to tariffs and quotas. Always perceived as a good employer with a loyal workforce, a pension scheme was introduced for all staff in 1974.

In 1984, Christopher McCann became the managing director and the fifth generation of the family to take charge of the Victoria Bakery. The business continued to flourish and expand into the European market.

Jimmy Rowntree, Peter Connolly, Pearse Fitzpatrick, Paddy O’Neill and Tom Lundy at work at the dough-mixing machines in the 1960s. Newry and Mourne Museum Collection

Like so many other small bakeries, however, McCann’s came under intense pressure from competition with larger firms. The bakery market was changing, with the supermarkets becoming dominant, there was an abundance of choice of bakery products and brand loyalty was harder to maintain. There was also new health and safety regulation and legislation and this also applied to the packaging and labelling of the bakery products.

McCann’s had over thirty bread vans delivering bread around the countryside in the 1980s, and this was an important service for the rural population, but wholesale trade started to overtake door to door sales in this decade.

Although new equipment had been installed in the 1980s, with the old ovens which had been in use since 1894 finally being removed, McCann’s Bakery, like many other small firms, came under intense pressure from competition with larger firms in the 1990s. McCann’s eventually ceased operating in Newry in 1996 after being taken over by Irwin’s Bakery in Portadown.

Inspection of the Bakery building at the time of its closure led to the rediscovery of Bagenal’s Castle, built by Sir Nicholas Bagenal in the mid-16^th century, which had survived enveloped by the Bakery premises. The then Newry and Mourne District Council purchased the site and restored the Castle with the adjoining warehouse as a new home for Newry and Mourne Museum. The Museum opened in the restored building in March 2007.

The Museum is currently offering free tours of the exhibition galleries on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 2.00 pm. These must be booked in advance by calling our Education Officer at 0330 137 4422.

Newry and Mourne Museum is open Tuesday – Saturday 10.00 am – 4.30 pm. Please call 0330 137 4422 or email museum@nmandd.org for further information.

Please visit our new website at www.visitmournemountains.co.uk