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| Young Irish authors Moira Fowley-Doyle and Sarah Carroll in Red Books last Summer |
Some people would say you'd have to be mad to open an independent bookshop in the current climate, but some have always said that. In 1450, after hearing of Johann Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press, Florentine bookseller Vespasiano da Bisticci closed his bookshop in fear that bookselling would quickly become extinct. He was the first person in history to prophesise the death of the book industry. The first of many.
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| With Rick O Shea at the Write by the Sea Festival in Kilmore Quay earlier this year |
They haven't been entirely wrong either. According to some estimates, up to 90% of independent booksellers in Ireland have been eradicated in what can only be described as a bookshop holocaust over the past decade. Some have retired with no one coming up to replace them. Some have moved online or become specialised in one genre or antiquarian book selling. Some have been sent to the wall by Amazon and the super chainstores.
But somehow bookshops persevere. Some fall and others pop up. There are fewer now and the chances of surviving are slimmer, but still the age-old trade of books endures. The often hazardously stacked bookshops are temples to something of reverence to readers. A moral necessity in the days of bland chain-stores and faceless net giants. A time portal to a world that has been mostly paved over with internet conduits and Instagram posts.
Maybe Laurie Horowitz had it right when she said; “Usually when I enter a bookstore, I feel immediately calm. Bookstores are, for me, what churches are for other people. My breath gets slower and deeper as I peruse the shelves. I believe that books contain messages I am meant to receive. I’m not normally superstitious, but I’ve even had books fall from shelves and land at my feet. Books are my missives from the universe.”
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| With X-factor host Dermot O Leary |
Or maybe it’s closer to Terry Pratchett’s view that “a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.” Visitors to Red Books could be forgiven for mistaking it as a black hole. Trying to fit 14,000 books into a 12ft x 20ft space is certainly defying the laws of physics and is the practical recipe for a black hole.
There’s a deeper truth to selling books than simply making money or having a job. Book selling is a vocation, not an occupation. Independent bookshops are centres of bibliophilia, hubs for lovers of books run by missionaries of bibliolatery. People blinded by the insanity of the never-ending To-Be-Read list.
Bookshops are magnets for the curious and the cracked, the searchers and philosophers and day dreamers. They survive because of the people who inhabit them – from the loyal regular customers to the casual passers-through to the often eccentric characters who are drawn by the books. You never know who’s going to walk through the door next. We’ve had celebrities from RTE and BBC, sports and music stars, authors, playwrights, artists, MEPs and Presidential candidates. We’ve had Hemingway’s grandson and Collins nephew. And we’ve had people who claim to be alien abductees, political dissidents and Chris De Burghs ex-bodyguard.
We’ve tried to be more than a shop. In the last year, we’ve established a local writing group, helped produce an anthology, collaborated in the establishment of an arts and literary festival and began work on a free library of local history. We have collected books from every genre on every subject for every age group. We’ve been featured in local and national media and were shortlisted for best leisure activity in County Wexford in 2018.
The Smallest Bookshop in the world is located one hundred miles outside of Toronto in Canada. It measures 10ft x 10ft. It’s an unmanned cabin. The Smallest Bookshop in Ireland is located in Bridgetown, eight miles outside Wexford town. It measures 12ft x 20ft. And it’s open to everyone (355 days in 2018) and has its own community of readers, thinkers, orators, rebels, researchers and misfits; a community that’s growing and open to new members.
