Antique and fine art business has opened in Castlebar
By Tom Gillespie
BUSINESS partners Les O’Neill and Sean McNeela have just opened Mayo Antiques & Fine Art at the Castle Street car park in Castlebar in what was the old Kodak building.
They specialise in antiques and contemporary fine art and on opening they boasted in having 16 fully restored grandfather clocks in stock.
Les O’Neill is a Dublin-born, Manchester-based businessman who runs bars and clubs in Manchester city centre.
As a result of the lockdown, the UK government has forced the closure of his businesses because of Covid.
Newport native Sean McNeela, who resides at Breaffy, Castlebar, is a block layer by trade and now specialises in antique restoration.
Les told me how the partnership came about: “I have had a lot of free time on my hands and I am spending a lot of time in Ireland at the minute.
“Sean and I have been friends for over a decade and Sean has a great interest in antiques, as I do. I have a great passion for art, particularly contemporary art. We are combining Sean’s knowledge of antiques with my knowledge of the art field.
“Sean has come a long way on the antiques side of things. He has learned how to French polish. He is a furniture restorer and he is handling that side of the business. We are sourcing product from the UK and Europe. We are importing the antiques and Sean is restoring them and then we will put them on the shop floor.”
Les, whose Mayo wife is Michelle Naughton from Attymass, added: “We are taking antiques that have kinda fallen by the wayside, some of them have got a bit tired looking and some may have little chips missing, and we are bringing them back to life for another hundred years.
“It is not going to be all expensive antiques. Some items will be priced up to maybe €3,500. We will have carry-out items, like a walnut chair for €125, so there is a bit for everyone.”
Sean continued: “What we are trying to do is not going for the low end, but for high end products, but we are very conscious of the cost and we are going to be as keen as we can on price.
“We are looking at what Francis Street in Dublin has to offer but we are going to do that on a Mayo scale.”
Their prices will be competitive. "For the people out there that have a knowledge of antiques and know the price of antiques, they will see that we will be really good value.”
Les said the fine art will be a combination of predominantly contemporary art and some older art, like Victorian art.
He said: “We will introduce a bit of Irish art as well by Gerard Dillon. There is an artist called Brian McCarthy who we are in discussions with to represent him. He has well-known collections.
“We are going to do our first solo show with Brian McCarthy in the spring.
“On the contempt art scene I have been a lover of contemporary art for 10 or 15 years. My love of art started off when I started buying and collecting older art like Victorian and Edwardian pieces. What we have is an unusual twist. We think antiques can be paired with contemporary art.
“We have a dedicated art gallery upstairs and our first show, which launched last week, comprises of work by two artists.
“The first is British-born Neil Raitt. He is represented by a major gallery in LA and his work is getting a lot of critical acclaim.
“His prices are holding up - for example smaller pieces would retail at €11,000 and one of his larger pieces would retail at €28,000.
“The second artist, Lars Bjerre, is Danish-born, who has his practice in Berlin. He does beautiful crown jewel pieces and they retail at €11,000.
“I believe when photographs of these items go online they will be sold to American, German and UK buyers.
“Both artists have got a queue for their work. Bjerre has only produced six crown pieces and we have three of them.
“In our website, which launched last week, we have a dedicated online section for contemporary art.”
Mayo Antiques & Fine Art is the umbrella of the business and the gallery section is called Mayo Contemporary.
“In respect of the contemporary art gallery space, which we will be calling Mayo Contemporary, the format will be to provide a platform for showing emerging, mid-career and established artists to an Irish audience and further afield.
“The art in particular will provide a great investment opportunity as gaining a piece by an emerging artist early in their career can have significant investment merits.
“The contemporary art scene can move quickly to stratospheric levels compared to antique art. We will offer our full insights into the career of every artist we exhibit.”
Les has been operating his businesses in Manchester for the past 10 years, which were flying until Covid came.
Sean continued: “During the recession I had a good bit of time on my hands and I went to the UK where we were doing a lot of jobs in central London in big Georgian houses.
“The old furniture I saw there brought me back to what I saw as a kid in London cleaning houses with my mother.
“I have always had a love for old cars, motor bikes and antiques. I started studying how to date furniture, periods and times. I spent five for six years constantly reading up on it and I taught myself how to restore and French polish.”
Les added: “We have been very fortunate with Sean’s background in building contracting. We have done this place up ourselves. It has been a labour of love. We did not have to get any contractors in.
“We are hoping to develop a serious niche in clocks, particularly grandfather clocks. When we opened we had actually the largest collection of grandfather clocks in Co. Mayo. We have 16 fully restored grandfather clocks. We have noticed that it is quite difficult in Ireland to get an affordable grandfather clock.
“We also hope to develop a niche in Persian rugs and carpets, which we are importing. We have some antique Persian carpets coming from Iran, dating back to the early 1900s.”