The Selection Box: Books Edition with Tomás Kenny

In today’s episode of our mini-series on Irish independent bookshops Jarlath visits Kenny's Bookshop in Galway. He speaks to Tomás Kenny about the university romance that gave rise to this family business, the gamble of starting a bookstore in 1940s Ireland and the remarkable stories that are tied up in the history of this Irish literary institution. From humble beginning Kenny's has gone on to become a pillar of the Irish arts landscape west of the Shannon and the preferred Irish book supplier for the United States Library of Congress. Tomás also explains how a chance meeting with an unemployed computer engineer in 1994 resulted in Kenny's bookshop beating Amazon to the internet punch. Finally we hear the touching story of how the local community rallied around the bookshop during the pandemic.

 

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Supplementary research provided by John Meagher.

 

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