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“It may be the smallest Post Office in the world but it’s got a post mistress with a very big heart!”
Shirley Johnston, Culkey Post Office post master. The post office will move into Reilly's Spar in the coming months.
Culkey Post Office has been located in the tiny front office of the Walsh family home for 144 years.
Shirley Johnston (nee Walsh) is the fourth generation post master, having been at the helm for 53 years.
Opened by her grandfather William G. Walsh in 1871, Culkey Post Office was passed onto her uncle Robert Walsh and then, in 1961, to her brother William Walsh. Shirley’s brother had another day job, therefore she ran the office, becoming post mistress in 2004 when her brother passed away.
Telegrams from the trenches of World War One and the battles of World War Two were first relayed to Culkey Post Office and then onto the families. In later years, “news of tragic road deaths and Troubles-related shootings all came through here,” adds Shirley. “It’s a small building but it was more hands on, not like it is now, where there’s not that personal touch.”
Cooking a Christmas turkey in her Wellstood cooker for a customer who took it home on his bike and listening to tall tales from a man who wanted his benefit payments to take his parrot to the vet were among some of Shirley’s humorous recollections.
For a long time, the Post Office was home to the only telephone in the area. The mail delivery was sorted on her kitchen table and the little post office was “the hub of the community”.
“We had two post men. I was up at 7am sorting mail on the kitchen table and then they’d go off on their bicycles to do their rounds.”
One of those postmen, Alan Price, was shot by the IRA during his rounds, Shirley sadly recalls, saying: “It was poignant for Culkey and for the whole county.”
The arrival of a computer in 2000 was “a ray of sunshine in the office”, Shirley states. “It took away the drudgery of balancing the books, I could get it done in two hours; it was terrific.”
Commenting on the size of the tiny office, Shirley laughs: “You couldn’t swing a cat in here. It may be the smallest Post Office in the world but it’s got a post mistress with a very big heart!”
Despite its size, the Post Office has a full suite of services, Shirley points out.
Following the separation of the Post Office from the Royal Mail Group in 2012 and the subsequent £1.34 billion investment scheme offered by the UK Government, many small post offices are set to move into nearby retail stores. Culkey is one such Post Office. It will relocate to Reilly’s Spar Shop, Scaffog in the coming months.
Aged 77, Shirley feels “it is time to retire”. She clarifies: “I am on top of my job as much as I ever was and I like it as much as I ever did, but there’s always the threat of being robbed, especially as I live on my own.”
She will receive an “enticing” lump sum of two-and-a-half year’s pay, which she says is “good, because who knows, in two years, I may not be able to do this any more.”
Shirley concludes: “When you have been doing something for such a length of time, you will miss it.”
Shirley intends to put her retirement to good use and will focus on her music and poetry.