the smelling salts... 30th anniversary of Cork's first sex shop

If all publicity is good publicity, then entrepreneur Jim Bellamy must have been a very satisfied man in 1995.

On September 18 that year, he opened the first ever sex shop in Cork city, selling saucy items such as PVC and leather underwear, adult tapes and magazines, and novelty toys.

However, to say he faced a barrage of opposition would be an under-statement.

Landlords in Cork had reportedly refused to rent properties to Bellamy’s Utopia chain of adult shops, forcing him to splash out £137,000 on a premises near Parnell Place and the bus station.

Cork’s former Lord Mayor, Tim Falvey, had also opposed the arrival of the shop, saying: “The idea is disgusting. He should invest his money somewhere else.”

Residents who lived near it were not too happy, and naturally Catholic Church authorities were appalled at the idea.

However, a defiant Bellamy, a father-of-two from Aberdeen, brushed off the protests and insisted: “We are in Cork to stay.

“We are responsible human beings. This is not illegal. We don’t sell sex, we sell adults’ toys.”

The father-of-two came to Ireland after the Gulf War wiped out his children’s toy business when ships were unable to bring goods up the Suez Canal. He pivoted to the adult market when he arrived here.

Various sex shop businesses had spent years trying to break into the Irish market from the early 1990s, facing opposition from citizens, politicians, and the Church.

The breakthrough had finally come in January, 1995, when Utopia opened a shop in Ellen Street, Limerick.

Religious groups called for prayers and a boycott of it, but an Examiner article revealed that not all local people were against the shop’s arrival - indeed, some traders found it was a blessing in disguise.

Bookmaker Des Fitzgerald, who had a betting office across the road from Utopia in Limerick, said that it had brought a big increase in people into the area.

“I’ve never seen so many people in the street”, he said. “There has been a constant flow of people walking up and down. I don’t see the shop as being any harm.”

The Limerick sex shop manager, Preston Mahon, said he was delighted with the reaction of both customers and neighbouring traders. Parts of shelves were empty and extra orders had been placed to try and cope with the huge demand.

“The shop has a lot to offer women, and most of the customers have been women,” stated Mr Mahon.

Later in 1995, the Utopia sex shop opened in Cork, and Echo reporter Liam Heylin gave readers a peek inside.

“It is a shop with a difference,” he said. “You have to knock to get in and inside it is stacked with erotic magazines and sex aid goods. It’s about the size of the average living room. Shelves are full of sex products imported from the UK, Amsterdam, and the Far East.

“There are hundred of pornographic magazines, which the owners prefer to describe as erotic ‘girlie’ magazines, and life size inflatable dolls, ranging from £25 to £395.

“Many of the cheaper products are marketed as ‘sex joke’ goods for stag and hen nights. They include vibrators ranging in price up to £90. PVC lingerie is also sold as well as a cat-o’-nine-tails whip.”

An RTÉ report at the time also had fun with the sex shop opening. In a report entitled ‘Fun not filth’ which can be seen on the RTÉ online archives, the reporter talks to dockers congregating nearby.

One of them said he had looked inside the shop “out of curiosity, but was shocked by what he saw, saying: ‘You wouldn’t get it in Bangkok’.”

A long-term local resident told RTÉ he had visited the shop and bought himself a pirate eye-patch and made a coat for his dog from a pair of knickers.

However, the Echo reported that some local residents were not happy having a sex shop on their doorstep. One woman living nearby vowed she would sell up and move if the shop remained.

“It will bring all the wrong people around here,” she said.

An 80-year-old resident of Oliver Plunkett Street complained: “It will do nothing for the area and it won’t give any local employment. It shouldn’t be allowed in Catholic Ireland.”

Asked about residents’ concerns that schoolchildren getting on and off buses nearby may see explicit material in the window, owner Bellamy said he would only display lingerie and “tasteful joke products”.

Only over 21s were allowed in the store, he said, and the door was locked at all times, with customers having to knock to gain ission.

Cork Diocesan Office left parishioners in no doubt where it stood on the issue.

“The concept is one that sits uncomfortably with us because there is a danger in it - that a business could be built on dehumanising human sexuality. It makes the gift of sex into a business. It depicts intimacy as something that can be traded.

“The traditional Church teaching on sexuality was that it was something to be treasured from God.”

Although this was the first sex shop in Cork city, the Examiner ran a humorous article about a joke shop that had already been selling saucy items for six years, run by Joe Lingane in a quiet corner of the English market.

In an over 18s section, said reporter Vincent Power, “there was a full range of sex toys and novelties from vibrators, joke ‘peckers’, lingerie, to instant erection ‘pills’.

“Also on offer to broded customers are blow-up dolls called ‘Randy Sandy’, sexy studded male underwear, false ‘boobs’, extra large condoms, and other aids such as creams and sprays.”

Owner Mr Lingane said more than 80% of his customers were women “who want to guarantee a thrill at hen parties,” adding: “In all our years of operation, we have never received a single complaint from any of the thousands who visited our shop.”

Truly, Ireland was a changing place in 1995. As reporter Vincent Power pointed out: “The erotic toys on display in the market shop yesterday contrasted sharply with a video movie souvenir of Pope John Paul ll’s visit to Ireland in 1979...”