Town still feeling effects of Storm Babet one year later, says Midleton business owner 

Niamh Brosnan is a pharmacist and the owner of Brosnan’s Pharmacy on Main St, in Midleton.

When her business was destroyed in the flood last October, she felt anything but hopeful.

Now, one year on, she has refurbished her shop, protected the building from flooding, and unveiled a mural to remind herself and her community of how far they have come.

Niamh recalls the devastation caused to her business by Storm Babet. “I can the day after the flood, standing up the street and crying my eyes out,” says Niamh.

The flood destroyed the interior of the pharmacy, along with all the stock and medicines.

“We had two to three feet of water in parts of the shop,” she says. “It came in everywhere. It came up the toilets. It came through the sinks. It was just horrible, dirty water.”

Niamh is no stranger to adversity. She began working at the pharmacy 20 years ago, when it was owned by another company, and she bought in as a shareholder. That company went into receivership and Niamh got caught up in it.

Today, she is the sole owner of the pharmacy and it is an independent family business. “I went to school in Midleton, I grew up in Midleton. That’s why I felt so strongly about it and fought for it,” she says.

Despite all this and the pandemic, Niamh says the flood was the biggest challenge her business has faced.

“That’s definitely been the worst, without a doubt,” she says. Although she was able to open up soon after the flood, she knew that there was major work ahead.

“Our big problem was our floor,” she says. “It was previously laid on timber, and it started to swell and warp. There was no option: We had to take the floor up.”

They also had to pull out all their display units and replace the electrics.

The plasterboard and walls were rotten and mouldy inside.

“These are the things you worry about for other people that haven’t done work, or people in their homes,” she says. “They’re living with that and breathing it in, and it was scary when we saw that.”

After several months of planning, work on the shop began over the summer.

“The work took five weeks in total, from beginning to end, which was unbelievably quick,” says Niamh. Everyone who worked on the refit was local, bar the actual shop fitters, who were pharmacy specialists from Donegal.

A waterproof resin floor was laid, new electrics were installed, with wiring running through the ceiling. The shop was replastered and painted, and units that are eight inches off the ground were put in.

Niamh wanted to ensure she could keep the water level low, should the shop flood again.

“We’ve put in three sumps, one inside each door,” she says. “They are essentially a hole down into the ground.

“We can lift the cover off, so if water came in like it did before, the water would flow into the sump, and we have a pump inside that will pump the water back out of the shop.”

The windows have been raised and the sills have been switched to a water-resistant material.

The façade has been freshly painted, and to mark the shop’s relaunch, a new mural has been added to the gable wall.

Niamh worked with Midleton-based company Chapter on the brightly coloured design, which features flowers and is emblazoned with the words: ‘If it never rained, nothing would grow.’

Niamh wants this to serve as a reminder to her community of their resilience. “We feel that we’ve grown because of what’s happened,” she says.

Although the town has worked hard to recover, Niamh says they are still feeling the effects of the floods in Midleton.

“You can see there’s restaurants gone, there’s chippers gone, there’s loads of places gone, and they didn’t come back from it,” she says.

“Those that have come back, they’re still bearing the brunt of the cost from it, regardless of funding from the Government: That didn’t cover everybody’s cost.”

Looking to the future, Niamh wants to see further flood-relief measures for the town.

“I hope the flood-relief scheme comes to us as quickly as possible,” she says.

“And I hope they continue with the interim measures, because we do need them. We can see how they’ve worked.”

She believes businesses also need to protect themselves against future flooding.

“We all have a level of personal responsibility to try and protect our own spaces,” says Niamh. “We have to do the best we can, and continue to grow.

“Hopefully, the business will come, people will us and shop in the town, and keep the town going.”