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Nolan delivers…

February 15, 2011

By Staff Reporter

By Harry Keaney

For an Irish business success story rooted, at least in part, in the ancient mists of Irish history, or perhaps, more accurately, Irish mythology, talk to Brian Nolan. From his office and warehouse in Fairfield, N.J., the 41-year-old Loughrea, Co. Galway, native oversees a an Irish mail order catalogue business now worth about $10 million annually in the U.S. alone.

Nolan, always on the go, affable and friendly, is executive vice president, North America, for Blarney Woollen Mills. It’s been 13 years since Nolan first came to the U.S., but as far as business, at least, is concerned, he really never left Ireland.

His desk tells you something about him. On it sits a framed picture of two old men sitting outside McDonagh’s Pub in Oranmore, Co. Galway. Also, there’s a simple brass plate with the words “CTad Mile F_ilte,” and then, something peculiar, a framed picture of a paper bag from a woolen shop in Kinvara, Co. Galway, in 1880. The bag, its stark simplicity and its connotations of service, of “delivering the goods,” reminds Nolan that the basics of business always remain the same, even in the modern high-tech era.

Fusing the best of the old and the new is at the heart of Nolan’s business philosophy. Blarney Woollen Mills, adjacent to the famed Blarney Castle in County Cork, is the headquarters of a $75 million wholesale, retail and mail order business dealing in an array of quality Irish gift products ranging from clothing, crystal, jewelry, table-top wear and crafts. The company employs about 600 people, and its catalogue, which is published twice a year, features in excess of 400 Irish manufacturers.

In the U.S., Blarney Woollen Mills employs a core staff of about 10 in New Jersey but this can rise to 50 in the winter. “All catalogue businesses are oriented towards Christmas,” Nolan points out. “We do two-thirds of our business in the second half of the year.”

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When it comes to marketing Blarney Woollen Mills in the U.S., Nolan has a powerful tool: the bustling village of Blarney itself.

“I like to think of Blarney as being the Mount Rushmore of Ireland,” Nolan said. “Pretty much on every American’s list of places to visit in Ireland is the village of Blarney, Blarney Castle and Blarney Woollen Mills.”

Of course, Blarney Castle’s fame is embedded in mythology, lying solidly in one of its hard-to-reach stones. Kissing the stone is said to give the kisser the “gift of the gab.”

“Kissing the Blarney Stone is an American adaptation of an Irish fable,” Nolan explained. “The fable is that the owner of the castle had banished a witch and, in retaliation, she struck him dumb. The only way he could regain his speech was to kiss a stone that she had hidden in the battlements of his castle. Today, we reckon more than one million visitors come the Blarney annually.”

If Americans visit Blarney by design, Nolan’s association with the place began by accident eight years ago. While home in Ireland on Christmas vacation from the U.S., he was flicking through Business and Finance Magazine and spotted an advertisement from Blarney Woollen Mills for a senior manager in Ireland. On calling the company, he discovered it also had a mail order business in Ireland. A plan he put together for that business led to the opening of Blarney Woollen Mills’ operation in Fairfield.

It now mails 6 million catalogues annually throughout the U.S. and Canada. The operation has grown to include knitwear wholesaling for Blarney Woollen Mills manufacturing arm, and a marketing arm which promotes Blarney Woollen Mills seven shops in Ireland, its hotel business, its knitwear manufacturing and mail order division.

Nolan said he feels “very fortunate” to have found a business that combines an opportunity to use his knowledge of Ireland and Irish products in a country that has adopted him and his family. He lives in Oradell, in Bergen County, N.J., with his wife, Mary Kelleher, a Salthill, Co. Galway, native and a nurse in the critical care unit Our Lady of Mercy Hospital in the Bronx, and their two daughters, Heather, who’s 8, and Niamh, 7.

Nolan’s hectic schedule, often involving travel to Ireland, is even busier this year with his additional role as president of the Irish Business Organization of New York. Already, he has earned kudos for helping double paid membership of the organization and introducing member benefits. As the picture of the paper bag on his desk reminds him, Nolan, a UCG business graduate and former B=rd F_ilte employee, knows that, in the end, delivering is the essence of serving. Which is, after all, not a bad motto for a man in the mail order business.

To visit the Blarney Woolen Mills Catalog online,

CLICK HERE.

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