To renew a subscription please login first

From £17 to Conway Taverns

My granddad when he was just 17 decided to drop everything , family , school , friends and his life to go and find work in England. He started his journey with only 17 pounds in his pocket. today my granddad is supporting more than 60 jobs and housing over 70 families.

There were an awful lot of sleepless nights, he came back to the place he was staying with his hole hands like one big blister for the plaster. But he never gave in. he was sending any money that he didn’t need back home to the family. This was a hard life but at least he had a job. Back then it was very good to have a job at just the age of 17. It may not have been a good one but it got him through, after his plastering career he moved on to be a carpenter which was a more rewarding job for the labour he did.

From a carpenter he went into the pub business. He bought a pub on lease and this pub was just round the corner from the Fulham football stadium. So this pub would turn over a good deal of money on any day of a football game. From here on my granddad stayed in the pub business and never stopped acquiring pubs, you could say it was an addiction. At on point he had 23 pubs to Conway Taverns ltd. He then said this is too much, so as he started to sell all of these pubs.  He received a good bit of money so he said he would invest this money in something that is going to give him money back in the long run to provide for his family.

He took this money and built over 160 house in the small town of Westport, out of these houses he sold about 60 of them on just to pay the debt and kept around 100 to keep the income coming in from rent. To this day the houses are still being rented out and have been left to my mum and dad to carry on the rental business, my granddad also purchased a pub in Westport and my family is currently under management of this pub too.

My granddad continues to work in a pub in London and lives on top it.

Michael Conway has given permission to publish his name on history Ireland.

Category:  Enterprise

Signed : Joseph Conway