O'Dea Irish Bedding Factory

[shanew147]

This doesn't show O'Dea's.. but for comparison, a turn of the century photo of Stafford Street (National Library)


Shane

[aghadowey]

Had a look at Google maps last night and while the area does, of course, have lots of new buildings and changes the basic layout of the street looks unchanged- not that wide and not the sort of place one would see railings as mentioned are in the photo. However, I did notice that Stafford St. isn't far from Ormond Quay (The likeliest candidates for being the man in the picture lived around the Ormond Quay area in Dublin").

[shanew147]

I think I remember some of the advertising slogans that were driving me mad..

  Odearest for the rest of your life..

and

  Put your money in a Odearest mattress


Shane

[Taidquest]

A store in Parliament street on a corner facing city hall
used to have an animated display in one window for
 Odearest mattresses,it consisted of a bed with an odearest
mattress and an old lady stuffing it with money and the legend
"put your money in an Odearest mattress" and as Shane said
the slogan was used in other adverts for the same product.
The store was called 'Sloans'
                                                                       Anne

[Pastmagic]

They are still on sale:http://www.adverts.ie/all/ads/county-dublin/terms-odearest/

they even have a bed school - I kid you not....

http://www.clerysbedstore.ie/product/725/47/twilight_king_mattress

Odearest Bedding
Bed & Mattress Manufacturers

Telephone:
   

045-481332

Fax:
   

045-481023

Address:
   

Dublin Road Kilcullen
Kildare Co. Kildare
Ireland.

Website:
   

http://www.kayfoamsfon.com

Maybe you could contact them?

A cartoon appeared in an ad for Odearest mattresses shortly after the Irish Times fire in September 1951. Seamus Kelly, who as Quidnunc wrote an "Irishman's Diary" (bottom right) is talking to a fireman, as Editor Bertie Smyllie rescues a roll of newsprint. The original caption read: "Quidnunc, in the depths of depression, to firemen made humble confession: You must please get it out – for I can't write without Odearest - my cherished possession."



And if you remeber Quidnunc, you might remeber the Ansbacher Report:

http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2002/07/14/story567633628.asp
O dearie me, Odearest

One name appearing in the Ansbacher report last week was associated with the mattress company Odearest.

Denis McCarthy was managing director, and later chairman, of the company until his retirement in the early 1980s. He was also a long-time non-executive director of the Eagle Star insurance group, and was on the board of Beaumont Hospital.

McCarthy was a big horseracing fan too, and eventually became a board member of Leopardstown Racecourse.

The Ansbacher inspectors discovered that in the early 1970s, after meeting Traynor at a dinner party, McCarthy decided to invest his share of a profit from the sale of a horse in an offshore account. It turned out that McCarthy was a client of Ansbacher through College Trustees.

One of Odearest's advertising slogans many moons ago was `Put your money in a good mattress'.

I know we had them at home - many more moons ago, in Dominic St. Mullingar - and they were bought in Cleary's....oh, the nostalgia for times when you could put your money in a good....anything? ( Not that we had any, then or now...)

Plus ca change?

PM

[Annie65115]

LOL, thanks for all responses, I hope I haven't driven you too mad with earworms and that all your bedtime memories are happy ones! 

[Taidquest]

Hi, just one more article I noticed for the Irish times
 for the 4th of July 1987 which had the headline that went
something like"New bedfellow for Odearest" which could be
 reporting on a merger or something but might give the history
of the company as well.I don't have access to the full article so
I can't say for sure.
                                                                      Anne

[Pastmagic]

Irish Times Obituary:

Denis McCarthy

An Appreciation: DENIS McCarthy, who died on May 28th, 2010 was a remarkable man whose outstanding attribute was a generosity of spirit and enthusiastic energy that infused the many spheres of life he touched.

Denis was born in Dublin in 1921, educated in the formal sense in Belvedere College and in the broader aspects of life, such as business, horse racing and poker, by his father Peter, who not only endowed his son with knowledge and nous in these aspects of living but also instilled in him the ethic that if one was fortunate to be dealt a good hand in the lottery of life there was an obligation to give of oneself to better the cause of society.

Denis entered the O’Dearest furniture and mattress business that had been founded by his grandfather Michael O’Dea and the family interest in horse racing was the starting point for a lifelong friendship with Vincent OBrien........

[pwaldron]

Peter McCarthy (b.1891) who m. Margaret O'Dea (daughter of the founder of O'Dearest) was from a family who have also been in the furniture business for many generations, in Limerick City.  I have a sideboard purchased from McCarthys by my GGGgrandmother, who d. 1889.

The Limerick firm was founded by Peter McCarthy's grandfather and namesake (d. Feb 1888 aged 77), who married Mary O'Donnell in 1842.

I would be interested in learning more about this family than what is included in the Irish Times of 18 Oct 2006 in an article entitled `Shop that's part of the furniture in Limerick's retail life'  by Rose Doyle.