THREE years ago Dee Brophy left a reliable job working for the EU as an information officer to set up an antiques shop in the grounds of Killashee House Hotel in Kildare.
“I had studied traditional upholstery and interior design but decided I loved the rocky road of wheeling and dealing in the trade, ” she said.
“When the Irish economy shrank a few years ago so did I, and I closed my shop. But I soon found space, in an antiques store which had just opened up – The Store Yard in Portlaoise, Co Laois, an hour’s drive from Dublin [also see the Domhnall Ó Gairbhí story below].