After almost six decades standing behind the chair at his Blackpool barber shop and four months into retirement, Mick Moriarty, aka the Baldy Barber, is still adjusting to life in retirement. As he approached what would have been his 60th anniversary working for himself in Cork, the legendary barber decided it was the right time to go. At 77, standing had begun to catch up with him, another hip operation was looming, and he knew deep down he had given everything he could give.
Mick was more than a barber. In Blackpool and beyond, he was a confidante, a counsellor, a match analyst, and a historian of hair and of life. Part of Cork’s fabric, the self-confessed ‘ tonsorial artist’ reflects on six decades of barbering in Cork, with humour, candour and not a hint of regret.
“I always swam,” he begins, as if explaining the secret to his stamina. “Eighteen years ago, before I had the first knee replacement, they told me to get into the water for three months beforehand to build it up. I got a weight and wrapped it around my knee and ankle. Then I had the operation and it took me about 16 weeks to get back to playing golf. Six months later I got a new hip. In total I’ve had two knees done, two hips and a triple bypass. I’m still playing off 18 at 77 years of age. So I’m not too bad. Thank God.”
Retirement, he insists, is “going grand”. His decision to retire was partly influenced by the need for his second hip operation in November, which would have tied him up for 12 weeks. “I don’t miss getting up at half seven in the winter. I liked to be in the shop for eight, and half seven on a Saturday, so you’d be up at half six. If the lads were out on a Friday night, I might go with them, but I’d be drinking water. As you get older it’s harder to be standing the next day.”
He does miss the shop though. “I miss going in every day, the human interaction. A lot of the customers would have been widowers and you’d be very careful with them. I’d clean their scalp with organic coconut oil. As people get older the area behind their ears gets very dry, so I’d mind that. When they heard I was closing they’d say, ‘Mick, who will do my head for me?’ I miss that kind of looking after people.”
Even now, he keeps a big jar of coconut oil in the car. “I was in mass in Blackpool and one of the men came up asking the name of the stuff I used on him. I said, ‘You’re lucky, I have it in the car.’ I use it myself every day when I go swimming. I think I’m looking alright for 77.”
The decision to retire didn’t happen overnight. “Two years ago there were two people going to buy the place and keep it going. I jumped the gun and announced that I’d be retiring soon. That was a mistake . The buyers pulled out and I lost about 25% of my business when people heard I was closing.”
Business had quietened anyway. “I put about €18,000 to keep it going. The area is decimated, the five pubs are gone, Healy’s Bakery is gone. There’s no footfall. People are going to the shopping centres and you can’t blame them.”
When the buyers returned, encouraged by his niece, who is also his solicitor, and after many conversations with his wife Mary, he decided to take the opportunity. “Standing was starting to catch me. And as you get older, you’re not wanted. Someone would come in and say, ‘I’ll wait for the girl there, she’ll know what to do,’ and it might be a number two all over. I could do that in my sleep. When asked if he felt that was ageist, he agrees. “But then they’d sit down and talk to me about a match anyway,” he laughs. “It was the right time to go.”
Mick started sweeping floors in the shop at 12. “I was brushing the floor and brushing the customers. It was great. I was born in Ballincollig and we moved to live over the shop when I was seven or eight. Seven of us lived there, including my grandparents.”
At fourteen and a half, his life took a different turn. “I went off to be a Christian Brother in 1963. I went to Carriglea in Dublin and I spent two years there. I was way too young. Looking back, you know nothing about life at that age. It wasn’t for me.”
Coming home wasn’t easy. “It was a disappointment to the family alright, I suppose. They’d expect you to stay but instead I went back to school.”
By 16, Mick was full-time in the family trade. “I never looked at it as work. It was part of the family. My father and uncle were barbers and my brother John, who’ll be 80 this year, was a barber. I didn’t think I was starting some big career. It was just what we did.”
Through the decades he witnessed every trend imaginable. “When I started, it was short back and sides and wave movement. Then Elvis Presley came along, then The Beatles and The Rolling Stones with the long hair. When long hair came in, the less you took off the better barber you were. You’d just trim the fringe into a pageboy style.”
Parents often tried to intervene. “They’d say the son was coming in later and to take it all off. I’d say, ‘If I cut it they’ll call me a scalper.’ When the son came in he’d say, ‘Just a small piece off, Mr Moriarty.’ I’d say, ‘Your mother wants it all off.’ He’d say, ‘No way.’ I didn’t want to lose him when he grew up, so I’d listen to the son,” he laughs.
Training, he feels, has changed dramatically. “Years ago it took three to five years to become a barber. Now they do a ten-week course, two hours a week, and call themselves barbers. I’d ask them, ‘Can you clean my neck with a cut throat razor?’ They’d say no. None of them can do a real hot towel shaving. To be a qualified barber, you must be able to do hot towel shaving and beard trimming. Otherwise you’re only a gents’ hairdresser. The proper name is a tonsorial artist.”
He relishes the title. “When we’re away playing golf and someone’s blowing about their job, I say, ‘I’m a tonsorial artist.’ They wouldn’t have a clue what that is, but they’d never ask.”
Golf remains central to his routine. He was at the driving range in Bandon recently with his wife Mary. “I meet the lads in Blarney on Mondays and Wednesdays – we call it the Mothers of Seven,” he jokes. “There could be 12 of us. They’re a great bunch.”
He still keeps in touch with old colleagues. “Noel Sheehan in Boherbue worked with me before,” he says. “He travelled to Dublin, London and New York and came home again. I went out to him with some memorabilia from the shop. He was thrilled, he cut my hair and I cut his.”
Another former colleague, Donnacha O’Connell, who worked alongside Mick for 26 years, is opening his own place in Gurran. “He’s calling it Buzz Cut. I must cut his hair before he opens.”
Both men are also stocking Mick’s alopecia lotion, an old remedy that belonged to his father. “I’m still doing the alopecia lotion. I get great results with it. Noel and Donnacha are selling it for me. It’s an old cure from my father and it works.”
Family has always been central. He and Mary have two daughters, Louise and Sarah. “Louise is a teacher in Ballincollig and Sarah is a dance teacher with the Montforts. It never worried me whether they’d keep the business going. It’s a tough job. I was standing nine hours a day. I’d do 25 haircuts a day. My mother would bring tea at ten o’clock and give the customers tea too.”
He feels for young barbers starting out now. “Twenty-six years ago there were 15 barber shops. Now there are 250 in Cork city. The cost of employing people is huge. A qualified barber should be on at least €20 an hour. They’re entitled to be paid properly if they’re properly trained. People should be willing to pay the proper amount to have their hair cut”
The nickname “The Baldy Barber” came from a friend years ago and stuck. “If you can’t take a slagging about yourself, you’re no fun. The kids from the North Mon would bang on the window shouting, ‘You’re bald!’ Then they’d come in for a haircut and be as nice as pie.”
As he nears what would have been 60 years in business, and almost 90 since his father first started, he admits it would have been nice to hit the milestone. “But I got over it. If I’d kept going I’d have been putting in money to cover wages. It was time.”
These days, he still does the odd house call. “I’ve two friends, a sparks and a fitter and I cut their hair. They bring scones and that’s their charge.”
After a lifetime of barbering, Mick Moriarty has moved onto his next chapter, but the stories, the friendships and the care he gave so many people remains.
“I had great fun,” he says simply. “I never really saw it as work, it was a great community and I met some great people. ”
