Marguerita Walsh and Henry are members of the Shinrone Heritage Group, a local heritage preservation group that describes itself as “cultural preservation enthusiasts”.

They told us of one Shinrone character who was known far and wide, and whose memory lives on to this day. This man was Ernie Guest.

Ernie Guest once had a small blue shop on Shinrone’s main street that people travelled from across Ireland to visit to meet the man inside it. Ernie was a homoeopath, and his visitors came from all over for his knowledge of herbal cures for disorders or diseases. This was a time in Ireland when many families could not afford to see a doctor or lacked access to one. Many people, like Ernie, developed cheaper remedies to treat ailments using their knowledge of herbs. Ernie’s visitors weren’t just human, as Marguerita recalls, animals such as cattle and greyhounds also came for his cures.

Marguertia’s mother brought her to Ernie Guest’s shop as a child for a digestive issue which plagued her. She has a vivid memory of Ernie retreating into his back room and returning minutes later with some fine black powder, which he mixed into a mysterious liquid for Marguertia to drink.

“Now I was cured after it, I can tell you,” she laughs, before adding, “I never wanted to come out for the second round.”

Henry recalls seeing Ernie gather his ingredients, such as bark and weeds, locally in Crannagh, Shinrone, for his prescriptions. Henry goes on to recite anecdotes he heard from Ernie’s son Arthur, who remembered the smell of the strong odours hanging in his family home from his father’s cooking of plants and herbs.

Along with the little blue shop, the Guest family owned a dairy herd and had girls, typically from the Church of Ireland, work on it, which brought new people to the area. A previous neighbour of Marguerita, a woman named Iris, originally from County Limerick, came up under the impression that she would be working alongside Ernie in his shop. She had fondly told Marguerita how she had purchased a new pair of sandals and a beautiful dress for the occasion. To her surprise, on her first day, the Guest family instructed her to go and collect cattle instead. However, it was there in Shinrone that Iris would go on to meet her husband, Sidney. All thanks to a job opportunity from Ernie Guest. Marguerita told us the couple had a good life together in the local area before Iris’s passing.