These are incredibly exciting times for Kean’s Homevalue in Claremorris, County Mayo, who will mark their landmark 120th anniversary in style in 2025 by officially launching their completely revamped store at the heart of the town. Meanwhile, there was a brilliant end to 2024 for the progressive fourth-generation family business as they claimed the prestigious Store of the Year Award at the annual United in Excellence Awards.
Part of the very fabric of Claremorris since 1905, Kean’s Homevalue won big at the 2024 United in Excellence Awards, taking home no fewer than five major honours on the night. As well as being named Best Paint Store in Connacht, Best Light Hardware & DIY Store in Connacht, Best Garden Centre in Ireland and Best Regional Store in Connacht, Kean’s also scooped the overall Store of the Year Award.
This raft of awards is fitting recognition of the industry-leading levels of service consistently delivered by the Kean’s Homevalue team across a range of sectors, including DIY, light hardware, paint, homeware, garden, electrical, agri, pets and much more besides.
Managing director James Kean, who fronts the constantly-evolving fourth-generation family business alongside his brother Mark, was understandably delighted with the wonderful haul of in-house United Hardware awards: “We certainly weren’t expecting that,” he told Building Ireland afterwards. “Based on previous years – we got two in 2023, for example – we might have thought that we’d come away with one or two awards, but nothing could have prepared us for winning five. It was totally unexpected but very welcome. We are delighted and honoured to have been selected for so many awards and each one is special to us.”
James agrees that the awards are a real vote of confidence in Kean’s Homevalue from United Hardware. “We started that process three years ago with David Fitzsimons from Crest retail performance, and went on a safari tour of London with him and Mark organised by Matthew Browne (Echochamber Ltd), who showed us the best in practice of retail shops there. From that, we cherry-picked what would work best for us, and it has been very successful. When you win awards like these, it’s an indication that you must be doing something right.”
James was not slow in dedicating the awards to the efforts of his brilliant team. “It’s a credit to them for the quality of their work day in day out, not least bearing in mind what they have had to deal with while the store was being revamped. We decided to keep trading during the building process and they had to deal with walls being knocked down and building work taking place around them, so fair play to them! They are a great team.
“I know it’s a cliché, but our staff really are brilliant and everything we’ve achieved over the past few years, we couldn’t have done it without them.”
Kean’s Claremorris was revamped in 2018, by expanding into another site next door, with a further upgrade following since… “We are in the centre of the town, walled in on all sides, and we were faced with the option of somehow expanding here or else having to move out of the town altogether, which we didn’t want to do,” James reflects.
“People tell us that we are part of the core of the town and we were determined to stay here if we could in any way make it happen. Moving was the alternative, but we honestly didn’t want to do that to our customers or the other businesses around us. We managed to convince the owner of the property next door to sell to us and we knocked through and expanded by 2019. Then Covid hit…
“As it happened, it was just as well we had increased the size of the store as we were better able to deal with social distancing, etc., during Covid. Having the bigger shop helped. The store was L-shaped at that stage and then in 2023 we took out a store room and expanded our paints section, and knocked a full gable side of the building and squared off the entire building, to achieve a store size of 32,000 square feet.”
Kean’s Homevalue has come a long way from when James was a young lad and the shop was run by his parents, Patricia and James. Back then, it was a small grocery store with an agri supply business and a small hardware element. Thirty years later, James and Mark oversee a vast hardware store with multiple departments and specialist areas.
“Our mother and father are still very much involved, while our sister, Andrea, who was previously working in Dublin as an accountant, has come home to look after the finance side of things.
“We’re a light hardware store mainly as opposed to selling heavy building materials. The heaviest construction material we’d sell is cement,” James continues. “We cater very much to the lifestyle side of things, stocking a vast selection of paints, tools and light hardware, while we also have the agri side of the business and the garden centre, as well as the electrical business and the pet department.”
Launched in July as part of the new expanded store, the Petstop offerings cater for pets of all sizes and meet the growing demand for pet care products in the local area.
Kean’s Homevalue generate full-time employment for a team of 37, with five new staff members added in mid-2024. While decades of experience of retail, excellent products, knowledgeable staff and award-winning excellence are at the heart of the business, James stresses that there wouldn’t be a business but for their loyal customers:
“We’d have nothing without them and we try to acknowledge that in everything we do. They were very helpful, understanding and supportive while we were rebuilding and the place was a mess for six months. They encouraged us through that process and would still regularly comment on how well the place is looking today,
“But we can’t rest on that. We have to keep our standards up and keep moving forward. Customers will be the first to let you know if your standards are slipping! We have a lot of very valuable local customers, and also sell online.”
Looking to the future, James concludes: “At the moment, we are looking into incorporating a restaurant into the business – next year, hopefully. You always have to be thinking ahead and the pace of change has ramped up. Whereas in the past, you might revamp the store maybe once every seven to ten years, nowadays you have to give it a facelift every three or four years or else the place will start to look a bit tired.”
Kean’s Homevalue,
Mount Street,
Claremorris,
County Mayo.
Tel: 094 9362700
Email: [email protected]
Web: keanscm.ie
Facebook: www.facebook.com/KeansClaremorris
This article was published in Building Ireland Magazine, April 2025, Vol 11 No 4
