Erin Giftstore is a drop of green in the city with its Irish origins
WORCESTER - It wouldn’t take much thought for a shopper walking past Erin Giftstore to realize the kiosk at the middle section of the Worcester Public Market brings a piece of Irish culture to the city.
Since February, flatcaps and newsboy caps, wool mitts, scarves and sweaters with braided knitting and Celtic insignia and shamrocks on jewelry, have added a bit of green to Worcester, a city which Ireland-born-and-raised Jennifer Courville has called home since 1990.
“The Irish heritage in the U.S., and especially in Worcester, is so important,” said Courville. “People have kept it alive for generations and I find that extremely impressive. That means a lot to me, especially as I grow older and I'm far away from where I'm from.”
Courville – whose maiden name is Lane – imports all the goods at Erin Giftstore from Ireland with few exceptions with the help of her siblings living there.
Her brothers lead a family business with roots in their father’s ambition to sell wool knitwear which started in 1964.
For the Lane family, who operated under the name Erin Knitwear, it was very much a family business in which both parents and children were involved.
The name of the business was inspired from the phonetic spelling of the Irish language pronunciation of Éirinn.
“I want people who are of Irish (origins) to feel that they are in an Irish store. If you were to go home to Ireland and walk into my family’s store, which is much bigger than mine, you will see the same things. I want it to make Irish people feel at home.”
Jennifer Courville, owner of Erin Giftstore
In Ireland, the tradition of knitting and crocheting wool sweaters, hats, purses, gloves and other items originate from the Aran Islands, a cluster of islands off the country’s western coast.
Courville said that since a young age, she helped with measuring, tagging, bagging and transporting anything made of locally sourced wool from area knitters to stores.
In 1979, the Lanes opened their own brick-and-mortar store first called The Irish House and later Erin Giftshop, next to Blarney Castle, a medieval landmark not far from Courville’s home in Cork.
Courville was 27 years old when she decided to leave her life in Cork, Ireland as an insurance broker in 1990 to pursue - what she told her mother at the time - “a change.”
At the time, the plan was to be back home in just six months, but a Worcesterite husband and two children later, Courville is still living in Worcester.
Not long after moving to the United States, Courville started working in the graphic design department at the Worcester Telegram & Gazette until 2006 when she put her career on hold to focus on caring for her two sons with special needs.
“There is a lot of work involved when you have special needs children especially with school,” said Courville. “I sort of worked part time throughout the next few years.”
In recent years, with Courville's sons now grown and comfortably independent, the idea of extending the family business to Worcester was not sounding so foreign to Courville.
When the lease at the Worcester Public Market expired for a similar store like Courville's called The Tinker’s Cart and the owner decided against renewing, founder and president of the market Allen Fletcher looked for a business to fill the space.
Hearing of the opening, Courville brought up the idea to Fletcher. In an email, he said of Courville, “She had done her homework, and we had confidence in her.”
Weeks later, she was offered the space, which naturally prompted a call to her siblings.
“First, they said ‘You’re mad,’” laughed Courville. “Then they said, ‘It’s one thing to have worked in the store all these years, another to begin it from scratch.
“’But if you want to do it, we will come and we will help.’”
When Courville visualized the shop in her head, she wanted it to be as authentic as what you'd find in Ireland.
Other than the clothing, other items also include porcelain ornaments with sayings in Irish language writing fonts, perfumes, whisky chocolates and even donkey milk soap - a spicy-scented soap made of actual donkey milk.
Courville says what the shop represents, culturally and visually, is what she often misses from her country of origin since moving to Worcester.
“I want people who are of Irish (origins) to feel that they are in an Irish store,” said Courville. “If you were to go home to Ireland and walk into my family’s store, which is much bigger than mine, you will see the same things.
“I want it to make Irish people feel at home.”
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Since February, Jennifer Courville has operated an Irish wool clothing shop at the Worcester Public Market
