Building a life of opportunities

By David Flynn

Charlie O’Brien has had an unpredictable and fascinating life from pharmacist to entrepreneur.

He has an Athlone family history urban and rural, which began in 1959, when he was born to parents, Charlie and Frances O’Brien, who were living in Clonown at the time.

Charlie Snr was a well-known trad musician in South Roscommon and Athlone, who played fiddle/violin in bands and rambling houses in the early and middle years of the last century. Frances O’Brien was a member of the Browne family who lived in St. Francis Terrace, Athlone, from the time the terrace was built in the 1930s.

Charlie and his parents lived in Gorry Bog, and Charlie, at age five first walked to school in Cornafulla.

“I did high infants and first class in St. Paul’s School and one of the nuns who taught me was Sister Margaret Mary,” said Charlie to the Westmeath Independent. “We moved into town to live in 1967, and I went to the Dean Kelly school after that. My father spent a lot of time in hospital, in fact both of my parents spent a lot of time in hospital, and I spent a lot of my time in my uncle Luke Small’s house in Clonbrusk growing up.”

At eight years of age, Charlie got his first job. Richie Hughes, who was a neighbour in Baylough asked him to help with loading fruit into his truck, and Charlie then went working in Michael Quinn’s grocery shop, which was also in Baylough.

“I got paid in produce such as butter, milk and fruit, because we had no money and we used to live on three pounds per week, but I still managed to save for Christmas,” he said.

Charlie’s father died after an illness in December 1972, aged 66 years.

“He was the same age as I am now, and my mother was 79 years old in November 2003 when she died,” he said.

Charlie started working in Quirke’s Motor Factors at 14 years of age.

At the time, Charlie was in St. Aloysius College, and was one of the few pupils who chose to learn Greek with Fr Feeney, instead of Latin because he heard that was tougher to learn.

“Fr Feeney was a very interesting teacher, he could make grass growing interesting,” said Charlie.

Charlie used to cycle his bicycle from Baylough to school or to his job in Quirke’s.

“Dick Quirke was a really excellent employer and looked after all his employees really well,” said Charlie.

Charlie studied Science in University College Galway, and he was all set to go into 2nd year there, when he got an offer to do Pharmacy in Trinity College Dublin.

At the time, around 1975, Charlie also became a member of the local branch of the Irish Red Cross.

“Gerry Glynn was a fantastic commander there and we were trained in Northgate Street, Athlone by John Joe Flynn from Clonown, as well as some local GPs,” said Charlie.

As a Red Cross member, Charlie covered Athlone Town matches in St. Mel’s Park, horse races in Kilbeggan, 11am Sunday mass in St. Anthony’s Friary, midnight mass in Ss Peter’s and Paul’s Church, and he was involved in working at the visit of Pope John Paul 11 to Knock in 1979.

“I continued doing the degree, which was four years and one year for licence, before I could practice community pharmacy,” said Charlie. “I started working with Sean McGorisk’s pharmacy in Church Street, and he offered me a full-time job there. Myself and Sean became great friends and I went into partnership later with his son, Philip in the Athlone Town Centre Shopping Centre.”

In the mid-1980s, Charlie heard about Guerin’s Pharmacy, a business in Lanesboro Street, Roscommon town, looking for a buyer, and a local businessman joined in with him in partnership. “It was November 1987 and I was 28 years old. It cost a lot of money, but was a good bargain and a few years later, I did a deal to buy the other man’s share of the business outright.”

Charlie O’Brien is a self-confessed workaholic since he was eight years of age, and he loved the new role and as he said himself, “took to it like a duck to water,”.

“There was a dispensary doctor in Knockcroghery at the time of the Western Health Board, (before the HSE came in), and the boss man asked if could take care of the Dispensary in Knockcroghery, which was going out to tender,” said Charlie. “So, I did, and got up each morning at 5.30am to stock the shelves and have them ready for the doctor in the morning, and I then went on to work till 6 or 7pm in the pharmacy in Roscommon town.”

Charlie recalls that in the early 2000s, there was an idea to build medical health centres and incorporate doctors’ surgeries into the complexes and give it to the doctors rent free providing they would give their businesses to pharmacies in the complex.

“One of the doctors in Roscommon said that a guy had got onto them about building a primary care centre and they said if I was willing to do the same, they would work with me, which was good, because they could have gone ahead without me,” he said. “I said to myself at the time, I would build a hospital and be done with it!”

At the time, Charlie thought of building a smaller version of Galway Clinic.

“When the HSE heard about it, they approached me about my interest in building a hospital,” said Charlie. “They asked me if I would consider building a primary care centre instead.”

So, he began the project with the HSE to build Roscommon’s primary care centre, on Golf Links Road, and he incorporated his own pharmacy, Ros Med (O’Brien’s) into the complex.

“We had built our pharmacy into one of the Top 30 Pharmacies in the country, and employed around fifteen people,” said Charlie.

As the time went by, others approached Charlie, such as builders, quantity surveyors and architects and asked him if he would take them on as partners.

“I formed a business partnership with some of them, with equal shares to make a public/private partnership,” said Charlie. “The plan was to raise the money, build it and then the HSE would rent it off us for 25 years. It took about five years to build, and we borrowed around €8.5 million which was great because we had earmarked €200 million to build a hospital.”

He praises former Roscommon County Council manager, and Athlone native, John Tiernan by saying he had a good attitude to the project when it started off.

“When he was approached, John’s attitude was ‘What can we do to help you lads, not you can’t do that because’….,” said Charlie. “During the same time one of the doctors in Athlone asked me if we would build a primary care centre in Athlone. I said ‘Look, you’ll be paying rent and that was the deal, so I went to Bank of Ireland to raise the money’. That was the beginning of the Clonbrusk Primary Care centre. At the time, the HSE wanted doctors in primary care centres. It was roughly €5.5 million for the Athlone one and €8.5 million for the Roscommon building.”

Later on, Charlie got a phone call from Carrick on Shannon asking him if he could do the same there.

“When you’re on a roll, you are on a roll, and I met them, and that cost us €5 million and it’s behind the Landmark Hotel,” said Charlie.

Charlie temporarily gave up work when he became ill. He had open heart surgery and had to have part of his left leg amputated. He left his business, Ros Med Pharmacy in January 2025 on health grounds, although he is thriving since then.

Charlie would like to put on record his deep affection for families who were very good to him from the time he came to live in Athlone, which includes the Behan family from Railway Cottages, Joe and Annie Duke, Clonbrusk, Dick and Doreen Quirke, Retreat Road and the McGorisk family and all the loyal customers that came to his pharmacy over the many years. He is deeply indebted to them all.

“I get ideas from all over the place and I take opportunities where I see them and one time, I had an idea for an environmentally-friendly pharmacy, and that idea is still active, and let’s see how it will progress,” said Charlie. “I do a project, leave it, and move on to do something else. General Patton said that you never pay for the same real estate twice, you capture land and then you keep going.”