From Sherry to Cappucino

It is difficult in our busy computerized and internet driven offices to imagine a more leisurely time when the Solicitors acting for the Vendor and the Purchaser completed a sale of property over a glass of sherry in the offices of the Solicitors acting for the Vendor.

Our offices have been open in Edward Street, Portadown since 1907, before the founder of firm Robert Martin Cullen (known to one and all as  “RM”) went off to join an Irish Regiment, the Connaught Rangers, based at Renmore Barracks, Galway, to fight in the Great War.

Looking back over the records and memorabilia we have from that time, there are indeed references to completing a transaction over a glass of sherry.  We have posters of auctions in the 1920’s of farms “including ewes and the ram running with them all season”.  We have the gown that in those days of yore the young RM wore to Court when Solicitors as well as Barristers wore long black gowns.  We have references to his going to Clonmakate Petty Sessions on a pony and trap where we understand  that very much in the fashion of the TV series “An Irish RM” the locals gathered every month for a bit of high entertainment.

Some of our clients still remember him as “old RM” on austere persona, tall and slim with a winged collar and utterly principled in all matters.  His portrait hangs in our offices today, as does the portrait of his son, Jim Cullen who carried on the fine tradition set by his father.  Today we do our absolute best to adhere to the high standards set for us by our predecessors in R M Cullen & Son but alas, we never have time to “complete” over a glass of sherry, or indeed, the modern equivalent, a cappuccino!