Article by Deirdre McArdle, Sun, 11 Jan, 2026 – 21:19
Irish Examiner
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As he marks 10 years with Dunnes Stores, Francis Brennan reflects on legacy, home, hospitality and attention to detail.
Francis Brennan surveys Cork City through the panoramic window of the top-floor cafe in Dunnes Stores on Patrick Street. I’m meeting him here as he marks the 10th year of the Francis Brennan Collection in Dunnes.
As we’re introduced, he focuses his attention on me completely; there’s a warmth to him and a hint of divilment. As you would expect, he’s immaculately dressed in a classic navy pin-striped suit, not a hair out of place.
We both order tea, and in the few seconds it takes me to dig out my notebook and pen, Brennan has poured my tea and arranged the crockery perfectly. The good manners aren’t a facade or a character choice for TV, they’re an inherent part of him; later on, when we go downstairs to look at his products on the shelves, he insists on standing in front of me on the escalator. “Good manners never go out of style,” he says.
As we chat, several Dunnes employees come up to say hello; Brennan is a familiar face here. His brand, the Francis Brennan Collection, has been a mainstay of the Dunnes homewares department for a decade now.
The seed of the idea started in 2012 when Margaret Heffernan, former Dunnes Stores CEO and regular guest at The Park Hotel in Kenmare, commented on the quality of the bed linen Francis and his brother John had in the guest bedrooms.
“John said to Mrs Heffernan ‘you should get [Francis] to do a linen line for you’. I told him to go away out of that, I was far too busy. But then Mrs Heffernan asked a second and then a third time.”
Third time’s a charm, as they say, and so the relationship began. But not before Brennan had made it clear the bed linen should be of the highest quality, while also being affordable. “We use what’s called percale cotton in our range. We couldn’t have used the same cotton we had in the hotel, it would have been too pricey. But percale cotton is wonderful and has a tight weave that gives the crispness that characterises quality bed linen.”