IN THE week of Queen Elizabeth’s visit to Ireland comes news from my colleague Michael Parsons of a Tipperary-based pottery company trading successfully in royal memorabilia.
Ballyporeen Fine Bone China Ltd has been producing mugs commemorating the recent royal wedding – but for domestic consumption.
Billy Hale said the William and Kate souvenir mugs had sold particularly well in Mallow, Cork, and Tralee, Co Kerry.
“Maybe they’re very loyal down there,” he quipped.
The family-owned ceramics business has nine staff and is working to fill new orders for the wedding mugs – thought to be the first royal souvenirs made in the State since independence.
Being based in Ballyporeen, the company produced a range of souvenirs for the visit to the village of former US president Ronald Regan in the mid-1980s.
It now hopes to repeat the trick with Barack Obama.
Obama and William Kate mugs are on sale in a “pop-up” shop opened in Moneygall ahead of the president’s visit on Monday.
