Kilrea barber John McGlinchey retires after 63 years of cutting hair

John McGlinchey’s barbering career began at the age of 15 when he went to get a haircut at Mickey Wood’s on Ballymoney’s Main Street and ended up getting a job!

John had been training and learning joinery work but had never once seen himself as a barber.

He worked in Woods, Ballymoney, for four years before moving to Coleraine to join Tommy Leighton’s Barbers on Society Street, where he stayed for seven years.

When John left that job aged 26, a few people from Kilrea approached him and asked him to go to there to cut hair.

John worked to build up his clientele in Kilrea for the next 17 years before being given the opportunity to purchase his own property “John the Barbers” where he worked for the next 18 years.

At the age of 61, John thought about retiring and sold his shop to his long serving colleague Davy Shields, who runs it to this day. However, retirement didn’t last long for John as people kept approaching him at home to ask him to cut their hair so much so he ended up setting up a barber’s right outside his backdoor.

John purchased a Portakabin, got it plumbed in, installed an outside loo and had everything all set up within a week and off he went….. for another 17 years! That was until December 23 when he closed his doors for the last time.

With tears in his eyes, John reminisced about his years of barbering and said that he has some great memories of his working life, meeting so many kind and generous people.

People from far and near followed him from Kilrea to his home place, clients from Cushendall, Cushendun, Ballymoney, Garvagh, Glenullin, Kilrea, Upperlands, Maghera and more.

Indeed, once a passing motorist from Belfast saw John’s barber’s sign at the bottom of Cullycapple Road and called in for a haircut. He returned again and again to get his hair cut, becoming good long life friends with John.

John always went out of his way to help someone in need of a haircut, opening up to suit a customer or closing late for a person who had to work late. For those who were sick and housebound, a phone all was all it took and John would set off with his clippers, comb and scissors to attend to that person, no matter where they lived.

When asked the question “why retire now?”, John replied, fighting back tears: “It’s against my better will, but it’s my time due to ill health and age, it’s time now to hang up the scissors and take it easy.”

John said he has so many memories of people who have come and gone from both sides of the community supporting him throughout. Referring to his barber’s as “the confessional box”, John added that there were things said there which will never be repeated and which will stay with him to the grave.