03/11/2026
I heard this tale told many times, including how Pat (RIP) managed in Granard on arrival and before he married. Never knew him as a businessman but his results speaks for itself in that department, but always found him to be a gentleman.
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He arrived on a bicycle, and started in a shed. 🚲 Pat Higgins, a Mayo baker who had learned his trade in other bakeries, came to Granard in County Longford, married Rita O'Reilly in 1953, and set up Pat the Baker behind their house in Moxham Street.
The batch loaves and his toast cake built a local name first, then a national one, and by the mid 1970s his was the largest bakery in the midlands.
A family shed, or a factory giant: which one should bake a nation's bread?
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