‘We send breads as far away as Australia’: Inside Cork’s Northside Community Enterprises 

In the heart of Cork’s northside, interrupting the tightly packed rows of houses and narrow streets of Blackpool, is an oasis canopied by the gentle rustling sound of leaves in the breeze.

The stately lines of this 19th-century red brick building were once known as St Finbarr’s Seminary – a boarding school run by the church until 2006, when Northside Community Enterprises (NCE) took custodianship and established its new base in Farranferris.

NCE was established by Fr John O’Donovan in 1993 on returning to his native Cork from five years serving the parish of Lenadoon in west Belfast from 1979 to 1984. It was, says Fr John, “a very colourful time,” yet enormously influential in how to best serve a community.

“Lenadoon was a bit of a change for me, you know?” says Fr John. “At that time, there were no lights on the streets at night-time because of the security situation.”

Fr. John O’Donovan with Denise Cremin, Financial Controller NCE. Picture: Jim Coughlan

The church in Belfast was heavily involved in social work, addressing and serving the myriad needs socially that existed in the parish at that time. Fr John found a mentor in Father Matt Wallace who worked to support young people with training, work opportunities, and fundraising – including a thrift shop – to support their ongoing work.

All these experiences returned with him to Cork, the northside parishes he has served ever since, and in establishing NCE as a social enterprise in 1993. NCE works to provide supports, training, and work opportunities via state-supported schemes to anyone looking to re-enter the workforce.

NCE is also an employer through an array of community-supported services. There’s an onsite café, bakery, laundry, Relove Paint Project, and a service supplying communion breads all helping people gain experience and meaningful employment.

Ger Cooney, CE Supervisor & Relove Paint Coordinator. Picture: Jim Coughlan

“It started in 1990 when we ran our first FÁS project in Mayfield. Eventually we moved into the old Sunbeam Factory in Blackpool,” says Fr John.

While the factory is no longer there, it is a place indelibly marked on the memory of northsiders: Sunbeam Knitwear Company was established by the Dwyer’s in 1928 at the Butter Exchange, and remained part of the northside’s landscape, skyline, and lives for 75 years.

“We took over 27,000 square feet of space at the Sunbeam in 1993, and I remember at the time we thought we’d never be able to afford the rent,” says Fr John. “But it grew. The late ’90s had high unemployment, and at one point we had 300 people employed in our Community Employment Scheme.”

These schemes have been running ever since in areas such as catering, childcare, gardening, gym, finance, and transport, providing on the job training, employment, and a service – particularly in food and childcare.

In addition, Educational Training Boards (ETBs) which replaced FÁS, continue the ongoing partnership with funding and access to education and training opportunities for those who arrive at the doors of NCE.

Denise Cremin, Financial Controller with NCE since 1995, said many of the services they provide help to flatten as many of the barriers to work as possible. Access to, and the often high cost of, childcare is one example where provision of a service and minimising barriers work hand in hand.

NCE has operated Little Hands Childcare since its days in the Sunbeam. The service provides training for those looking to work in the sector, employment and, where eligible, a subsidised creche service. Such is demand that in September NCE will open a new facility at Churchfield.

There are many other enterprises that generate income that supports NCE’s work. Work which, as Fr John explains, serves more than one purpose: a service to those who need it and training or work experience to those who want it.

But much is also about helping people live happier and healthier lives with purpose.

“We’ve had people here that felt they belonged here; they felt respected and valued in the job they were doing,” says Fr John. 

“We all want to feel we have something to contribute, and people feel they contribute when given the opportunity. That’s the intention; that’s the hope.”

Food is a key service offered by NCE and comes in many different guises.

“The training we provide helps them to cook for themselves,” says Fr John. 

The weekly food bank is run in partnership with FoodCloud, the food redistribution charity, four days a week serving 95 people with food essentials, including baby food.

It’s open to everyone, with no eligibility checks required. As Denise says, the way things are today, even those gainfully employed find they need to access the service, considering it a lifeline for making up any shortfall in the household food budget.

But it doesn’t end with just providing food. Free training is offered to food bank users on how to cook with what’s on offer.

“The training we provide helps them to cook for themselves,” says Fr John. “There’s no point giving food to someone if they go home and don’t know how to cook it,” he says.

NCE’s lead chef gives free cookery demonstrations to service users, says Denise. “We take food from FoodCloud, bring people into the kitchen and show them what they can do with, for example, beef mince – chili con carne, or put it into a wrap [like a burrito].”

Simple ideas for making the most of versatile ingredients helps make whatever budget is available to go that bit further in supplementing essentials from the food bank. Furthermore, the partnership with ETB means if someone availing of the food bank is interested in learning more, NCE can line up QQI training in culinary skills.

As ever when it comes to food, it’s not hard to find ways we can link the dots to opportunities that empower people with skills useful in the home or as a career.

“If someone wanted to do a basic bakery course, we’ll find somewhere that offers it and seek funding approval,” says Denise. “Some of it might not be a career choice, but they have a love of cooking, and it makes them feel better.”

Helping people feel better about themselves is a reoccurring theme at NCE, underscoring the mission and ambition for those they serve.

“If you go for a job, it’s good to say: ‘I’m out of NCE and I’m doing training and work employment’,” says Fr John. “It shows a person is aiming towards full-time employment. The key thing has always been when you come to us, you get services. If you couldn’t do your laundry at home, you’d get laundry in our place, which was cheaper. At our café, you can get good food and, because you’re with us, it’s subsidised. But the most important thing here is respect.”

NCE’s work in food extends beyond the food bank with several enterprises under the banner of NCE Restaurants.

Gillian French, Catering Supervisor NCE, at Cup N Cino.Picture: Jim Coughlan.

This includes an on-site café, Cup ‘N’ Cino, which serves breakfast, lunch, snacks, and drinks five days a week. A successful catering arm supplies local groups and businesses with event catering; and a bakery produces breads, sweet bakes and treats to the cafe and catering enterprises, as well as celebration cakes made to order.

“It feeds into all our other operations,” says Denise. “We supply other cafés as well as our own – some for many years. We cater events such as local community meetings who look for our sandwiches. We’re very well known for our big trays of bite-sized cakes which are very popular for events and communions; we do birthday cakes and get a lot of orders for cakes for teachers at the end of term.”

It’s May, which means communion season. Altar Bread Supplies Ltd is an NCE enterprise specialising in supplying communion wafers across the country, even to Australia.

Established in 2001, for years breads were made by hand in what was a sizeable operation.

“We used to bake the breads ourselves. It was tough and hard work at times. The people that worked making them were very religious and felt a great affiliation with their work. 

“But since we started, the numbers of people going to church have gone down, so in that sense, it’s not what you’d call a growing business!” says Fr John.

“The machinery we had was getting old. It was a big machine; a monster!” he says. “I remember the floor creaking under it and worrying would it fall through. To replace it would have cost a lot of money. We thought hard about it, but in the end, decided not to replace it and instead began importing breads from Poland,” he explained.

“We send those breads out to different parishes here in Cork and Ross, other diocese and parishes across the country. We have one customer in Australia who found us years ago. Every Christmas, we send out cards thanking customers for their support throughout the year. By purchasing through Altar Bread Supplies Ltd., they are supporting the wider work of NCE.

“That’s the point about all the services here,” says Denise. “Buying our cakes, our bread, using the laundry, creche, gym, etc, you are supporting NCE. As a charity, we don’t rely on fundraising money. It’s all grants and whatever we can generate ourselves. So, when you buy a birthday cake here, or place an order for some altar breads, you are helping everybody that comes through our doors to move on positively with their lives.”

In 2025, NCE shipped out three million small breads (congregation), and 50,000 large breads (priests). The day I was there, 30,000 small breads had been packed and were ready to ship.

“The quantity has gone down since we started, but every week we have three or four people involved in distribution of the altar breads to different parishes, making sure our customers get them on time.”

Altar breads are such an integral part of the religious ebb and flow of Irish lives, yet have we ever considered where they come from? Until now, I didn’t!

May is peak communion and confirmation season, but Fr John says Christmas remains their busiest time of year. Because, says John, even if people can’t attend church regularly, they’ll be sure to go at Christmas.

Fr John says Christmas is the busiest time of year for the distribution of altar breads.

“Christmas, Easter, communion season and funerals, those are the busiest times of year for us,” John says.

“But we’re kept going throughout the year; there’s still a lot of people who go to mass every week, and they are our constant.”

In truth, it does feel a little unusual discussing the dynamics of business with a priest, but these most symbolic of foods must come from somewhere, so why not from here?

• NCE is a hub for myriad services and supports – to find out more visit www.nce.ie. All are welcome to visit the Farranferris campus and support the services that fund their work.