The Cope

The Cope, or the Templecrone Agricultural Co-operative Society (Irish: Comharchumann Talmhaíochta agus Sóisialta Theampall Cróine), is a co-operative retail chain indigenous to The Rosses area of County Donegal in Ireland. Founded in 1906, it has a number of normal supermarkets as well as a full department store, a builders merchants and an agricultural division.

The Cope
TypeConsumer co-operative
IndustryShopping Centre
Founded1906 (1906)
Headquarters
Dungloe, County Donegal
,
Republic of Ireland
Revenue€16 Million [1]
Number of employees
110 [1]
WebsiteTheCope.ie
The main Cope store, in Dungloe, Co. Donegal.

The name comes from the inability of one of the founder shareholders to say Co-Op - as he could pronounce Cope, the name The Cope was adopted. For the same reason, some people use the term to refer to the group in the U.K. named The Co-operative Group.

Outside of Donegal, the name is perhaps best known for being the semi-official nickname of a local politician Pat "the Cope" Gallagher, who is a former Minister of State. His family were connected to the foundation of the co-operative.

The founder of the chain, Patrick Gallagher (grandfather of the above, and known as Paddy "the Cope"), featured on a 48c Irish stamp released on 16 January 2006, depicted in front of the group's first Dungloe store.

The supermarket section of its flagship Dungloe department store was destroyed in a fire in April 2006,[2] although a reduced supermarket service was resumed within two weeks from elsewhere on the site. Construction of a new supermarket began in January 2007 and has since been completed. Initially co-branded as a Vivo[3] store, and latterly a Eurospar, it has since returned to only Cope branding.[4]

The Cope has branches in the town of Dungloe, as well as Annagry, Falcarragh and Kincasslagh villages. They formerly had branches in Burtonport and Narin, but they have been closed; with the former branch in Lettermacaward now operated privately. The Narin branch was re-opened on its original site for Summer 2019 only.

References
  1. "Home Page". The Templecrone Agricultural Co-operative Society. Retrieved 5 August 2008.
  2. "Fire badly damages co-op in Dungloe complex". The Irish Times.
  3. "Henderson Group". 7 March 2009. Archived from the original on 7 March 2009. Retrieved 5 November 2021.
  4. "History". Thecope.ie.


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