Trade NamesJim McNaughton, the man who created the biggest tile shop in the country, left a lasting legacy, his children tell Rose Doyle

LOOKING around, at home and hearth, at hotels and pubs, at restaurants, shopping malls, leisure centres, factories, breweries, hairdressing salons, bank centres and just about everything else that makes up our built environment, you'd be forgiven for thinking that tiles and tiling, glorious of range and design, have always been the fabric of our decorating lives.

Not so. Time was, and not all that long ago either, when a decent or colourful tile was hard to come by, when tile supplies were so drab as to be a non-starter decor item.

If any one man can be credited with giving tiles their time in the Irish sun it has to be Jim McNaughton.

In 1982, when they were neither fashionable nor profitable, he opened a tile shop in Ballymount, Walkinstown. He worked hard and moved fearlessly forward and, in the process, became a legend in Irish business. Jim McNaughton called his company TileStyle and today it's the country's largest tile retailer, has customers worldwide and Irish clients which include Café en Seine, The Merrion Hotel, Avoca Handweavers and SPAR nationwide.

But TileStyle, celebrating 25 successful years in business, is without its founder. Jim McNaughton died, too young, on April 13th. He was 70. At the UK Tile Association's annual awards 2007 in Birmingham, he was posthumously given the "Outstanding contribution to the tile industry" award.

TileStyle goes on, as he meant it to, in the capable second generation hands of son Robin McNaughton as MD, son Gerard as retail director, daughter Michele as showroom manager and a nephew, Niall, in stock control. Jim McNaughton might be a hard act to follow but the family is en route. Talking about him, and the company, there is grief at his passing - but a great and heartwarming awareness of his legacy.

Robin elects to tell the company, and his father's, story. He's abetted by Ruth McCarthy, marketing manager ,who, with six years service to TileStyle, is a relative newcomer in a company which takes pride in its long-stay staffers. Gerard adds his memories.

Jim McNaughton was, everyone agrees, "one of the good guys". The first of four children born to Robin and Marguerite (nee Shields) McNaughton, he spent the first nine years of his life in Nenagh, Co Tipperary. When the family moved to Carrick-on-Shannon, he found, in Leitrim, a county he would give his fidelity and heart to, fundraising for the county football team and more through the years.

Work-orientated from the beginning, he tried his hand as a fisherman, then as a fish salesman. "He was a through and through salesman," Robin says, "a people-person, totally. He married my mother, Kay Kennedy - a Thurles woman - when he was working in Mullingar. I'm the third of of four children and they moved to Dublin just before I was born."

His siblings were Michele, Niamh and Gerard.

In Dublin, Jim McNaughton worked again in sales, first with Aluminium Design and later with Stone Design. He was going through a six-month period of unemployment when, with the backing of friend Paul Cullen, he opened TileStyle in January 1982.

"He opened in Ballymount, Walkinstown, in a showroom about the size of this room," Robin says. "This room" is elegantly tiled but not large. TileStyle's beginnings were definitely modest.

Robin was 16 and, "when he told me he was opening a tile shop I thought 'oh, my God!' Tiles weren't a fashion at the time. In the beginning there was just Dad, Susan Costello - who ended up being director of the company and left about 10 years ago, and a guy in the warehouse. I used help out in the warehouse. He worked incredible hours, gone at the crack of dawn and back late at night. There was heavy snow that winter and I remember him shovelling a way into the offices. He sold a bucket of adhesive the first day and in the months following, making a max of £400-£500 was perceived as a good day."

The company grew, and so did the popularity of tiles. "He had good contacts and there were really only two other companies in Ireland at the time - Tullys and Richardson."

Robin reflects a moment. "Not being cocky about it, but a lot of people would say it was Jim started the tile revival. He used go to Italy and Spain to trade shows, bringing back tiles other people were afraid to bring back."

Ruth remembers his "flair and taste, his ability to spot something which would be fashionable in a year's time. He loved the wow factor."

Jim McNaughton "built the company quickly," his son says. "Within three years we'd moved 300 yards up the road to a place three times bigger. The staff had increased to six to seven people."

Robin, with a young man's need to plough his own furrow, went to work for Hibernian Insurance when he left school in 1986. Bored in insurance, he rejoined the family company in what sounds a McNaughtonish turn of events.

"I met Dad for lunch in 1987. I remember him telling me his heart wasn't good. He told me too to look up an ad in the day's paper for a salesperson and to get a CV done. So I applied for and got a job with TileStyle. I was spared an interview but started in stock control, the real hub of this place, where everything happens."

THE year was l988. His sister Michele, who had been with the company, had left for the US - but would return and rejoin TileStyle in 2001, "beginning again in the stock room, in true McNaughton style!" Alan Gorman, today's stock control manager, was on board when Robin rejoined. So was, and still is, Margaret Copeland.

Sales director Mary Hennessy joined in the early 1990s and Damien Brosnan became part of the warehouse staff 18 years ago.

TileStyle moved to its distinctive and well-known premises on the capital's North Wall Quay, not far from the Point Depot, on January 1st 1990. "Everyone, including the staff - there were about 16 of us - thought he was mad," Robin remembers.

There was a general decrepitude to the place, puddles of water to be got through to get into work. But today's stylish showrooms are testament to the "huge renovation" Robin remembers. He remembers disasters too, like displays crashing from wax fixtures on the walls.

The company has grown every year since 1981, most especially in the last five to six. Their North Wall premises are fast becoming too small as more and more office, warehousing and showroom space is needed.

The last 10 years, Robin reckons, have seen a "tile revolution. It began in Italy and has been technology driven. You can do more with tiles these days than ever before. It was unusual 10 years ago for people to put in a tiled hall, now they're everywhere. People know the hygiene value of tiles too, when it comes to controlling dust mites and such for asthma sufferers. They're easy to maintain and can be heated from underneath."

The annual trade fair in Bologna, where Jim McNaughton went every year, is where they do most buying business, still. Jim McNaughton loved the tile business, "was very much into the art world, had quite a collection of paintings and liked to support painters. The early years were very, very tough and now, though we're a successful company, we work hard," Robin says and Ruth agrees, "there's no complacency here."

The showrooms dazzle with choice and design. Robin says there's a "big movement to natural stone and glass; people like the real thing. Porcelain tiles now look like marble but people still want real marble. Cool, natural colours are the thing of the moment."

Robin's children, Aoife, 8, and Sara, 4, haven't "yet decided" to come into the company - "but if they ever do it'll be through stock control!"

With recent additions staff numbers are now 80; Jim McNaughton's legacy to Irish business is more than assured.

Gerard McNaughton says it's hard to put his father into words, but tries anyway. "He was multi-faceted. He had a wonderful touch, at ease with everyone, no matter who they were. He was never too busy to talk to people."

And on that there is more than general agreement.