A well-known Armagh chip shop owner, who has been faced with adversity – both personally and in business – says without friends, family and her community she doesn’t know where she would be today.
Cordelia Malone has spoken candidly on what could easily be classed as her ‘annus horribilis’ – but resolute in nature, she’s not one to dwell on her problems.
The 56-year-old, a born and bred Armagh girl, has taken the positives from many difficult situations in recent times, finding inspiration in the fight of others around her, including her own niece – and goddaughter – who has battled illness from the day she was born.
Cordelia also lost her mother, Geraldine, in September 2023. Both her and new-born niece, Alivia, were admitted to hospital on the same day. Alivia was admitted due a serious adenovirus– and remains in hospital, fighting to this very day.
And earlier this year she lost her business premises of 14 years on the Killylea Road as a result of an accidental fire. That, coupled with a parting of ways with her long-term friend and business partner, it’s fair to say Cordelia has had easier times.
Despite the hurdles life has placed in front of her, Cordelia has a positive outlook on life – a glass half full type of mentality. For her, family is everything and on that front, things are looking much brighter.
Fifteen months ago, just days into little Alivia’s life, and the prognosis was not good, but her doctors continue to be astounded by her progress and her resolve – something that evidently runs in the family.
Since the beginning, Cordelia has been by her side, and that of her sister Natalie and her partner, John.
“I’m beside them the whole way,” said Cordelia. “I have my two, three days a week with her, time she can’t be left alone. I will go now on Sunday and spend the day with her on Sunday, and then her mummy comes and stays with her on Sunday night. Then, I go down on Monday morning, and I stay Monday night with her.
“There’s a lot that goes into the care; I’m one of Alivia’s carers, something I’m so proud to do, but there’s pressure that comes with that.
“You’re in that hospital down in Belfast and you’re watching babies coming and going; we’re there that long, we know everything that’s going on around us and that can be hard too. It’s very emotional at times, watching other people, knowing what they’re going through. We’re just the lucky ones, we’ve come out the better end of it.”
Next Tuesday, Alivia will be transferred from Belfast’s Royal to Daisy Hill in Newry, which is just 10 minutes from John and Natalie’s home in Poyntzpass.
“Hopefully she’ll be home for Christmas morning,” said Cordelia. “That would be lovely; she’s just a wee miracle.”
It will be Alivia’s first time home from the hospital since she was first admitted at five days old.
For nine weeks Alivia was being treated at a specialist hospital in Leicester. Cordelia was travelling back and forth with Natalie’s other two children.
“It has just been a rollercoaster all along but I like to think I’m the type of person who just gets on with it. I just do it, it’s just the type of person I am. I think I take after my mother in that sense – she was the one of the strongest women you could meet.”
However, Cordelia lost her mother after an illness back in September 2023.
“Alivia went into hospital on the same day as my mum back in June 2023,” Cordelia recalls. “We found out Alivia was really sick. The doctors are mesmerised by Alivia because they wrote her off so many times.
“But the words I said at the time were, ‘If someone has to go, my mother’s going to go – Alivia’s staying’. Do you ever hear the old saying someone moves over to let someone stay? Once my mother went, I said, ‘Alivia is coming home’. I never had any negativity about Alivia from the word go. I said this child’s going to be alright with prayers and everything else. I think the world was praying for her at the time.”
Cordelia feels that she had so much going on with baby Alivia that she didn’t have time to process her own mother’s death.
“I’m only sort of grieving for my mother now,” she said.
“It’s only now that it sort of hits me. My mum is dead a year there in September. I never really grieved my her, I just got on with it. It kills you when they go – your mother and father – because they’re your life.
“They were my lifeline. My daddy was my lifeline too but daddy, he’s dead five years coming, but still, I never grieved for mummy as much as I had for my daddy.”
Fast forward 10 months after her mother’s passing and Cordelia’s world was rocked again – and it only took a matter of moments.
Her chip shop of 14 years, on the Killylea Road, was destroyed in a fire.
“God, I can’t go out that road,” says Cordelia, who is still heartbroken by what happened back in July. I literally cannot go out that road. I can go to the top of the Ring Road but I cannot turn right.
“The devastation, not only for myself, but for everybody else that it happened to. It wasn’t just me affected, there were other four businesses there too, and that’s just devastating.
“When you stand and watch what you put up, and worked hard and sore to put up, go to pieces – I just crumbled.”
Cordelia recalls coming back to the shop that morning after making a delivery to a party locally.
“I remember coming back to the shop and I saw smoke coming out the back and I said to myself, ‘what on earth was that’ and then I opened the shutter. Oh my God, I couldn’t even go in. I just had to get everybody out of the buildings that were next door to me.
“Just the devastation of it, I just crumbled to my knees; I think I actually fell to the ground. I think my brother came along at that stage and lifted me off the ground, and took me across the road. I watched it until I heard the fire brigade and they took me away.”
Cordelia would have marked 14 years at that site on August 27. Instead, she was trying to piece everything back together again, but figuratively and literally.
“I didn’t leave the house for two weeks after the fire. I didn’t even go down to Alivia for two weeks, I couldn’t leave the house,” she said.
“And then the day of the Armagh match [the All-Ireland final at the end of July], I promised John and Natalie that I would go down to the hospital for Alivia that day as her wee boy got his ticket and he just loved football. I thought, I can’t let this child down, I have to go to this hospital.
“I went down that day and when I sat and looked at this wee miracle I asked myself, ‘why am I dwelling on this?’ I got myself together and went and got stuff done.”
Cordelia phoned a friend and asked if the Ring Road unit was available and, lo and behold, 14 years to the day Cordelia had left the very same chip shop to start out on her own business venture, she got the keys to come back in and start again.
Serendipitous in a way, but Cordelia is not shy in bestowing praise on the community around her.
“The community support has been amazing,” she beamed. “That’s why I help out in the community because it’s the community that keeps me in business. You put a little bit in and you get a little bit back out and that really does go a long, long way.”
Cordelia, who was so grateful for the fundraising support following the fire, says her portion of the money – £600 – will be rounded up to £1,000 and given to the West Armagh consortium to help those less fortunate in Armagh this Christmas.
Cordelia was then asked about her charitable work, something she is of course proud of, but is not one to shout about.
She helps out with the Outreach Team in Armagh on a regular basis and does plenty behind the scenes to help families in need but she says she likes to keep that work private.
And while privacy is something she – unassuming in nature – is known for, it is something that has been challenged in recent weeks.
Unfortunately, after a long and fruitful business partnership Cordelia parted ways with her long-term friend and business partner, Brian Ruddin.
After the fire, Cordelia considered joining the Newry Road shop – run by Brian – and which also goes under the name of Cordelia’s, but for various reasons, that didn’t work out.
“Brian and I have always been friends, since I was 22 – I’m now 56. He helped me a lot. I don’t know if I’d have done this myself or not and I really appreciate what Brian has done for me, but we just had our difference of opinion in the end so we parted ways.”
However, Cordelia recently issued a public statement to address what she described as “confusion” around the name and the fact she and Brian were no longer business partners.
“It might only be a name, but as I said, it’s a name that I was born with. It’s the name I’m proud to hold in this town, and it’s a name that got us to where we are today – both of us – not just me, but he just continues to use it even though I have gone my own way.”
An awards event is due to be held later this month bearing Cordelia’s name, something that Cordelia says has upset her, given that she no longer has anything to do with it.
“Maybe if he came to me at the start and said to me, right, I’m going ahead with that ball, maybe we could have done something to figure it out but the fact that there’s a ball happening in my name and I’m not even going to be there, it’s upsetting.
“And people are confusing it for me – and the chip shop – because of the Cordelia name. I would just prefer if my name was no longer used so it would stop all this confusion.”
But for now, Cordelia says her focus is on her work on the Ring Road, and helping with the outreach team in Armagh.
