We are unsure when a post office first opened in the village. Lewis (1837) says of Poyntzpass “…Loughbrickland, to which it has a penny post”. But this describes the service, not a building or separate office. However, an advert in the Newry Examiner in early 1838 describes Poyntzpass as a “post town” so by that time it definitely had its own post office.
On 10th January 1840 the Uniform Penny Post was introduced throughout the British Isles. The earliest specific newspaper reference to a post office in the village is in an advert in the Newry Telegraph on 29th October 1840 announcing an auction a few days later.
“…by the trustees of the late Mr. James Whigham, at his late residence…His entire interest in and to that house in which the Post-office is held, and in which he resided and carried out the grocery and spirit trade for a number of years past.”
This is undoubtedly the same James Whigham in whose pub the ‘fatal affray’ took place on Christmas Day 1828. James lived in what was later the Railway Hotel, on the site of the new Baptist Church. The wording implies that in 1840 there was not yet an exclusive premises for things postal, nor a formal full-time job of postmaster.
Thom’s Irish Almanac of 1857 mentions that there is a Post Office in the village, and that John Madden is Postmaster. It was later run by George Hare at what is now 12A Church Street as part of his grocer’s shop. George sold the premises when he retired in 1888.
By 1910, the Belfast and Ulster Towns Directory shows a thriving post office with many staff.
Postmistress Mrs S J M‘Kelvy
Clerk Mrs M Moody
Postmen A Robinson, R J Gibson, R W Wilson, D Bicker and W Morrow
Mail car contractor Robert Carson
There were three collections every day – at 1.20pm, 5.20pm and 7pm – presumably coordinated with the railway timetable.
The Post Office was run by Mrs Alice Lyttle from 1955 until 1969, and by other members of the Lyttle family before that. She was succeeded by her deputy, Tom Murray. Tom retired about 1998, and the post office was run by Tom Johnston for a few years.
The dedicated Post Office in the square closed, and the premises were sold, in the early 2000s. It re-opened in ……. in Danny Trainor’s shop on Church Street.
It closed again in September 2016, but it re-opened six months later in its current premises, in Trainor Brothers SPAR store in Chapel Street, in March 2016.