Picture: Jackie Lennox Chip Shop/Facebook
David Lavelle at Copenhagen Airport today. Picture: Red FM.
A painter and decorator is making a 2,082km journey from a small island in Denmark to his native Cork this weekend to say goodbye to his favourite chipper which is to close its doors for the last time this Sunday after 73 years in the city.
Lengthy queues have formed outside Jackie Lennox’s on Bandon Road in recent days. Hundreds of people have stood in line to buy their last Lennox’s chips and battered cod, a snack box, potato/cheese and onion pies or a breast in a bun.
One man who is making an extra special effort is David Lavelle, a caller to the Neil Prendeville Show on Red FM. He is travelling from an island called Bornholm in Denmark for his “last supper.”
David Lavelle
David grew up near the well known chipper in the Lough in Cork city.
He told the show that he left his home on an island off Copenhagen in the early hours of this morning in order to experience the delights of the Cork institution one last time.
“I was up at five o’clock and on to the ferry there and across the Baltic Sea all the way over to Sweden. Then over a big bridge between Denmark and Sweden. It’s Jackie Lennox like. You have to,” he said.
“Then I got in to Copenhagen airport and straight in through the security. I didn’t want to be late. I gave the nod and wink to the security and they said ‘that’s a Cork man if ever there was a Cork man.
“I said ‘Jackie Lennox’ and they said ‘Oh Jeez go on.
“Everyone is watching (the Lennox’s story) in Bornholm. There is even Danish people tuning in to Red FM.”
David said that the island where he lives has a population of around 40,000. He stated that half the island knows about his trip home from Copenhagen to Dublin Airport and onwards to Cork.
“When I explained the story to them they said ‘Go for it.’ I am getting the air coach from Dublin airport to brilliant Cork. I’ll be in to Cork around 6pm today.”
David said that he wasn’t a bit bothered about reports that he will have to queue for his takeaway in the rain.
“It is blue everywhere and the sun is blinding me in Copenhagen. But I’ll wait ten hours in the queue outside Lennox’s (in the rain) if I have to. I might even come with a tent or something,” he said.
“I am not going to eat anything tonight so I will have an appetite for tomorrow. I will be ordering the usual — two battered sausages, a battered burger and chips.
“That’s been the main one but I like the Jackie Deluxe as well. The double deluxe and battered mushrooms.
“Anything that is battered really. You can’t get battered things over here.”
