The new Irish & Celtic jewelry from Solvar is on the way.

Just this Thursday Kerry and I were treated to the new Irish and Celtic jewelry from Solvar.  Dave Duggan, the US Sales Executive for Solvar Jewelry, made his annual pilgrimage from Massachusetts to Phoenix, Arizona to show us all the new product.  As usual it was well worth everyone's time; Dave showed us about 200 exciting new pieces that ranged from Claddagh rings to the Tree of Life jewelry, and we bought just about every one!  We will receive the first batch of Solvar jewelry from Ireland by mid September and we will be busy publishing the new product to theirishgifthouse.com.  You may check our New Irish Gifts page to see how we are progressing.

Solvar has always been known for their eclectic style of jewelry that ranges from traditional Irish jewelry to Celtic designs that imitate the popular trends to completely innovation designs.  One of our favorite new designs included the heaviest and thickest Celtic wedding bands that were amazingly comfortable to wear.   Another of our favorites are some of the lightest Celtic necklaces and earrings that feature a puffed dimensional design, but were hollow inside.

Solvar has always been a leader in Connemara marble jewelry and this year was no exception.  Some of the new designs featured facet cut Connemara marble; we had never seen this unique style before.  From looking at the new line there must be a resurgence in Celtic brooches as more new designs were offered than in previous years; we are not complaining, a handsome brooch can be the perfect accent to any outfit.  And Solvar also had more harp jewelry than in recent visit; as I'm sure you know, the harp is Ireland's national emblem and it is present on all official documents.

We also selected some gold Celtic cross necklaces with large lab created emeralds.  The lab created emeralds look brilliant and by using them, Solvar is able to keep the cost down.  We can't wait until we get this new Solvar jewelry published to our site; we better get busy!

The Irish Gift House Celebrates Our 30,000th Order!

I guess that Kerry and I were relatively late in embracing e-commerce at The Irish Gift House as we didn't launce theirishgifthouse.com until 2005.  We had a thriving "brick and mortar" retail business in place and we were happy taking orders by phone and by mail.  We didn't know what was good for us!

What we first thought was that our customers might want to see what Irish gifts and Celtic jewelry we offered and would next take a drive to our store.   We think that is actually how the internet first worked; at least it did for us.  For example, a customer would call and ask if we had Claddagh rings.  We would say, "We had many Claddagh rings, and they are all made in Ireland."  The next question might be to describe what some of our Claddagh rings look like.  That can be a little difficult over the phone, so by directing the customer to our website (if they had access, remember not everyone did in 2005) they could take a gander and would then typically visit our store.

As the years past and as the internet expanded an interesting phenomenon occurred; the customer would skip visiting our store and would simply make the purchase from our site!   We started to think that this internet might catch on and kept adding more and more Irish goods to our site including Celtic crosses and Celtic wedding bands.  In fact over the years we have added over 15,000 Irish gifts to theirishgifthouse.com, but through attrition, we currently have just over 9,000 items.

Early on we often went days or weeks at a time without an order; while today we wonder if our site is up if we didn't take an order in the last hour.  Now during the Christmas season we will often take over 100 orders in a day; that keeps the two of us hopping!  There have been a couple of times that we even considered temporarily taking our site off line so we could catch our breath.

Thinking of Christmas, it was Irish Christmas ornaments and Irish Santa decorations that were some of our earliest sales.  We still ship a lot of them today, but our number one categories are Irish jewelry and Celtic jewelry.  We think that there was once apprehension in buying jewelry from a "stranger".  Today the apprehension has been replace with the confidence of dealing with a reputable merchant, even if it is electronically.       

Kerry and I have been, and continue to be grateful to the thousands of customers who have trusted us over the years.  We look forward to hearing from you soon!

The Irish Gift House features Irish and Celtic jewelry from Solvar!

The Irish Gift House features Irish and Celtic jewelry from Solvar! 

 

 

2016 marks the 75th anniversary of Solvar Jewelry!  For several generations this Irish family owned business has been one of the leading manufacturers and exporters of Irish jewelry and has won multiple awards along the way. 

The extensive range from Solvar includes Claddagh rings, Celtic rings, Celtic cross necklaces, Celtic jewelry, shamrock jewelry, St.Brigid's crosses and more.  Their annual catalog typically features over 1,000 current jewelry pieces and they offer their jewelry in precious metals such as gold and silver and they also offer plated pieces too.   Solvar additionally offers many of their designs with stones that range from diamonds and emeralds to crystals and has a beautiful collection of Connemara marble jewelry.  

Not only does Solvar offer several choices in metals and symbols, but they are also famous for the diversity of their product lines.  For example in Sterling silver alone Solvar offers Claddagh jewelry as rings and bands, brooches, earrings, necklaces and pendants, charms and beads, bracelets and bangles, and cuff links!

Solvar offers the finest in traditional Irish jewelry featuring all the classic designs and they are also innovative with their new product development that often emulates the current trends with an added Irish or Celtic twist.

Every year we receive a visit from our Solvar representative and it often takes 3 to 4 hours just to see the newest product.   The new products are next proudly added to our site and the orders never seem to stop!

The Irish Gift House is proud to say that Solvar has been our principle Celtic and Irish jewelry purveyor for the past 18 years.  Ever since we launched theirishgifthouse.com in 2005 we have made it our goal to feature every available piece from Solvar on our site.  Today you will find about 2,000 different and often unique pieces of Solvar jewelry on our site and we have almost every piece is in stock for quick delivery.

New Irish and Celtic Jewelry from TJH.
Once again we have stumbled across some Irish jewelry and Celtic jewelry in our inventory that had not yet been published to www.theirishgifthouse.com.  Truthfully, we didn't find anything, we knew that we had the jewelry, I was just too lazy to add it to the site.   The jewelry assortment is from TJH, one of the largest precious metal jewelers in Ireland.
 
We" found" this eclectic group of TJH jewelry that includes Children of Lir jewelry, Claddagh rings, Claddagh earrings, Celtic rings and silver Celtic wedding bands.  We also added some Celtic cross necklaces and a couple of  bracelets with Irish and Celtic symbols.   Some of these items are well stocked or are available for re-order, and some of the other jewelry pieces are retired and limited to stock on hand.  Visit our New Irish Gifts page to see all the "new" TJH jewelry in one spot.
 
One of the new pieces is a Sterling silver, Children of Lir, charm bracelet that features four swan charms; one for each of Lir's children that were cast into a spell according to the Irish legend.  At 15% off, the Children of Lir charm bracelet is our special of the week.
 
If you would like to read the Children of Lir legend click on this link: Children of Lir jewelry.

If you are familiar with www.theirishgifthouse.com you will know that we have long featured Claddagh wedding rings and Celtic wedding bands from the TJH Eternal Celtic Wedding Band collection.  These Celtic wedding rings are great sellers and we will continue to feature them on our site along with adding new product from TJH.

Happy Anniversary to The Irish Gift House!

The month of July marks two anniversaries for The Irish Gift House.  On July 5th we marked 23 years in business, and 3 years ago, on July 27, we transitioned to an all on-line Irish gift store.

Kerry and I, with help from her dad, Rod O'Neal, spent the 1994 Independence Day weekend putting the finishing touches on The Irish Gift House in Tempe, AZ so that we would be ready for the grand opening on July 5th.  We did all the build outs ourselves and felt that we had created a charming representation of Ireland in the middle of the desert.
 

The Irish Gift House - Brick and Mortar

We had a great assortment of Irish gifts, that just like today, focused on Irish jewelry, that included Claddagh rings and Claddagh jewelry, and Celtic jewelry, that included Celtic Crosses and Celtic wedding bands.  All we needed opening day was a few customers.
 
At first our customer base grew slowly and then all of a sudden, the flood gates opened up.  By our first Christmas we knew that we would be around for a long time and Kerry and I were really having fun by our first St. Patrick's day.
 
Over the years we have served multiple generations of customers.  We have sold Claddagh wedding rings to couples, who then bought Claddagh rings for their children, and have now bought Irish gifts for their grandchildren.  We sure made a lot of friends along the way.

With the introduction of traditional Irish food, we found out just how many Irish immigrants had settled in metropolitan Phoenix area.   With their Irish brogues and their friendly Irish demeanor, these Irishmen and Irishwomen added to the Irish atmosphere of our store.

As the years progressed, our store was so crowded with Irish gifts and jewelry that we were concerned the Tempe fire marshal would shut us down.   Except for some narrow passages, every inch of The Irish Gift House was utilized for display.  We had eight jewelry display cases that included seven vertical displays!  Just like today, we had every conceivable Celtic knot necklace and earrings, shamrock jewelry, Claddagh ring, Celtic Cross necklace and Celtic wedding band an Irish heart could desire.  And were we busy, but then came the internet.  We were still just as busy, but in a different way.

Thankfully we had a heavy presence on the internet with our site, theirishgifthouse.com, and our on-line sales of Irish gifts keep growing as the web evolved, but we also noticed that our in store traffic was slowing down.  Internet sales represented about 10% of our sales early on, but by 2012 we noticed that over 60% of our sales were on-line and the trend was growing.  Or brick and mortar store was becoming a glorified warehouse for the internet.  By the time we completed the transition to all on-line sales our store traffic was only 30% of our total sales; the decision to evolve was almost made for us.

Until the next big change in retail, you will find The Irish Gift House on the internet.            


 

The O'Connor Jewelry Heist.

Kerry and I first met the very affable Jim O'Connor in 1995 at Showcase Ireland, the annual Irish trade show.  We had already been selling Irish and Celtic jewelry from his company since opening The Irish Gift House in July of 1994, but it was nice to finally put a face to the name.  O'Connor was our principal Irish jewelry vendor throughout the 90's and on one of his sales visits to us in Arizona, Kerry placed an order of over $90,000.00.  Jim told us it was his largest single order; we sold a lot of O'Connor Jewelry in those days.

 Jewelry form O'Connor sold well, and it should, as it was the then Thomas O'Connor and Sons that opened the Claddagh ring market in the US.  O'Connor became the largest manufacturer of Irish jewelry and was well known in the Irish market as well.  On more than one occasion we had Dublin customers in our store reminisce that "O'Connor's Diamonds" was the place to go for engagement rings.

 

On the surface O'Connor was strong, but the reality was O'Connor was fighting back from one of the largest gold and diamond thefts in European history.   In 1983, O'Connor was victimized by Martin Cahill, The General, when over €2.55 million in gold and diamonds were stolen.

 

Cahill's gang identified a weak point in O'Connor's security system as they forced their way into a boiler room which was not connected to the alarm system.  They waited overnight, and when the staff arrived they pounced and forced them to open the safes.  O'Connor was dramatically under insured and it forced them to reorganize with the loss of over 100 jobs.

The General was gunned down by the IRA in 1994 and  Jim confided that when he heard the news on his car radio he pulled over and "had himself a smile."

In 1998 a movie, The General, was released about the nefarious life of Dublin crime boss, Martin Cahill.  Jim didn't appreciate any notoriety for Cahill and refused when asked if O'Connor Jewelry, the site of the robbery, could be used in the movie.
After the theft, Jim took over his father's business, re-branding it James S. O'Connor Jewelers.  O'Connor produced a quality product, but their market share was eroding mainly due to their long turnaround time.   Not wanting to encourage another thief, O'Connor kept a minimal amount of precious metal, gems and finished product in stock; everything became made to order and the wait times for his jewelry became a two month endeavor.  Unfortunately this practice resulted in many lost sales.   On more than one occasion wedding bands didn't arrive in time for the ceremony.   Naturally, his customers, The Irish Gift House included, gravitated toward other suppliers of Irish jewelry who offered weekly shipments.

    

Sadly Jim passed away around 2005 and O'Connor Jewelry went into liquidation a couple of years later.

O'Connor didn't embrace the internet age and until now we never added our stock of O'Connor Jewelry to our site, www.theirishgifthouse.com.  If you would like to take a look at what is probably the largest collection of O'Connor Jewelry in the world, we have finally published around 100 pieces; see them all in our New Irish Gifts section.