‘McElhinney’s was always beautiful - it reminded me of being a child at Christmas’

Looking back, Sandra Devenney always remembers looking up.

A dreamer at heart, Sandra remembers the stars in the sky. Planes whizzing past. The lights.

Having grown up in Ballycolman, Strabane, Sandra’s mother, Marie, is from Lifford and her father, Patsy, is a native of Castlefin. They’re Donegal people through and through, despite living just across the border.

Casting her mind back to her childhood, Sandra reveals her school reports described her as a ‘lovely and well-mannered’ girl who did ‘nothing but chat’, and so it’s no surprise that from a young age, she saw herself working in an industry where dealing with people would be at the forefront.

At just 17, Sandra set her sights on the sky and applied for a job working in the airlines.

After being fast-tracked after impressing in interviews and missing her flight home, Sandra was offered a job with Monarch, a charter and scheduled airline based in Gatwick, which flew all over the world.

Around this time, Sandra had begun dating her future husband, Jason. They made long-distance work before he joined her in England, and they have now been happily married for 26 years.

Life is never without its struggles, however, and Sandra and her husband faced unimaginable hardship when they lost a baby boy who had a rare form of Down Syndrome when Sandra was 26 weeks pregnant.

“I still think about him every day,” Sandra says. “We have two children now, Louis and Lily, whom we love dearly.”

In the years that followed, the family decided to move back home and set their sights on a new career path - in property.

What started as one rental property soon became 25, in locations across the north, all of which Sandra managed.

All was well until a gut instinct saved Sandra from investing in property in Spain just before the financial crash.

“That was only the start of it,” she says.

After facing issues with some properties and the banks refusing a mortgage deferral request, as many experienced in the late 2000s, the business went bankrupt.

Not overly religious but certainly spiritual, Sandra visited the late Francis Lagan, Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of Derry, who had helped her when she lost her baby.

After confessing her fears to him over potentially losing their home and having to carry her children’s teddies down the driveway, Sandra shared the words of wisdom Bishop Lagan gave her.

“He said: ‘What’s the worst that can happen? Sandra, that house isn’t their home - you are.’ That sentence changed everything for me,” she revealed.

“We realised simple things are most important,” Sandra says.

Not letting the difficulty of losing a business keep them down, the family settled in Lifford, with Sandra returning to her career in airlines, this time for EasyJet in Belfast.

But fate had different plans for Sandra, and the following Christmas, the stars aligned for her once more when she took a temporary role in the Cosmetics department at McElhinney's Department Store over the festive season. It was here that she discovered her passion for retail.

“McElhinneys was always this beautiful shop - reminding me of being a child at Christmas,” Sandra says.

In the new year, Sandra started working for Benefit Cosmetics and quickly climbed the ranks to Business Development Manager, serving the Republic of Ireland and working across 50 stores.

“One night, I was in a hotel seeing children scampering to the pool, having fun, and I cried,” she recalls. “I was living on the road, away from my family. I opened the laptop one night in Cork, barely fit to keep my eyes open, and saw a sales manager vacancy at McElhinneys.”

Sandra got the job and six months later, she was promoted to the senior team, working alongside John McElhinney, the founder and CEO of McElhinneys.

“I was knocking on John’s door, suggesting I’d stay on the floor,” she says. “But John said he needed me. With the 50th anniversary approaching, he wanted me to help future-proof McElhinney’s for the next 50.”

“Everything changed. John wasn’t going to let me down. I wasn’t going to let him down. We were going to bring in talent, harness and develop people on a Leadership Programme. Forty people applied in that first year.”

After years of growing her career at McElhinneys, everything changed for Sandra again when the pandemic began in March 2020 and the shutters came down on the store.

“This is actually happening,” Sandra thought at home. “I rang John and offered to work for free. We had to save the business. Families and employees needed this.”

Despite the doors being closed in McElhinneys, work never ceased inside the store with staff working tirelessly to get orders out, even going so far as to work in near darkness to keep costs down, wearing hard hats and carrying torches.

“The phone never stopped,” Sandra recalls.

With the growing demand online and over the phone, the business had to continue engaging with its audience and customers, and they discovered a unique way to do it - via social media.

“With no marketing as such and lots of stock, we decided to do videos for social media,” Sandra says.

“It needed to be catchy, so we decided to showcase five products at five o'clock. The store was in darkness, bar one corner.”

“It took off. Likes on Facebook. Lovely comments. Everything we posted started to sell out,” she says, and just like that, Sandra’s 5@5 was born.

At this point, Sandra also took on a new challenge within the business, the role of General Manager, as well as spearheading the leadership team and continuing to work closely with John.

Following the success of Sandra’s 5@5 videos, a private group was established, and the group has flourished into a social media community of fashion, beauty, female empowerment, wellness and positivity. 

Over 22,000 members, countless in-person gatherings, and virtual live shopping experiences later, the 5@5 is a major part of McElhinneys and Sandra’s own legacy within the business.

McElhinneys now has over 215,000 followers on Facebook, is well-established in the online retail and social media space, and its staff confidently stand in front of the camera on a daily basis.

“We believe in our talent,” Sandra adds. “We didn’t need outside influencers.” 

McElhinneys is well known around the world, with over 200 staff - many of whom have risen through the ranks internally - the business has continued to thrive in uncertain times in the retail industry.

“Customers deserve extra,” Sandra says. “Staff aren’t numbers, they are people. So culture is important. John is the hardest worker, the most creative person, and so respectful. I’ve never met anyone like him.” 

“If staff are treated well, they treat customers well. With McElhinney’s DNA, we’re all a family.” 

Sandra’s advice to those looking to follow in her footsteps is all about believing in yourself and working for what you want out of life.

“Don’t be frightened to take risks, be your true self and work as hard as you can,” she says.

“That little girl looking up at the sky all those years ago was a dreamer. She still is. Things didn’t always work out, but they made me who I am, and they will make you who you are.”