The Phone Box Man puts an urgent call out to our readers

BACK in August we shared the story of a Northside man and his passion for restoring old phone boxes.

Paul Murphy, from Collins Avenue, or ‘Phone Box Man’ as he’s better known, told us how he followed his passion by making a late career change bringing old phone boxes back to life.

His passion for restoration led him to start a business in the middle of lockdown.

Since restoring his first phone box four years ago he’s restored five vintage phone boxes and started up his own business in antique restoration and interiors, under the name of Phone Box Man.

Paul got in touch with us last week about a very special event he’s involved with.

“We are organising a fundraising event for Pieta House,” he told Northside People.

“We ran a competition on Instagram to see which of the two steel miniature phone boxes we painted is the best.

Sarah’s phone box which was runner up

“The competition was organised by Keith Butler from Butler and Dunne who challenged my daughter Sarah and myself to each paint a miniature phone box for the title of Best Phone Box Ever!

“We are now going to auction off my phone box on December 9.

Paul’s winning phone box which is set to go under the hammer

“As well as Keith, we also want to thank Churchtown Steel Engineering, Castle Paints Tullamore and Two Fussy Blokes for making this all possible.

“It was such an amazing opportunity to paint something so unique and for a great cause too.

“Now we need your readers help to spread the word about the auction by Victor Mee Auctions on December 9.

“We need as many people involved in this auction in order to get as much money as possible for Pieta House.”

Commenting on his auction house’s involvement in the charity initiative, auctioneer Victor Mee said:

“Paul has been a good client of ours for many years, so we were extremely honoured when he came to us with this charity project.

“Pieta House is a very worthy cause and carries out work that is very close to the hearts of the team at Victor Mee Auctions, so we couldn’t be more pleased to support Paul, Sarah and Pieta House in auctioning Paul’s winning phonebox on 9^th December.

“We are very much looking forward to seeing how the phone box performs at auction.”

Pieta House provides free therapy to those engaging in self-harm, with suicidal ideation, or bereaved by suicide.

Pieta first opened its doors in Lucan, County Dublin in 2006 and since then has seen and helped over 58,000 people.

The extraordinary charity now operates fifteen centres and five outreach service across Ireland.