KINSALE
★ EIRE ★
“I forgot my mam's birthday. Three years in a row.”
I'm Sarah, and that's a real thing I did. Three years running. The first year was a mistake, the second was carelessness, the third was a wake-up call.
I needed a system. I also wanted to buy something local — every gift I'd grabbed last-minute was from a multinational and felt completely soulless. And was late. So I started a list. I started asking around about makers. I started missing fewer birthdays.
About a year later it was a website. About a year after that, we're hoping it'll be makers across Ireland, a few hundred customers, and a kitchen table covered in tissue paper.
Four things we'll never compromise on
Every product on Siopa is handmade by an Irish maker. No exceptions. No dropshipping. No mass production.
We vet every maker ourselves. If we wouldn't buy it for our own mam, it doesn't go on the site.
The occasion reminder isn't a gimmick — it's the whole point. We started because of a forgotten birthday.
We're not trying to be Amazon. We want to be the nicest small shop on the internet. That's it.
How we got here
The famous forgotten birthday. Three years in a row. The crisis.
The spreadsheet. A list of makers. A plan to buy local.
The first version of the shop — a Google Sheet, essentially.
Sarah's Siopa launches properly. Eighteen makers. Zero fanfare. Loads of tissue paper.
Auto-send goes live. Mam gets flowers without Sarah doing anything.
Growing steadily. Still small. Still loving it.
Meet the makers
Every product on Siopa is made by hand by an Irish maker. Vetted by us, posted with love.
We're friendly humans.
no chatbots here, promise
Questions, press enquiries, maker applications, or just to say hi — email us at hello@sarahssiopa.ie. We read everything and reply to most of it.