Paula Lindo – Our histories, stories, present, future.

As former National Calypso Monarch Duane O’Connor celebrates a year of running D Monarchs Pub on Ariapita Avenue, he looks forward confidently to the future.  While he has had some setbacks during the course of the year, he said this has not deterred him.

O’Connor opened the D Monarchs Pub along with his wife because they wanted to fill the void left by the destruction of the Mas Camp Pub in 2017. He said, “The Mas Camp Pub was known for promoting calypso and pan, culture and the arts, 365 days on the Avenue, and that was what I wanted to have here. It’s had good times, like during the Carnival season and the July-August period, those were very up times for me. We’ve had lots of different shows, during Carifesta for instance, and then a lot of young people from across T&T have showcased their talents here, whether it be R&B, hip-hop, pop, reggae, ragga, the art forms of T&T, and I want people to know that Monarchs is not just about calypso, it’s about the art forms of T&T. I opened the kitchen in a big way in April, I have a planned structure where we open from Tuesday to Saturday, we serve lunches everyday from Wednesday to Saturday, we have the best types of lunches here, we cater for meat eaters and non-meat eaters. The food of course was great for me, I had the opportunity of hosting persons here for luncheons, dinners. We had Independence parties, and back-in-time parties for the Easter vacation, so it has been a really nice time at the Monarchs and we can only move from strength to strength.”

O’Connor said his most recent setback was the runaround he got from the National Entrepreneurship Development Company Limited (NEDCO) \in securing a loan to throw a celebration of the first anniversary of running the venue on January 2. He said he applied to NEDCO in September and up to the end of December had not received a disbursement of funds. “I wanted to throw a media event because I hadn’t done that since I opened the venue. I applied for a loan from NEDCO, being the place where you can go to to acquire a small loan for a small businessman, because when I opened this place here, I opened it without a loan but as time goes by I would need things as it’s a restaurant and a bar. I’ve been told multiple times that the cheque is almost ready, that it’s just waiting on a signature. I called numerous times, I had a meeting with the CEO to sort it out, but the loan still hasn’t been disbursed.”

Despite the hours he puts into D Monarchs, O’Connor’s job is as a police officer, with his main focus being community policing, dealing with families and young people. He said, “I’ve been a policeman for almost 11 years, and I’ve been in Police Youth Clubs eight years now. I deal with children and young adults from the ages of five to 29. I did numerous trainings as it relates to youth and child development. We have just about 150 children registered at the Youth Club, and I’m the Youth Club Officer for Patna River Estate Police Youth Club in Diego Martin. I hardly work nights but the day work is heavy. I also get calls from parents and children at all hours if they have problems that need my assistance to fix. It’s challenging to run both aspects of my life, but I try to split my time between both.”

Family is another important aspect of O’Connor’s life that he makes time for. “I don’t open Sundays and Mondays, those days are strictly for family, my wife Donessa and my son Duane Jr. We have a beautiful family relationship, we go on trips together, we spend time together. Sometimes she will come and help me in the kitchen, along with my mother-in-law and my family, so Monarchs is a real family business.”

O’Connor won the Calypso Monarch title in 2012, and he said it totally changed his life. “It taught me a kind of respect for money because I never had that kind of money in my life and it made me think about the future. I still have quite a lot of it that I use as collateral for loans, I’ve paid off my composer and others, and we’re comfortable.  It’s an achievement that I always wanted since I was a child watching Black Stalin prance around the Carib Crown Cork on stage. I still can’t believe sometimes that I won the competition.”    

O’Connor said he has big plans for D Monarchs in the upcoming year. “In 2020, I will be hosting a Calypso Monarch Experience at D Monarchs for the Carnival season, which will be launched on February 1. We’ll also have our usual all-inclusive on Carnival Monday and Tuesday, for no more than 40 or 50 persons. It’s been a bittersweet year at the Monarchs and it’s going to take some time but I’m in it for the long run.”