Time runs out in the shadow of Clery’s famous old clock

World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com

The closure of Clery’s Department story last Friday was brutal; the manner in which the workers were informed, told to gather their personal belongings and then shown the door was callous and clinical and just awful.

And the reaction to it has been a little odd to watch. Those who immediately reacted in the political sphere were those who had fingers closes to the pulse – local politicians like Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald and Labour’s Joe Costello, with Fianna Fáil’s Dara Calleary the first of the national spokespeople on jobs to protest.

“The workers were given just 30 minutes notice that the store was to close and they were to lose their jobs. This is an appalling way to treat workers, some of whom had been working at Clery’s for many decades,” said Costello.

It took Fine Gael a few days to get its act together. The party tends to be a bit more cold-blooded about job losses than other parties.

It does hold the Job and Enterprise portfolio in Government and its Minister Richard Bruton is an economist. He probably has the view that in any functioning economy – even one that is doing relatively well – such eventualities are inevitable.

In the past, Bruton’s bedside manner has been a little wanting when crippling job losses have been announced. He’s just not great at it – maybe it’s not in his manner.

Like his colleagues in Fine Gael, it took him a while to react. At least this time, his language was correct – railing at the cruel and inappropriate manner of the closure.

It’s a very sad day for Dublin and the rest of the country to see an institution, which has been at heart of Irish life for a century and a half, go under like that. It’s not just the tradition of meeting under Clery’s clock. It is the grand department store which acted as a magnet for generations.

It goes to prove the old adage that nothing in this life is certain other than death and taxes. Time moves on and the habits of people change.

Clery’s grew up in a period where instant transport options were not available and out-of-town retail centres didn’t exist. Those changes were inevitably going to affect its business and they did.

In the past three decades, the profile O’Connell Street has changed from being primarily a shopping street. Like Arnott’s (which also had its problems) and Brown Thomas Clery’s was forced to change its model.

What was interesting was that only 130 of the 460 jobs in the store were actually Clery’s staff. The rest were employed by the clothing and goods companies who had concessions to sell their brands in the store.

There were difficulties too with access. Unlike Arnott’s and Brown Thomas, Clery’s did not have its own dedicated car park.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.