The overnight shuttering of Clerys almost eight years ago, when hundreds of workers were turfed out of their jobs with no warning, shocked the whole country, writes Miriam Lord
While it may have been the end of an era, for the consortium that purchased Clerys, it was nothing personal. Just business.
In fact, it wasn’t really an opening at all. There wasn’t very much to see, but there were upbeat things to say, favourable moods to mould and fresh images to imprint on a public soured by the abrupt and mean-spirited ending of a much loved Dublin institution. On hand, along with an impressive turnout of public relations people, were representatives of the new owners, the man who refurbished the clock and some of the craftspeople who worked on the restoration.
“I fully acknowledge that what happened at the time was handled very poorly. That was the previous owners,” he told us. “We had no involvement with that, we only bought the building in October 2018. We were always very conscious that there was a lot of negativity around it and at the beginning it was our focus to try focus on the positives here.
This caused great delight all round followed by further jollity when the newly gold-leafed minute hand began slowly making its way to the correct spot on the dial. “I wonder will it dong on the quarter hour?” asked an onlooker, but it was too cold to wait to find out.“I came in to see the excitement,” said Mary Rose Moriarty from Stoneybatter, who watched the unveiling from the comfort of the padded seat on her walking aid.
Back inside, John Crowe was getting a lot of attention having barrelled in to see the unveiling after hearing about it on the 6am news. He worked in Clerys for 46 years, starting off as a messenger boy and running errands for the formidable Mrs Guiney who ruled the roost before graduating to the warehouse.
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