Liberties optician's shop that's never looked back

Trade Names: John F Gilna opticians on Thomas Street has kept a close eye on its clientele since the 1950s, writes Rose Doyle…

Trade Names: John F Gilna opticians on Thomas Street has kept a close eye on its clientele since the 1950s, writes Rose Doyle

Thomas Street, the throbbing, main artery of the heart of old Dublin, has a way of extracting a passionate loyalty from those who spend time there.

Terence Scully and Kevin Prendergast are newly arrived. Not yet two years running the long-time Thomas Street opticians they took over in August 2004, both are already a deeply appreciative part of the street.

"It's like a town in itself," Kevin says, "and I love it around here. The people are salt-of-the-earth, great." Terence agrees, hailing the special and abundant character all around. It's not even as if they had ties in the area - both are dyed-in-the-wool Corkonians.

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Then there's Greg Gilna whose whole life, until that August, was tied to Thomas Street, 20 years of it running the family optician business. He loved his time there. So did his mother and father.

Greg Gilna's father, John Francis, felt the call of Thomas Street in 1951. He moved there from a practice in Ballybough and, with his pharmacist wife Joan (nee Carty, from Rathkenny, Co Meath), set up what would become a landmark opticians at 31 Thomas Street.

Greg tells his father's story and, en route, that of the last half century of life on Thomas Street.

"He was one of six sons brought to Dublin by a great-uncle in the RIC when their father died. A seventh son stayed on the farm in Longford.

"The uncle, a tough man, sent them to O'Connell schools to be educated. My father worked in a pharmacy and studied optometry in Kevin Street at night. That was the way you did it in those days, things weren't regulated until the Opticians Act came in in 1956."

When he made his move, John F Gilna, optician, opened simultaneously in George's Street Dún Laoghaire and in 31 Thomas Street. He very soon closed in Dún Laoghaire to concentrate on Thomas Street where he immediately did well. Huge among his customers were workers in the nearby Guinness brewery and seamstresses from the local rag trade.

"We were guaranteed to have two-three seamstresses for eye testing every Friday, when they got off early," Greg says. "It was the equivalent of call centre workers today, who have their eyes on screens all day long. It's visually hard work.

"When we moved in, there were two families living over the shop, which had been a dairy shop. Woolworths used be where the Labour Exchange is now. But the building was unsafe. It was lifting and buckling and was condemned in the late 1950s, knocked down and rebuilt in 1964. Since then a lot of the buildings around have got preservation orders."

John Gilna, with a family to rear while the rebuilding went on, worked out of the third floor of the next door Fitzgerald clothes shop. "It used be the denim shop on the southside," Greg says. "It was old style and, next to O'Connors, sold more jeans over the counter than anywhere else in town. Old Mr Fitzgerald was a great character. At Christmastime he would dress up as Santa and get up on the roof and throw down tights and what not. The street down below would be full of people."

The street was always full of people, busy and lively even when times were depressed. "There were far more street traders then," Greg says, "and there was the Liberty Market and Bull Ring on Meath Street. The Taylor's Hall and Murphys in High Street were landmarks. Having a new pub, when Mother Redcaps opened in the 1980s, was big news."

Business, for an optician, was good, "even though the area was depressed. Thomas Street was an area in waiting, still is in many ways with Frawleys still the lynch-pin. There's a lot of fractured and family ownership of buildings in the street, so no one developer can go in and buy it up. My own view is that Thomas Street has a serious role to play as an alternative retail area."

John Francis Gilna died 26 years ago, in 1980. Joan Gilna ran the business until Greg, the second youngest of their five children, took over in 1985 when he qualified as an ophthalmic optician.

"I'd switched from business studies in TCD to optometry and never looked back," he says. "I love it. I loved my 20 years working in Thomas Street, the wonderful things about the area, places like the Augustinian church on John's Lane, a great part of the area. Leaving the street was a lifestyle decision. I wanted to get out while I was still young enough to establish a smaller place in the west of Ireland and educate my kids in a smaller school, get away from the streaming prevalent in south Dublin schools."

That decision has brought him to Lahinch, Co Clare, where he has a "two-minute commute to work and life is much sweeter. I took the opportunity to sell with things on the way up in Thomas Street, get away from the pressurised volume of business and pace."

Which was when the affable Cork duo of Terence Scully, dispensing optician, and Kevin Prendergast, retail manager, came into things. Both knew the business before buying into Thomas Street.

"We'd worked for 12 years in Spec Xpress; I was in Bray and Terence in Liffey Street. We tried for a management buy-out but that wasn't happening. When we heard this place was for sale we jumped at it. There's a great buzz around here; the banter is great but we're well able for them."

The fact that they've both married Dublin women is, they agree, a help. "It was a great idea buying here," Terence confirms. "We're rebranding the logo which will remain Gilna, of course. It's more a question of developing the brand name at this stage."

We do a tour of shop and building. Very little has changed since the 1964 rebuilding, even to the all-over carpeting, heavy wool and good-as-new looking, and the timber panelling.

"We're keeping the old-world style," Terence says. "Customers like it this way."

They "wouldn't dream" of changing things, Kevin says. "We did have to get rid of some older equipment when it looked like it was used for slicing ham. It was cast-iron, a dead weight that nearly killed the fellas trying to get it out of here."

A piece of older equipment remains in a rear, round floor room so that those who can't make it upstairs can have their eyes tested there.

They do a big repeat business, and a call-out service for older people. They test eyes, dispense glasses and contact lenses - even prepare specs in about 10 minutes while the customer waits.

"When we remind people they're due for a test, they're in the door immediately," Terence says. "We get customers from all over the country - Mayo, Kilkenny, Waterford. A lot would have worked in Guinness and moved away but come back."

There are customers, too, who followed the new owners from Liffey Street and Bray.

"When people trust you they don't want to go elsewhere," Kevin says. "We tend to spend time with people, make it personal, one-to-one."

They've got some long-standing staff, too, among them receptionist Margaret Staveley, 20 years with Gilna, as well as a relative newcomer, optician Austin McEvoy on board for the last five years.

Agreeing with Greg Gilna, neither Terence Scully nor Kevin Prendergast believe Thomas Street should go the way of the rest of the city and become apartment dominated. They don't believe either that the NCAD (National College of Art and Design), another of the street's lynch-pins, should be moved. "It's part of the community," they're adamant, "it belongs here."

The Gilna brand name will be seen in June in Custom House Square in the IFSC when they open a new branch there. "That'll be more of a high fashion outlet," Kevin says.

Gilna's of Thomas Street is on the move, while staying rooted.