McElhinney Fashions closes doors

McELHINNEY FASHIONS in Athboy, a landmark in Irish retailing, has closed 10 days before a winding-up petition against it was due to be held in the High Court.

The Co Meath store was opened in 1937 by Molly McElhinney and in its heyday attracted generations of people from all over Ireland shopping for special occasions, particularly communions, confirmations and weddings.

The 56 part-time and full-time staff were told last Friday and the shop closed its doors on Saturday evening for the last time.

Current owner Neal Sweeney, a grandson of the founder, said the family were “devastated” by the closure and blamed the banks for not lending them the money to get through the recession.

Mr Sweeney said the shop had managed to survive the second World War and the depressions of the 1950s and 1980s, but the downturn since 2008 has been the worst they experienced.

“We tried everything to pull it out of the fire. We had trading difficulties for 18 months, but we said we would have a good shot of it with a new slimline business. But we couldn’t trade out of it without bank financing. It just became impossible. We deal with the three main banks and none of them would fund us at for the last 12 months,” he explained.

The last accounts for McElhinneys Department Stores Limited for the year ending January 31st 2008 indicated they made a loss of €433,303 in the previous year, having made a profit of €50,416 in 2006.

The company was the subject of a winding-up order by German shoe-supplier Peter Kaiser Schuhfabrik, which is due to be heard in the High Court next week.

Mr Sweeney said they had anticipated a 20 to 25 per cent downturn during the height of the recession. But the reality was 50 per cent for last year and 55 per cent so far this year.

He acknowledged that, had he known the scale of the anticipated downturn, he would have done “serious surgery” to slim down the business rather than let just eight staff go in 2008.

However, he pointed to the fact that the company was unable to continue even with staff costs a third of what they were in 2008.

McElhinneys for Men in Athboy is still trading normally and is not the same company.