Denis Ryan retires after 23 years and his time at the helm has been 'full of highs and lows', writes Peadar Browne

Denis Ryan meets me above Clerys' clock. His bright and spacious corner office commands a panoramic view over one of his confessed passions, O'Connell Street. The chairman and chief executive of Clerys retires today after 23 years with the historic Dublin retailer. Appointed as chief executive in 1992, Mr Ryan has overseen a major overhaul of Clerys that will have cost the company €14 million when finished next year.

"We realised that Clerys was a bit behind the times, so we decided we had to refurbish the store to make it competitive with all the retailers coming in from Britain and abroad and I think we have achieved that," he says.

Along with the refit of the anchor store, in recent years Clerys has added to the 120,000 sq ft at the O'Connell Street store with 30,000 sq ft of retail space between its Leopardstown and Blanchardstown outlets, where the focus is on home furnishings through the "At Home with Clerys" concept. Further expansion is on the agenda.

"Not this year but we see possibilities of expanding the At Home with Clerys concept."

Clerys Group turnover for 2001 was €60 million, up from €45 million the previous year.

"There has been a steady rise over the last three or four years but, because of the refurbishment work, there's always been between 4,000 and 5,000 sq ft out of commission at any one time," Mr Ryan says. "When the work is finished, we'll have all floors operational and I expect turnover will increase further."

Tradition has always been a concept pulling shoppers into Clerys but it has its downside. The chairman once said there was a perception of Clerys as "gloomy and dark" but the refurbishment brought a new slogan: "Rediscover the value of Clerys of Dublin."

Does he believe that shoppers have rediscovered that value? "To a large extent yes, but there are still a lot of people who haven't been in Clerys for a number of years for whom it hasn't. All I can say to them is 'come and see the change'."

The redevelopment of O'Connell Street is causing some inconvenience but Mr Ryan is prepared to suffer the growing pains.

"I think the end result will definitely be good for Clerys. However, we do have to put up with a certain amount of pain in achieving the end result. I'm passionate about the development of O'Connell Street and ultimately I think it'll be great for both Clerys and the citizens of Dublin."

The Clerys chief has been vociferous about developments on the main street, saying in 1998 that there were a lot of developments on O'Connell Street where people did not accept the effect on the street. He considered some of these developments to be a fatal flaw in the City Council's plans. Does he still maintain so today? "What we did advocate to the Corporation, and they accept this, is that if you want to have a main street that the people and the city can be proud of, you have to have some sort of planning controls as to activity in the street. I'm not saying anything about fast food places or the Ann Summers shop; I'd prefer businesses to be there rather than the sites to be vacant."

He has complained in the past about the cumulative effects of public events on O'Connell Street but, at the same time, one of those events is one his abiding memories.

"I do remember the excitement of the Irish soccer team coming home from Italy in 1990 and standing at the window and looking out at them on O'Connell Street. However, I do sympathise with the guards having to control the crowds and I'm not sure I'd like to see it again. I don't think you could repeat it. We'll never come back from our first World Cup again."

During his 23 years at Clerys, Mr Ryan has seen the streetscape undergo dramatic transformations. "I've seen significant changes but probably if I stayed another couple of years I'd see even greater change. What has been most noticeable are the businesses that have left O'Connell Street in that time. You had small shops like Madame Nora, and the Carlton Cinema was operating, and they haven't really been adequately replaced. Competition has grown instead on the outskirts of the city.

"We would prefer to have more competition in O'Connell Street for, at the moment, people only come to this side of the street to shop in Clerys."

Despite his love of cigars, Mr Ryan is a fit and healthy 65 year old - today is his birthday. So why is he retiring? "We have a standard retirement age of 65 and I wouldn't wish to breach that but, equally, I've a young management team and it wouldn't do them any good for me to be staying on. I'm a firm believer that you retire at age 65 because it's very much more difficult to retire at 66 or 67."

Looking back over his career and pointing out a number of highlights, the Clerys boss seems satisfied. "It has been very varied. In my early years we had a major strike, which closed us for 18 weeks, which was very traumatic for the company at the time. That was 1983."

His time at the helm has "been full of highs and lows but they've given me a passion for Clerys and what it stands for".

"I have a motto for Clerys: 'Do the right thing'. We try to do the right thing with our staff and our suppliers; we're not into sharp practices."

Clearly, he believes having the right people around him and treating them well is important. As the most significant contribution he has made to Clerys, he cites getting the agreement of the staff in 1996 that "we were facing major competition. Blanchardstown was about to open, as was the Jervis Centre, and we said if we don't change we won't be able to compete. So probably bringing the recognition that we had to change, that we weren't the same store that we were in the 1950s, was the most significant."

Mr Ryan retires as chief executive of Clerys today but will be staying on as deputy chairman two days per week but without any daily involvement. "I'm going to Australia and New Zealand later in the year for six weeks. I promised my wife Laura that we'd go when I retired." He also hopes to "get back to my tennis, to play more golf and to do a lot of reading".

Will he miss Clerys? "What I will miss is the excitement of Christmas trading," he says. "It's exhausting. We're open every day for November and December and we've the January sale immediately afterwards. You have a fear of disaster too, a snowstorm that keeps everyone away. The adrenalin does flow at that time."