Trade NamesHicken Lighting has had its share of bright and dark days in business, writes Rose Doyle

There's something entirely fitting about what is probably Dublin's oldest lighting providers sitting cheek-by-jowl on the river's side with what is probably Dublin's oldest pub.

Hicken Lighting's dazzling style makes a lively contrast to the Brazen Head's vintage appeal on Lower Bridge Street, Dublin 8, while all around new apartment living and an ever-expanding legal quarter change the once almost medieval mood of their part of the city.

Deirdre Baker, running the company with husband Dermot and son Niall, says it's all a far cry from the way things were when Hicken Lighting set up on Lower Bridge Street in the mid 1950s. "When we opened here it was almost like coming to the suburbs," she's amazed, even thinking about it, "so very far from our base in Wicklow Street. There wasn't much activity around here at the time either, despite the Four Courts being across the river. It's a different story now! Now everyone wants to be here."

Niall, who established a third generation in the business when he joined three years ago, adds that, "this is a city centre premises now".

Mother and son, on a typically busy early morning on the crystal-lit first floor, tell the Hicken Lighting story. Dermot Baker later gives a tour of the manufacturing end of things, filling in the gaps and showing off the designer, hand-crafting origins and strengths of the company. Customers come and go, all of them given unstinting and careful attention.

"We're a family dedicated to good service," Deirdre says and adds, firmly, "family includes staff who've been with us many, many years. Too long to say and too many to name!"

"It started on Clarendon Street," Niall begins their story, "in a building now occupied by Brown Thomas car-park when my grandmother, Grace Baker (nee Burns), started making lampshades in a top room."

Grace had come to Dublin with her widowed mother and brother in the early 1930s. She settled easily into Dublin, meeting and marrying Tom Baker from Stoneybatter (who worked for the department store Pims in nearby South Great George's Street) in 1933.

"She had a love of handcrafts and managed to lease a shop at 10 Wicklow Street which she opened as Handcrafts in 1937," Deirdre explains. "She sold lighting and lampshades as well as what you'd call bric-à-brac. She and Tom ran the business together, expanding the range of merchandise."

In 1936 their son, Dermot, was born and, schooldays at the CUS in Leeson Street over, joined the company. "Tom and Grace ran Wicklow Street through the 1930s and 1940s," Deirdre goes on, "selling crafts brought in mainly from fairs in the UK, a lot of lampshades, pottery lamps, tea sets and such. In the 1950s, after Dermot joined, the business expanded and they bought Lower Bridge Street so as to open a lighting shop. It was a factory for making cane furniture at the time, called Hicken, so well known they kept the name. We're always threatening to change," she gives the idea a second's thought, "only we're so well known as Hicken."

When Tom Baker died in the early 1960s his widow and son carried on the business together, expanding into wholesale business and supplying lighting shops around the country.

"Dermot married in 1969," Deirdre says, laughing, "and his wife joined the business! I was doing a HDip in UCD at the time. I'd done arts in Earlsfort Terrace, and had to move to the new Belfield campus to do the HDip which I didn't like anyway. My family had flower shops so I'd a little business knowledge. We became crystal specialists and sold Waterford Crystal chandeliers, pendant lights, etc."

With very little lighting manufacturing in Ireland in the 1970s Deirdre and Tom Baker began to "import from all over the world, opening up the way to a lot of different styles. Dermot travelled to North Korea, the Philippines, China, so we were able to hugely widen our range throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and open a shore in Dún Laoghaire."

For all their adventuring into new ranges and places, running a business was tough in the 1980s. "In 1982 minister Alan Dukes put 35 per cent Vat on lighting. It didn't last long but the 1980s, all in all, were difficult. We opened eight concession lighting stores in the old Quinnsworth group. We had them in Dublin, Galway, Cork, Dundalk - all around Ireland. They reflected the fact that lighting was something people needed. It wasn't a style or designer decor buy; that came later. As long as lamps and shades weren't coloured people bought them!"

But change was already on the way. "When Tesco took over from Quinnsworth it gradually became difficult to run the concession shops so we went back to running our own shops here and in Wicklow Street, which was by then specialising in lighting, especially crystal, and in Dún Laoghaire."

Through it all Grace Baker was a fundamental part of things. "She was a great lady," her daughter-in-law and grandson agree. "She loved golf, but sacrificed even that to be with her grandchildren and really only retired in her 80s, when she gradually stopped coming in. Lighting is so diverse she always had a little corner of it to work on until the end." Grace Baker died in 1993.

In the 1990s Hicken Lighting "began to really expand. We'd been fortunate enough at the end of the 1970s to acquire premises at the rear, on Augustin Street, which meant we could expand. We refurbished in the mid-1990s and now have two floors; traditional lighting on the ground floor and modern lighting on the second. We closed Wicklow Street a year ago."

And so to the tour with Dermot Baker. A man with a keen design eye, his pleasure as he walks ahead through the busy hub of the manufacturing area is evident.

"We've a certain creative ability," he says, showing a very, very large, many coloured lampshade. "We do bespoke lampshades, concentrate a lot on project lighting for hotels and nightclubs. Lampshades are getting bigger and bigger. It's quite interesting. We use organza, velvet, organdie silk - the inside," he produces a shade with a flocked, wallpaper-like interior, "is as important as the outside. We use a number of designers, design is our forte and taste is growing for the unusual."

Maria Gannon, whipping together a lampshade and with the company 45 years, agrees. So does Thomas Ward, a mere 39 years on the job.

Niall Baker tried banking before he came into the business, got "fed-up after six to seven years, did an MBS and joined the business three years ago to see if I'd like it. I'm still here!"

Crystal lighting will always, he thinks, "be in vogue but has become much more contemporary in design. Table lamps will always be in vogue too, to complement room settings and produce an ambient light. People want to be able to relax in their homes so form and design have become more important than pure functionality."

Sadly, like so many city centre businesses, they're having to consider a move.

"We're in a very old premises," says Niall, "which isn't really conducive to good warehousing. We don't even have room to drive a fork-lift."

Nothing is decided, however, and Hicken Lighting is luckier than most in that it has secure car-parking to the front. Niall looks like being the only one of Dermot and Deirdre Baker's four offspring to go into the business: Cara, their first born daughter, is a doctor; Garret is in the arts; and Leah, the youngest, works abroad.

"Business is good," Niall says. "We're a dedicated lighting shop and good at what we do. We buy from everywhere and change stock all the time. We cater to both the higher end of the market and to the everyday." Deirdre looks around: "We cater to all rooms," she says.