Large sizes are Arran Quay shoe shop's speciality

Trade Names From boot-making to a drapery and on to bargain basement shoes and now large-sized footwear, Heather's Shoes has adapted to the times and secured its future, writes Rose Doyle

There's a well-worn path along Dublin's Arran Quay, one beaten by a bargain-hunting shoe-buying public for upwards of 100 years now. Heather's Shoes, 8 Arran Quay, has unarguably shod more feet than any shoe shop in the city and, these days, is the place to go for shoes for larger-sized male feet.

Heather's used be at the other corner of Arran Quay, housed in numbers 15-17 until progress, and the inevitable apartment building, moved them along. So ubiquitous had been its presence, and for so long, that no one really noticed when it changed corners. I didn't, and my school shoes came from Heather's. The name, Heather's Shoes, large on a corner on Arran Quay, was all the reassurance anyone wanted that some things, at least, stay the same.

David Heather runs things these days. Demand for large sizes is huge, and some of their customers are pretty big too. Compact and light-filled on its Liffeyside corner, number eight has customers who need to incline their heads coming through its 7ft door. "Some of our lads are six foot six and more," says David.

The business began, he says, "in the late 1800s when the Heathers, who were Quakers, came here from either Scotland or the north of England. Family views are divided about where they came from.

"They opened a boot-making factory near the Brazen Head, and got a contract to make boots for the army. Charles Heather, in time, opened a general drapers at 15-16 Arran Quay. Number 17 was added later. His brother, whose name was either John or George, went on running the factory and supplied the shop with boots."

There's a picture, taken in 1929, of a prosperous looking Charles Heather & Sons, staff of 13 lined beaming outside. Most lived over the shop, and so did the family.

An account ledger for the same year gives annual figures: the sale of readymades brought in £1,387. 11s.11d. Mantles made £1,337.8s.9d. for the year and millinery, proving the popularity of headwear, £3,067.8s.2d. Calico was much in use, too, bringing in £5,244.10s.3d and Boots, always a staple, made £3,346.8s.3d. Laces for said boots brought in £513.18s.9d. Together with hosiery and dresses Messrs C J Heather & Sons Ltd had sales for 1929 totalling £19,672.17s.6d. Their accountants, William C Robbeck & Co of Foster Place, charged £50 in "professional fees".

Charles Heather died in the 1930s, leaving his widow to look after their six sons, one of whom, (Edward/Ted), became David Heather's father. "My father's mother was only ever known as Mrs H," David says, "and was reputed to be hard as nails. The fellows from the factory hated coming to her with boots, she drove such a hard bargain. But the times were hard, there were few women in business and she'd six sons to rear."

Another sign of the times was the ostracising of one of those sons. "He married a Catholic and that seems to have been it," David says, "he just never figured in things. He worked as an engineer in CIÉ and I remember my father bringing me onto a steam train to meet him in later years. The other five sons stayed involved in the business.

Mrs H died in the 1950s, by which time there was just my father and another brother, Thomas Henry, involved in things. They divided the business. My father kept 17 Arran Quay, which had evolved from a drapery into a shoe shop, and my uncle kept a shop they'd opened in Charlemont Street."

As well as David, their last born, Ted and Catherine Heather were parents to Douglas, Graham and Adel. Ted had a series of strokes in the mid-1960s, when David was about 10 and Graham, 11 years older than David, moved into the business. David came in regularly to help and, when he was 16, left school and joined Graham in the shop.

"We lived in Clontarf by then and I went to Mountjoy School, now Mount Temple and made famous by U2," he says. "My parents lived over the shop when they were first married, with Douglas and Adel. The Clontarf house sold for €1.6 million a year ago; it was bought for about £1,700 in the 1940s."

Ted Heather, even with health problems and his speech affected, couldn't keep away from the shop. "His vocabulary was reduced to Jesus, feck and a few other words," David grins. "So when anyone brought back shoes, as they used to then, we sent them to him and his five-word vocabulary. In those years people would buy shoes for a wedding or such, wear them for a weekend and bring them back to swap for kids shoes or something. Times were really tough."

Graham Heather began buying factory seconds in the 1960s and Heather's enduring fame as the place for bargain shoes was established.

"Things took off big time," David says. "There were so many shoe factories then: the Edenderry Shoe Co, Dubarry Shoes Galway, Tough Shoes Killarney, Tralee Footwear, Rawsons Dundalk and many, many more. We began buying direct from factories, like George Webb in England, which allowed us even more scope. In the mid-1970s we opened a shop on the Malahide Road."

David Heather, then 18 years old, ran the Arran Quay shop while Graham concentrated on developing Malahide Road. Things went well for a while but, with business, as life, unpredictable, the business was split in 1990 and David, now its owner, began developing Arran Quay. The large size shoe sales came about by accident.

"I went to a clearance sale in Sligo in the early 1990s," David explains. "Things weren't good in Ireland at the time and they were selling off big sizes. Worried I might not sell them, I used the last of a series of personal notices I was running in The Irish Times to advertise and was inundated with fellas looking for big sizes! So it started - there was no business brainwave or anything, just a fluke!"

It's harder to get large women's sizes, which he laments. "There are big sizes for women of 30 years or so but none for teenagers. Girls who take nine or 10 want something fashionable, the shoes their friends are wearing. We've more or less thrown our hats at women's large shoes, they're so hard to get."

Heather's moved to 8 Arran Quay in 1994.

"They were building apartments on the other corner and I got a direct swap, one corner for another. The other building was in disrepair so it was fortuitous. It doesn't feel any different, being here. Years ago, coincidentally, this place used to be a drapery."

He admits to needing a bigger building, says the ceilings are too low to extend downstairs. He sells smaller sizes, too, but big sizes are a speciality.

"In other shops people get one large-sized pair of shoes to look at, here we can show them 20 pairs. We've trainers, leather shoes, huge numbers of work boots. We sell to Polish and Lithuanian workers, a lot of them are very big lads! I've every brand name and big size I can get my hands on. There's a huge amount of travelling involved and I get a lot of info from the internet. When foreign people come in with large sizes on I take the brand name and get those in too. It's tough going. Sometimes I love it and sometimes, like everything else, I don't!"

Customers come from the UK, a regular comes from Belgium. The late Brian Lenihan TD bought his shoes in Heathers, and so too have the Andrews brothers, David and Niall.

Heathers employs a full-time staffer in Edmond Denner and part-timers in Gwen Neilson and Anna Redmond.

David and his wife, Denise, have two sons, Mark and Stephen. Denis works in Arran Quay part-time but Mark and Stephen have gone for other futures.

David is philosophical. "I'm hoping to retire sometime," he says, "and the question then will be whether Heather's continues or not."

Whatever the outcome Heather's has done the city some service, and David Heather knows it.