THE strong opening performance on Wall Street allowed the Irish market to push ahead firmly in afternoon trading and to ignore the weakness in London.

Most attention was focused on the two main banks and Smurfit. Irish gilts recouped some of their earlier losses as US treasury bonds opened higher but still closed down a few pence on the day.

On the equity market, there was some sizeable trading in Smurfit over 1.5 million shares dealt in London alone where the share jumped 4 1/2p to 165p sterling - and in Dublin the share closed 4p higher on 167p. Bank shares were also in demand and AIB - boosted by a Riada "buy" recommendation last week - was 5p higher on 418p. Bank of Ireland gained 1 1/2p to 570p.

The recent selling of Clondalkin by Irish Life and especially by AIB Investment Managers has not undermined the share price and Clondalkin was unchanged on 520p. Arnotts suffered a sudden 17p drop in late trading to 355p. Fyffes remained firm after its well received results and gained 1/2p to 117 1/2p but Greencore fell 3p to 375p.

Any concerns about possible industrial action by sales staff was not reflected in the Irish Life share which gained 2p to 276p while Irish Permanent continued its steady rise to successive new highs with a 3p jump to 526p.

Arcon leapt 1 1/2p to 39 1/2p, Green gained 2p to 247p while Heiton also added 2p to 104p. Independent was 5p higher on 325p as was Kerry on 655p.