THE HEADQUARTERS of the Irish Club in London, which dates back to 1950 when it was first housed with the help of King George VI, is to be closed and sold.
The decision comes after the club’s 700 members were told that it has £2 million (€2.36 million) worth of debts and is insolvent.
The club had been based in Eaton Square in Belgravia until 2003, when it sold its leasehold rights back to the Duke of Westminster for £5 million, paid off an outstanding loan of £1.25 million and later bought a freehold building in Tudor Street in Blackfriars for £3.7 million.
Nearly £1 million was spent on refurbishing its new home, but the club has struggled since it reopened in 2009 – partly because of the difficulty in attracting new members and also because the nearby Blackfriars London Underground station has been closed for a two-year renovation.
A winding-up petition from one of the club’s creditors is to be heard on March 9th. This week, the club’s directors recommended to the membership – 400 of whom are life members and pay no annual fees – that the building should be closed and sold.
However, the club is not to become extinct, since the directors now intend to investigate “starting in a smaller building or maybe not having a building at all”, one of the directors, Larry Clancy told The Irish Times.
Last night, the club’s chairman, Damian Connelly, said Tudor Street had struggled with cash-flow “from day one, due to the fact that it was purchased and renovated at the very peak of the London property boom, which was swiftly followed by the economic downturn”.
The appointment of an insolvency practitioner will take place on March 9th, while the building will be put on the market shortly afterwards. It will remain open in the meantime.