FROM THE ARCHIVES:McBirney's was a well-known Dublin landmark by the Liffey for decades until its closure in 1984. Mary Cummins met its last manager who was writing a book about it.
IN 1945, at the age of 14, Eamon Francis joined the staff of McBirney’s department store on Aston Quay in Dublin and received a weekly wage of £1 5s. 6d. After paying £1 to his mother and laying out 2d for each bus trip to town, he was left with 3s 6d.
He moved into window- dressing, then into sales, advertising and promotions – “In fact, I did the whole caboodle” – until he was made general manager in 1976.
Mr Francis, now 53, started writing a book, “Forty Paces, Forty Years,” about the famous store after it finally closed down last February and gave a read of it at the weekend at a hotel in Howth for some 10 people, all middle-management members of the store.
“Down the years I had kept notes and files – you had to in the job – and they were invaluable. And it was a very friendly type of place to work in. You would know all the staff and would know everything that was going on . . .
“In essence, it is the story of a small group of long-serving employees, their affection for a dilapidated, broken-down old department store, and their efforts over many years to keep it alive.”
People came to McBirney’s for the service, Mr Francis maintains, and they got it. “There was a hard core of customers who always came. They knew the staff by their Christian names, and if we had a ‘do’ on some of our oldest customers were always invited.
“It was the only house in town where customers could come in if they had left their chequebooks at home and get £100 cash to see them through. And we would store furniture for people who were moving house or in difficulties. We didn’t charge because we had loads of empty space. And the favours were always returned.”
In many ways it was a 19th- century institution, Mr Francis said wistfully, and when the British Wintrust Bank took it over in 1970 they were charmed with its old-world air, its panelling and magnificent staircase. But it didn’t make modern money sense, so when the PMPA took it over in 1977 many changes were made, including removing the panelling and the staircase.
“It seemed vandalistic,” but the changes were regarded as necessary if the store was to remain viable. He is full of praise for Mr Joe Moore and PMPA, who laboured in vain to breathe new life and resources into the management of the shop.
In the event it didn’t help.
“The economics of it would beat you down. We figured that the days of the one-store operation were over. Clerys is now the only one left. All the others have branches in the suburbs and the country. And they make economic sense because your advertising and administration costs are much the same, and you have the added advantage of being able to buy more cheaply, in bulk, when you have several outlets.”