Historic Clerys Should Be Redeveloped With Great Consideration

Siptu Appeal Over Clerys Redevelopment

The department store closed in June 2015 after 162 years in business

Ireland’s largest trade union has challenged a decision to grant planning permission for a major new development on the site of the former Clerys department store in Dublin.

In a rare intervention into a planning issue, Siptu has lodged an appeal with An Bord Pleanala against Dublin city council’s approval of a €150 million mixed redevelopment of the landmark O’Connell street building.

In its submission, written by Ethel Buckley, a division organiser, Siptu said the union was concerned at the loss of retail jobs on the site. It also said it was concerned about the lack of analysis on the architectural effect the redevelopment would have on the GPO and the surrounding area, which it said was of historic significance.

The department store, with its famous clock, closed in June 2015 after 162 years in business. Some 460 jobs were lost following a controversial change in ownership, with 130 directly employed by Clerys and a further 330 employed by concessions that operated in the store.

There was public outcry after staff were paid only the statutory redundancy of two weeks’ pay per year of service. The €2.5 million cost of the redundancies was paid by the state.

OCS Properties, the new owners of the Clerys building, plan to convert the protected structure into a six-storey retail and office scheme to include a 176-bedroom hotel, restaurants, bars and shops as well as a top floor “destination area” with a glass roof and terraced dining area. The 32,500 sq m redevelopment, known as Project D1, is expected to create 3,900 jobs, of which 1,400 will be permanent.

OCS has said the mix of uses had been carefully considered with the intention to provide a new urban quarter which can assist with the regeneration of O’Connell street and the city. The company also said the retention of the basement, ground and first floor of the old Clerys building for retail use is appropriate for ensuring it makes a significant contribution to the overall success of the proposed redevelopment.

In its appeal Siptu has called for an oral public hearing over concerns that the plans contain excessive provision for offices to the detriment of retail space.

“Siptu wishes to see the Clerys site given its cultural, social and economic importance to be developed to the highest international quality while providing fair and sustainable working conditions for those that work there both during the development phase and the operational phase of its life cycle,” Ms Buckley said.

“The Clerys site has the same importance to the trade union movement as the GPO/Moore Street has to the establishment of the modern Irish state. This has been recognised by the state itself in the erection of the Larkin monument adjacent to the Clerys site on the monument spine of O’Connell street,” she added.

Ms Buckley said the union’s concerns about the architectural effect that the redevelopment would have on the GPO and surrounding area was based on the fact that O’Connell Street has special planning controls because of its historic significance.

Siptu has also questioned the suitability of O’Connell Street for large office space given the current volume of planning applications for office development in the city centre and docklands area.

In addition, the union is seeking a condition of the planning permission which requires OCS to maximise the opportunity of employing local people during construction to also be extended to its operational phase.

An Bord Pleanala is scheduled to issue its ruling in the case by May 18.

Ten fascinating facts about Clerys

1. Larkin spoke from the balcony

James Larkin, whose statue stands outside the shop, was arrested in 1913 as he spoke to a crowd from one of the building’s balconies.

2. It was a hotel in 1916

The history of Clerys dates back to May 1853, when McSwiney, Delany and Co opened the “Palatial Mart” or “New Mart”, writes Joseph EA Connell in his new book Dublin Rising 1916. “Housed in a purpose-built building, the department store was designed to eclipse European outlets of the time. The shop was renamed 30 years later when it was taken over by Michael J Clery of Limerick. From 1883 to the present day, “Clery and Co” has hung over the doors.” In 1916 the building included the Imperial Hotel, located over the department store.

3. Its windows melted during the Rising

During the 1916 Rising it was one of the first buildings to be set on fire, according to Connell, and was “completely destroyed”. “I had the extraordinary experience of seeing the plate-glass windows of Clerys run molten into the channel from the terrific heat’, Oscar Traynor wrote.

4. It wasn’t always on O’Connell Street

Following the destruction of the building in the Rising, the business moved to a Lower Abbey Street warehouse for six years. In August 1922, it reopened on Lower O’Connell Street.

5. It’s in Ulysses

Gerty MacDowell, a character in James Joyce’s Ulysses, bought her “slightly shopsoiled” ribbon in Clerys. 

6. The Guiney’s bought it in 1941

Denis Guiney, a Kerryman who ran the eponymous drapery around the corner on Talbot Street, bought Clerys out of receivership in 1941 for £250,000. At that time, Guiney’s had the bigger turnover but, despite the challenge of mid-century austerity, Guiney made a success of Clerys by pitching it as an affordable and dependable supplier of garments for both the Dublin middle classes and their country cousins. Guiney died in 1967, though his widow Mary remained chairwoman of Clery Co (1941) Plc until her death, aged 103, in 2004.

7. House of love

Clerys became a site of blossoming love and romance. Its website states: “The scene of many a romantic evening, the ballroom at Clerys saw dances hosted every night of the week with a full-time orchestra. The romance spread and it wasn’t long before gentlemen would ask their ladies to meet them ‘under the Clerys clock’. The phrase soon became equally, if not more, famous than the store itself, and meeting under the Clerys clock cemented the store as an institutional part of Dublin culture.”

8. The bomber of Nelson’s Pillar dropped in for some last-minute supplies

"The first attempt was on the last day of February but the bomb didn't go off,” Liam Sutcliffe told Kitty Holland in 2003. “So I had to go up on March 1st and remove it. I went into Clerys, bought a nail clippers and stripped it. I had a week then to drop it back. I went back on March 7th, had electrics in a briefcase. I connected everything up and placed it in an aperture that looked up Henry Street.”

9. It wasn’t always the same clock

In 1990, on the 50th anniversary of Denis Guiney taking over the store, a new clock was installed.

10. It was the subject of the first Irish gay love song

In 1988 musician Philip Chevron of The Radiators wrote about the Dublin landmark where courting couples met. Chevron – “in the first real Irish gay love song” – sang about meeting his boyfriend (“All I want to do is embrace by the street lights like other lovers do without disgrace”)  in what was perhaps his best ever vocal delivery.

Clerys Dublin 1932 Movie from the archives

Spot your Grand Parents in this amazing promotional movie inside Clerys in 1932. Taken before the first floor was covered over to create more retail space. This historic video was taken only 10 years after the rebuilding of Clerys which was destroyed in the 1916 rising. Clerys is home to the first purpose built Department Store in the world. When it was completed in 1853 the New Mart aka McSweeney Delaney & Co was widely reported to exceed anything in Paris, London or New York.