Shutter to close on specialist camera shop

One of Ireland’s oldest camera shops is to cease trading tomorrow after more than 60 years on Dublin’s O’Connell Street.

Slattery’s was the first specialist photographic shop to open in the city and is one of the last small traders on the capital’s main thoroughfare to shut its doors.

Frustrated proprietor Donal Slattery is leaving after years of disruption from road works, the building of the Spire and the long running dispute over the future of the disused Carlton Cinema site.

It has been lying near derelict for years with a massive retail development planned but showing little sign of movement.

“There’s a development due here on the site and it’s been going on nine years. The only other city that you will find an empty site that large is Basra or Beirut – It’s a bloody scandal,” he said.

A dispute is ongoing over plans to turn the Carlton and adjoining sites into a massive retail complex running from the Ilac Centre through to Moore Street and out on to O’Connell Street.

Slattery’s was well known among photography enthusiasts for not only selling goods but also offering much-needed advice. They sponsored the press photographers’ competition between 1963 and 2001.

The family have been bought out of the lease by Dick Quirke, owner of Quirkey’s Emporium.

The shop closes for business on Saturday evening after 61 years.

Slattery’s follows other much-loved small traders in the capital who have sold up such as Greene’s Book Store on Clare Street and Coyle’s Hat Shop on Aungier Street.

The many fast-food outlets, amusement arcades and lack of improvements on Upper O’Connell Street over the last few decades were also blamed for Slattery’s closure.

“We have suffered here big time the last four or five years. Over the last 30 years or so this place ended up as fast-food joints and amusements,” Mr Slattery said.

“On Upper O’Connell Street if you wanted to get a shirt or shoes you couldn’t, this is part of the problem. People don’t shop on O’Connell Street.”

Donal Slattery, 55, took over the running of the business in 2001 after his brother Dennis retired.

The firm was founded by Peter Slattery, Donal’s late father, in 1936. A pharmacist by profession he opened his first pharmacy in Parnell Street, a second one in Fairview and then opened the photography shop beside the Carlton.