Dunnes’ first store in spectacular €30m revamp

WHEN Dunnes Stores opened its first store in Cork, World War II was being fought, Winston Churchill was preparing for D-Day, and food, clothing, petrol and nylons werebeing rationed. That was March 31, 1944.

Now 65 years on, Dunnes has 20,000 employees, 145 stores, and today will re-open its fledgling Irish shop after a €30 million-plus revamp. It has been done in the depth of a new emergency, money is tight, petrol is precious – and nylons are 10 a penny (well, €1.50 a pair in Dunnes).

The new store on Patrick’s Street has wide internal travelators to ferry shoppers around its four-storeys and 100,000sq ft of shopping, all the way up from the 22,000sq ft basement food hall, along miles of freshly stocked aisles to the top floor cafe.

The flagship store at 102 to 105 St Patrick Street will have 200 employees. In contrast, the first-ever store at 105 Patrick Street employed 12 when it opened.

The very first employee, Dan Barrett, who left his apprentice job with Roches Stores to go with Ben Dunne senior’s ambition, is now in his 80s and still active as a company director. Mr Barrett will perform the official store re-opening at 11am. “There were so many people when we opened in March 1944, the counters got pushed back in the surge, I hope we have the same again this week.”