Cork floods: 'We have to start again. It is heartbreaking'

Bantry family-run business swamped by floods for seventh time since 2008 

Oran, Eddie, and Gearóid Wiseman clenaing uo the damage caused to  Wiseman's Footwear & Clothing store in Bantry, Co Cork, after the town was particularly badly hit by flooding brought on by Storm Francis. Picture: Andy Gibson

Exhausted and frustrated, Gearóid Wiseman is counting the cost of the seventh flood since 2008 to swamp his third-generation family business.

After a 12-week lockdown closure, painstaking preparations to reopen safely, and a flurry of stock deliveries in recent days, his clothing and footwear shop, Wiseman’s, in Bantry, West Cork, was one of 50 premises in the town  swamped during Storm Francis when a culvert was overwhelmed.