Cork City Blacktie premises might suit

THE former Cork City Blacktie store is due for sale, within a week of the Irish suit hire company announcing it was going into liquidation, with closure of 11 shops from tomorrow, after a meeting in the Plaza Hotel, Tallaght.

The latest casualty of the retail downturn, and of changing trends, Blacktie’s closure ends a 27-year-long business for RTE’s Dragon’s Den entrepreneur, Niall O’Farrell, who set it up on a shoe-string; it swelled to 17 stores at peak. Blacktie is one of a number of the entrepreneur and property developer’s businesses, and he regrets its demise with the loss of dozens of jobs.

Mr O’Farrell recently stepped down from the RTÉ programme, and also sold his private Shrewsbury Road home, Thorndene, late last year for more than €5m, after three years on the market, down from an initial ask of €18m.