Gringotts-like security in place for release of Potter book

Maria Tracey

Although copies of JK Rowling’s The Half Blood Prince made their way onto shelves across the Atlantic before the release date, Irish bookshops are adamant the same mix-up won’t happen here.

Shops across the country are opening at the stroke of midnight tonight as Pottermania descends yet again.

“The books will be sent out to all shops by this evening and those opening at midnight will just have to sit on them as there is strict embargo in place,” said children’s book buyer with Eason Book Division, David O’Callaghan.

However, even Mr O’Callaghan had to resist the urge to have a quick peak, at the book with the temptation being “very strong.”

Up to 100,000 copies of The Half Blood Prince will be supplied to book stores over the next week.

However, while the sixth installment may be the biggest selling children’s book, Mr O’Callaghan felt that the next and final Potter tale would outsell it.

Ensuring that the young wizard’s adventures are kept alive, Eason will be supplying magical entertainment and gift bags to tonight’s fans.

A spokesperson for Eason stressed that plenty of copies will be available tonight, with no need to pre-order. However, they would not reveal its price.

Tesco Ireland is also taking precautions to protect the book’s many plot lines.

“We are being very careful and security will be tight,” said spokesperson for Tesco Ireland, Freda Molamphy.

All 35 of Tesco’s 24-hour stores will welcome a younger clientele tonight, with the real excitement at Mahon Point, Clarehall and Dundrum.

“The first 200 customers to purchase the book from these three stores will receive a bag of magical Harry Potter goodies,” she said.

Waterstones hope an “out of sight, out of mind” policy will help staff through today’s excitement. “As soon as we receive the copies then they are going into a locked room,” said a spokesperson for Waterstones.

Queues are expected at Waterstones Stores tonight and it is hoped that minstrels and balloon magicians will make the time go faster for all the young wizards waiting for a copy of the book.

Waterstones is predicting the sale of 3.2m copies across Ireland and Britain during the book’s first week, which will cost E17.99, with a free copy of Lionboy by Zizou Corder.

Meanwhile, it has been revealed that Pope Benedict XVI expressed concern that the Harry Potter books “erode Christianity in the soul” of young people in a letter two years ago, a German writer says.

The comments came in an exchange of letters between the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and Gabriele Kuby, a Bavarian-based Roman Catholic sociologist who penned a book criticising JK Rowling’s novels.

In a letter dated March 7, 2003, Ratzinger thanked her for sending him a copy of “your informative book”.

“It is good that you are throwing light on Harry Potter, because these are subtle seductions that work imperceptibly, and because of that deeply, and erode Christianity in the soul before it can even grow properly,” the letter said.