Boston-based investors in talks to purchase iconic Dublin department store Clery’s

Arnotts department store may be taken over by selfridges london soon.

Either Clery's Department Store or the equally architecturally pleasing building to immediate left, (now Smiles Dental Spa(?)), used to be the Imperial Hotel at the turn of the century. In James Plunkett's novel/film "Strumpet City", a scene depicts shocked Anglo-Irish ascendency witnessing the brutal baton charging of striking workers by Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) from its upstairs restaurant. Three years later, it was seized by James Connolly's Irish Citizen Army (ICA) during 1916. A British Army sniper later in Eastern week took up firing positions to attack GPO Irish Volunteer HQ Garrison, but was neutralised by return fire before evacuation. They are few of the original buildings left standing on the east side of O'Connell Street after British military artillery barrage during 1916. Compliments to Gordon Bros for preserving an istitution under whose clock many a date was arranged by countless generations of Irish courting couples.

I have been told since early childhood that we were descendants of the gentleman who founded "the largest department in Dubin and it is still there." The ancestor was a woman named Anne Larkin, whose father supposedly founded the business. She ran away with an actor, John Hughes. No one is sure if she became pregnant first, or they married first, but he dumped her as soon as they reached America (the baby was born in Liverpool). I have been reading all I can about the present day Clery's and see nothing of a Larkin in it's past and I'm frustrated! Can anyone make a connection for me? I know James Larkin was involved in a strike at Clery's, but the time frame is all wrong. Sigh.

When the machines used to erect the Millennium Spike were finally taken away, a spontaneous wave of song went up on O'Connell St: "I can see Cleary's now the cranes have gone".

I love shopping at Clery's when visiting Dublin. It's such a stunning piece of architecture and I'm thrilled to hear that an investment firm has stepped in with an infusion of much needed cash. It's such a shame that the 1% in Ireland couldn't have done the same.

I sure hope they keep the Clery ethos, it's one of my favorite stores in Dublin. And it's Irish--almost all the other department stores in Ireland are English, making the city look just like Manchester England. One that I liked was Roches, but the last time I was in Dublin it had been taken over by some British outfit. Prices had gone up, of course.