Before I got into the shoe game I did my research — and in the late 1970s, the statistic that burned into my mind was that over 50pc of non-food retail, excluding cars, was done in Dublin city centre.
If you wanted to be a serious player, that’s where you had to be.
We launched our operation in the Dandelion Market in 1979. Business was buoyant. If anything, there was a lack of retail space. In 1980, we paid £35,000 for a lease on a very small shop on Capel Street.
You could probably have bought four or five houses for that.
Saturday used to be a day out for shopping in town — but that’s all gone
Then in 1981, we paid £75,000 for a lease on Talbot Street. So it shows you the profitability in Dublin city at that time. At full height we had six shops with €10m cashflow a year.
Then rents started going up. In 2004, our rent review in Grafton Street pushed up the price from €200,000 to €450,000 a year.
One of the features of the boom was there was a new industry willing to pay any level of rent to get into prime position — mobile phone shops.
The problem was that there were long leases that you were locked into for 35 years. You couldn’t just hand the lease back and walk away.
John Corcoran, co-owner of Korky’s shoes. Photo: Frank McGrath
And there was also a proliferation of out-of-town units. Every time one of those opened, there was less business coming into the city centre.
That was when things started to turn. When the crash came in 2009, Grafton Street’s turnover halved. We never made money after that.
We closed in Grafton Street in 2012. Today we have one store in Dundrum. Online shopping has done the most damage.
Saturday used to be a day out for shopping in town — but that’s all gone. And that’s a global thing. People are working from home, shopping from home, they’re doing everything from there.
I don’t know what the Government can do, because it’s not an Irish problem — it’s global
Right now, the rates are very high compared to the level of business being done. Twenty years ago we were paying half that in rates, but we were doing four times the business.
The high street is dead. It’s hard to see how it will improve. Online is getting sharper, cheaper and better. The big tech companies have cannibalised people’s businesses.
But it’s difficult to know what the Government can do, because it’s not an Irish problem — it’s global.
I think there are a lot of shops still open who would rather not be there.
In business you have to be realistic. If you are losing money, you have to get out.
But unfortunately not everyone has an alternative.
