THE Dublin market moved ahead yesterday despite nervousness after a weak start on Wall Street.

The market opened 10 news that print and Packaging group Clondalkin is to purchase the Van der Windt Group from Dutch paper company, NV Koninklijke KNP BT, which pushed its shares well ahead. Making the strongest gains on the day, Clondalkin rose 25p to 485p.

Smurfit managed to recoup some of its earlier losses this week, adding 21/2p to its share price yesterday to 165.5p The share dropped by 9p on Thursday following bearish comments by the chairman and chief executive, Dr Michael Smurfit, about the group's current trading.

Among the financial stocks, AIB put on 3p to 340p, while Bank of Ireland gained a penny to close at 444p. Irish Permanent remained unchanged at 383p and Irish Life added 2p to 253p.

With relatively low volumes of shares changing hands in the run up to the long weekend, CRH and Kerry both managed to hold on to their all time high levels. CRH closed at its high of 600p, while Kerry group traded at 640p.

Fitzwilton closed up 3p to 58p following the purchase of a block of its shares by Dr Tony O'Reilly's brother in law, Mr Peter Goulandris. Waterford Wedgwood moved ahead on good demand for the shares in Dublin, gaining 2p to 79.5p.

Shares in the food sector traded yesterday ended the day unchanged, with Fyffes closing at 105p, while Golden Vale remained at 63p.