RECESSION, what recession? Tipperary Crystal says it is having its best year ever, and it's all down to our insatiable appetite for chandeliers.
Once confined to the drawingroom, and only the grandest drawingrooms at that, chandeliers are now to be seen in kitchens, bathrooms and downstairs loos, thanks to the vogue for all things French that swept through interior design in the last decade.
Now every showhouse in the country has one or two twinkling away overhead, and manufacturers are producing special scaled down models for low ceilinged apartments.
Enter Tipperary Crystal which was taken over by Declan Fearon in 2005. He has upped production of chandeliers, broadened the range and tripled turnover to an expected €10 million this year.
The company is on track to sell 1,000 chandeliers this year at prices that range from a teeny-weeny €395 up to a fabulous €120,000 for the top-of-the-range Louise Kennedy model.
"Despite all the bad news, we've had to accelerate production," says Fearon. "We now have three full-time people on the road, doing nothing but fitting chandeliers. It's as though people are taking a step back in time and looking at what was considered beautiful 100 years ago, and wanting to have that in their own home, no matter how small the space."
