SHOPPING:MANY RETAILERS were badly hit by the weather over what should have been the busiest weekend of the year.
Snowfalls at the end of last week and snow showers over the weekend have badly hit the town of Westport, Co Mayo. Seán Byrne, owner of Jack Dylan jewellers in the town, said he had four staff on yesterday who were “kicking tyres most of the day”.
“I could have made do with two really. The pre-Christmas buzz just hasn’t kicked in for the jewellery trade at all this year. You’d do more than half your annual trade in the last six weeks of the year usually. That just hasn’t happened.”
He said the bad weather had kept people out of the town. “If people are outside on the path you have some chance of getting customers in. If they’re not, well you haven’t.”
Linda Culkin, manager of the Carraig Donn store in the town said: “The usual buzz just hasn’t been there this weekend. Of course that’s down to the weather.”
Similarly in Killarney, Co Kerry, heavy snowfalls at the end of last week, which had not melted over the weekend, were preventing people shopping.
Enda Walsh, manager of Quills department store, said that while the town had been sanded and gritted, “half a mile out the roads are impassable and so people just aren’t coming in. So the weather has affected us very badly. It is very disappointing because this should be our busiest weekend. I’d say the numbers of people are down about 30 per cent.
“The only saving grace maybe is that Christmas is on Saturday so we have five days now to try and make things up.”
In Co Donegal, which experienced some of the heaviest snowfalls, sales have been hit. Mary Henaghan, owner of Henaghan’s Toys and Gifts in Letterkenny, said the shop was busy yesterday afternoon, “but this morning was dead. Usually this weekend we’d be very busy right from the morning. People just dread coming out when the weather is like this.”
Caroline Timony, owner of Forget-Me-Not Gifts, also in Letterkenny, said things were “not so bad” yesterday. “I do notice the cafes and restaurants are really suffering though.”
In Dublin, where there were bitterly low temperatures though only light flurries of snow over the weekend, Brown Thomas said Saturday sales were lower than usual for the last weekend of the year but sales were “well on target” for yesterday and making up for Saturday.
A spokeswoman for the store also said the fact that Christmas Day was at the end of the week should help the group’s stores hit sales targets.
