Clerys & my family

One of the lovely features of the 1926 census is the detail of people’s employers.

My great-grandfather, Fred Walters, worked in Clerys Department store on the then newly renamed O’Connell St. I knew he had worked there but not when he started. The census told me he was already there in 1926.

Clerys was an iconic Dublin store, which operated from 1853 until 2015. The famous clock was a favourite meeting spot for courting couples.

My family has other history with department stores. I previously wrote about another great-grandfather whose work for Woolworths brought his family from Limerick to Ballymena to Belfast and then to Dublin. I also wrote about Fred and May before – the story of how they got married twice.

Sometimes the universe conspires to find things for you. This week a client asked me to find a newspaper clipping relating to her ancestor who worked in Clerys too. We wondered if they might have known each other.

The page in question was in the Irish Independent on 8th April 1929. It was a special feature on Clerys, who were celebrating 76 years in business. There were mugshots of all their senior staff. Not only was my client’s person shown, but so was Fred! Wouldn’t it be a cool project to trace all the people? The below is just one section.

This led on to other searching and I found two more pieces about him. On the occasion of the shop’s silver jubilee, the Irish Press reported (11/10/1965) that Fred was the oldest employee, having worked there since 1910! This means that when I looked at his 1911 census entry, he was already in Clerys. The store was completed destroyed in the 1916 Easter Rising and the present building dates from 1922.

Fred Walters retired from Clerys on 21st May 1969, at the age of 81 (the article below rounds his age up). I guess he didn’t like being retired. He died 5 days later.

My grandmother, Fred’s daughter-in-law, also worked in Clerys before she got married. I wonder did he help her get the job?

Clerys closed very abruptly in 2015. Many employees were left without a job and no redundancy payments. There was a lot of furore in the media. Perhaps the reality was that the store hadn’t moved with the times.

While the shop closed, the building was sold to a consortium for €29m. An extensive redevelopment was done with shops, offices and a roof top restaurant/bar planned. As of now, the building is still largely vacant. Last October, I had a tour during Open House weekend.

I’m the fourth generation of my family to have shopped in Clerys. Given that it existed, in some form, since 1853, there’s probably a couple more before Fred’s era. I doubt there’ll ever be anyone in the family who works in the same place for 60 years though!