Yet another family business in the city bites the dust with the closure of Des Kavanagh Electrical on Market Street.

The retailer, which opened at the location in 1978, is one of the last independent electrical shops to trade in the centre.

Owners Des and David will continue servicing and repairing appliances at their workshop on the Clybaun Road. Des works mainly servicing appliances in rental properties for management companies and small landlords.

They blame higher commercial rates, electricity and insurance costs and a move to online shopping for the decision to close the shop, which will revert to its original residential use if planning is granted.

Their father Des, who is still “hale and hearty”, had told the brothers a long time ago to do what they had to do to keep making a living.

“He’s not like that father in Succession who hangs on ‘til the end at all costs. He’s a very practical man. No one else in the family wanted to get involved and if they did I would have told them 100% there was no money in retail — out of a €30 kettle we would be getting €5 gross, and that’s before we’re fleeced with costs” reveals son Des.

“Rates have just gone too high – we were paying €1,400 and it’s gone up to over €6,000, relative to our turnover that’s way too much money.”

The Kavanagh Brothers, Elmer, Seamus and Des, arrived one by one from Easkey in Sligo in the late ‘50s and ‘60s and opened their first electrical shop on Mainguard Street where the Claddagh Credit Union now operates. They were the first business to open their own finance department, offering large appliances on payment plans.

At one stage they had an outlet in Ennis, Co Clare. They were bought out by Tara Electric in 1969. Elmer went into auctioneering, Seamus went into commercial cleaning and Des opened the domestic appliance store adjacent to St Nicholas’ Collegiate Church.

They got out of large appliances two decades again after other independent shops were able to join Expert Electrical, which acted like a co-op allowing traders to avail of greater discounts for bulk buying.

Their shop was too small, but that didn’t stop a generation of faithful customers arriving to buy their small goods from the city and as far away as the islands.

“If you can’t get the part now, you’ll go online, you won’t wait a day. The older generation customers my father had, he would be selling the appliances, then going to their houses to fix them.

“We have some customers who got a Nilfisk vacuum for their weddings 60 years ago and they’re still going – we can still get parts.

“But after Covid the older generation learned how to buy online — they had to, their families were away — so they are buying the likes of the kettles, toasters. And with the likes of Tesco selling these, we can’t compete with the multinationals.”

He pointed out the loss of all the recent family-run businesses that have exited the city centre in recent years – Collerans Butchers, McCambridges, Treasure Chest, Hugh Duffy’s shooting and fishing shop, Griffin’s Bakery, Colm McDonagh’s Esquires on Eyre Square.

“It’s all gone very impersonal. Our little shop would have old people come in to buy a kitchen radio, they would ask for batteries and then ask us to put them in for them. It’s so different in a big outlet. They barely look at you at the till.”

The shop will close permanently today, Friday. An application to build a new kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom at ground floor level, removing the shop front window and replacing it with two windows, is to be decided by June.

Pictured: Des Kavanagh Electrical: closing today.