Growing To Death

Anyone who's passed through Dublin Airport and gone looking for a book to read on the long trans-Atlantic flight has been inside Hughes & Hughes.

For over twenty years, the airport shops in Dublin and Cork provided reading material and snacks for the countless visitors who were just passing through. The book seller turned a nice profit during the boom years, when everyone was traveling and Ireland was a prime destination for the descendants of the Irish Diaspora.

Not content with their niche, the bookseller saw greater profits beyond the boundaries of the airport and they expanded.

What else is a firm to do but grow and expand? To sit back would be foolish, leaving money on the table.

The posh new shopping malls in Swords and Dundrum hosted Hughes & Hughes shops. No captive audience there, however. No travelers with little better to do and time weighing heavy. Those who might purchase a book at the Pavilions Shopping Centre could just as easily buy from Amazon at a lower price. They weren't there to pick up reading material for a flight that was about to leave, and having the time needed to wait on an on-line order made a difference.

Posh shopping mall owners charge posh rents, and that was fine when money was no object. With the collapse of the Celtic Tiger, the money's not coming into the till and meeting high rents has become impossible for several Irish merchants. Hughes & Hughes is not the only business enterprise to seek a new rental agreement with the landlord. In their case, however, the landlord didn't see any need to lower the rent.

Now the bookseller is in receivership and there won't be any rent money coming in at all. The store will be empty, unless someone else comes along to rent the space. You can bet that they will be renting at a level in line with current demand, so the landlord will end up with less anyway. It just won't be coming from Hughes & Hughes.

Fewer people pass through Ireland's airports these days, but they may represent enough foot traffic to keep Hughes & Hughes alive in their original location, selling books and such to tourists. A few clerks will manage to keep their jobs, while those who arrived late to the party will be on the dole.

All that growth killed Hughes & Hughes. The good times didn't last very long at all.