FROM OUR ARCHIVES: Dunnes Stores opens in Athlone

This is an excerpt from a piece in the Westmeath Independent of August 7, 1970

Mr Joe Sheridan, TD (Longford/Westmeath), cut the tape and formally declared open Dunnes Stores at Irishtown, Athlone, the 18th in the family chain, on Friday morning last.

Prominently situated beside the main Dublin-Galway road, it has free parking space, for over 100 cars.

The stores were blessed on Thursday by Very Rev. P. McKeown, Adm., St. Mary's.

Speaking at a reception in the Royal Hotel, Deputy Sheridan welcomed the firm to Athlone and said they would give good value to the people of the town in this age of competition. He congratulated this expanding Irish firm on the confidence they had shown in the future progress of Athlone. This, was, he added, a big day for Athlone.

Mr. Ben Dunne, Chairman of the Company, said the firm was delighted to come to Athlone because it was going to be one of the best towns in Ireland in the future.

He went on: “No business breaks,down through competition but through internal weakness. I can guarantee that the drapery goods in Dunnes Stores were/not raised; by even 1 per cent for the last two years. We sell 95% Irish goods and our turnover this, year was 18 millions pounds. It is a 100 per cent Irish Company with 100 per cent Irish capital. In September of this; year I am crossing the Border to open the first Dunnes Stores in Northern Ireland.”

Mr. Dunne presented Deputy Sheridan with an engraved silver cigarette case as a memento of the occasion. The staffs of the stores were recruited locally and were specially trained.