Music retailer HMV to make Dublin comeback after seven-year absence

Seven years after the closure of its remaining stores in the Republic, music retailer HMV will make a comeback to Dublin’s Henry Street this summer, marking its new owners’ first flagship store outside the UK.

Canada’s Sunrise Records, which acquired HMV in 2019, operates 120 HMV-branded shops in the UK, including one in Belfast city centre, but this will be its first foray into the Republic. The company’s owner signalled on Wednesday that further Irish openings may follow at a later date.

HMV will reoccupy its former location at 18 Henry Street, with the 6,000sq ft space hosting three floors of pop culture merchandise, becoming “a destination for lovers of music and music technology” and offering performance spaces for live shows and signings “from some of the country’s biggest artists, alongside global stars”.

It expects to open the Dublin store, which will be branded the HMV Shop, by mid-July.

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The announcement of a return to the Irish capital represents the latest sign of a dramatic turnaround of the HMV business – including a return to profit in 2022 – under Sunrise Records and its owner, Canadian retail mogul Doug Putman, who has reformatted the stores for the age of streaming by placing a greater emphasis on merchandise, music technology and live music.

HMV’s fortunes, as well as those of other music retailers, have been boosted by a resurgence of interest in vinyl releases, which in the case of big-name artists are increasingly treated as another form of merchandise by fans who may not own record players.

“Our return to Ireland marks the culmination of the team’s hard work having established a new HMV shopping experience across the UK. We are now in a position to expand that concept into Europe,” said Mr Putman.

Fans will be able to get their hands on the latest and limited release vinyl, the newest audio technology and “express their passion for pop culture” under one roof, he added.

“We want Henry Street to become a home for a new community of fans to come together. What’s more, we hope that once we’ve got our feet back under the table in Ireland, further HMV Shop openings will follow.”

[ The next generation discovering the joys of vinyl: ‘I like all older things, old movies, old music’ ]

The company said HMV Dublin would offer music lovers a choice of more than 15,000 different products, including more than 5,000 different vinyl albums and 5,500 different CDs.

Over the past year, HMV stores in the UK have welcomed artists such as Charli XCX, Stormzy, Shania Twain, Raye and Ellie Goulding for in-store signings and the Dublin shop is expected to draw names of similar quality. It will also stage performances from up-and-coming acts through the HMV Live & Local programme, which showcases local artists.

HMV has let the building, most recently occupied by Intersport Elverys, from Irish Life Investment Managers.

“We are delighted to partner with HMV on the opening of their new store and would like to welcome them back to Ireland. We are seeing very strong demand from tenants looking to locate in premier retail locations like 18 Henry Street, with footfall having bounced back strongly to pre-pandemic levels,” said Irish Life’s Sarah Coyle.

The original HMV – or His Master’s Voice – store was opened by the Gramophone Company on London’s Oxford Street in 1921, with British composer Sir Edward Elgar doing the honours. This historic store has been closed since 2019 but Sunrise announced last month that it will reopen later this year as part of its expansion of the chain.

[ How HMV’s new owner wants to change the way we buy music ]

The HMV brand first entered the Republic’s retail market in 1986, initially on Dublin’s Grafton Street, with HMV Ireland performing well for more than two decades before sliding sales for CDs and then DVDs hammered profits, eventually prompting the collapse of the group in 2013. Some 16 stores in the Republic went into receivership.

Private equity firm Hilco, which acquired HMV out of administration in the UK, subsequently reopened four of these HMV stores after its Irish subsidiary bought them out of receivership. It also added HMV concessions to its network of Xtra-vision outlets following its acquisition of the entertainment rentals chain the same year.

The “dual brand” outlets and the four reopened HMV stores proved to have a short lifespan, shuttering in 2016, while HMV entered administration again in the UK in late December 2018, citing an “extremely weak” festive season and “a tsunami of challenges”.

But a revival was just around the corner: in February 2019, Mr Putman, a billionaire vinyl fan who had acquired HMV’s Canadian business two years earlier, rescued the UK stores by buying them for £883,000 (€960,000), with the early indications suggesting his involvement has been a hit.