Changing Times:It's a truth universally acknowledged in Dublin that the capital's Bachelors Walk, a Liffey-side strip which starts at O'Connell Bridge, has dramatically changed in function and character in recent years.
Once the haunt of hopefully browsing antique lovers, last week's sale of The Ha'penny Bridge Galleries at 15 Bachelors Walk brings the end of that particular aspect of the quays ever closer.
Owner David Carlyle, who got just under €1.5 million for his premises, has been "in business on the quays for about 32 years". He says he'll "miss the quays and the people who come in here more than I'll miss the shop. I'm long enough here. Over the last few years there's been a bit of a decline in the trade. Since the country got rich people are not buying clean, second-hand furniture."
He lists the neighbouring antique dealers he's seen go - Lalor Briscoe which relocated to Mount Merrion, Carrolls to Bray and others.
"There were about 20 dealers along here. Starting at the bridge you had Cox's Auction Rooms. There was a man called Slowey who had a junk shop at the corner. It's very sad to see them go because we all sort of complemented each other.
"This was a great place for second-hand and interior decor shops, junk shops and of course antiques. There used be something for everyone. It's a great pity because it brought a lot of tourists here. They still come, but look disappointed as they search for antique shops," he says. According to Carlyle, the problem is that younger people are not interested in carrying on the businesses, and so his generation is selling off.
A man who has truly lived, Carlyle came to antiques via a circuitous 1960s route. He drifted into it, he says, after beginnings in wholesale drapery failed to please. He worked in the Hibernian Hotel, Dawson Street, as a chef, and also worked in France as a chef. Back home again, he worked with a man who will forever be a name in antiques, Monty Marshall in South King Street.
With "no immediate feel for antiques", Carlyle found nevertheless that it was fun and so, "as we all did", he spent time on Portobello Road, London, where he made "good contacts".
He came home when his eldest son was born and became part of the then Dandelion Market on St Stephen's Green. Within a year he'd established his own market by the Unitarian Church on the Green, at number 119. "There were about 10 dealers with me and it was a good sized shop. There were no parking problems then," he recalls.
But the lease was short and so he came to the quays and Bachelors Walk, first to number 119 and then, in the mid-1970s, to where he's been since.
With the premises sold everything has to go, including pictures, garden statuary and a mirrored chest of drawers. There's a Chippendale suite with table, eight chairs and two side tables made 30 years ago in solid mahogany by a "well-known Dublin maker" for €4,000 - about one-third of its cost price says Carlyle.
A large, French three-drawer commode, covered in marquetry and with a marble top - "but too large for your average house" - is going for €1,000 as opposed to a more usual €1,800. A pair of cast-iron, bronze-finish eagles, over six-foot tall and with quarter ton of cast-iron in each, are €1,500 for the pair.
Carlyle will be at 15 Bachelors Walk until the end of July, "hopefully".
Then he's off and into the rest of his life where, he assures, "I'll find something to do. Being busy is in the blood. I can live without a shop. It ties you down."
