The Irish stock market closed broadly unchanged after a day of very lacklustre trading. "It's finally beginning to feel like summer," said one dealer. The launch of Telecom Eireann shares earlier this month helped keep some life in the market through July, a month in which it normally winds down, but signs that the market was reverting to its normal seasonal pattern were strongly in evidence yesterday.

"AIB is a bit weaker, Bank of Ireland is a bit stronger. There's nothing really to extrapolate from that," the dealer said. "Volumes are thin so even medium-sized orders can swing things one way or another."

In featureless trading, AIB lost 15 cents to €12.80 (£10.08) while Bank of Ireland gained 24 cents to €9.00 (£7.09). Irish Life & Perma- nent was unchanged at €10.00 (£7.88). Telecom Eireann, in what one dealer described as one of its lowest-volumes days since it was listed, closed six cents lower at €4.59 (£3.61). Among the industrial stocks, CRH was unchanged at €18.60 (£14.65) and Smurfit gained eight cents to €2.53 (£1.99). Second-line stocks were pretty quiet also although Irish Continental Group proved reasonably active, closing 50 cents lower at €11.00 (£8.66) as did IWP International which finished at €2.00 (£1.58), unchanged on the day. Green Property gained 10 cents on the day to close at €5.90 (£4.65).