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CLOSING TIME After 33 years Eager Beaver says goo
dbye to Temple Bar. words Edd Norval photos Malcolm McGettigan How much does a shop mean to people? How much can it mean? With Temple Bar’s Eager Beaver, the iconic cornerstone of vintage Dublin, you just have to check their Facebook page. Sadly, the messages are coming at a time of change, earmarked with ‘goodbye’ and ‘thank you’ as the shop is closing its doors 33 years after they first opened, almost to the day. So how much can a shop mean? Let the customers tell you. Many of the comments talk about ‘great memories’, rather than just ‘great shop’. That’s a start. Eager Beaver seemed to be a place to hang out with friends, to see and be seen. Like all things that last so long, there is a legacy. One customer recalls how he had recently brought his sons in to see the shop he visited as a student. Others talked about how no trip to Dublin will be the same again. It would be easy to slip into dewy-eyed reminiscence when talking about it all, especially in conversation with owners Robert and Siobhán Woodnutt, the husband and wife duo still at the helm of the vintage clothing store on the corner that has weathered recessions, booms, trends and tastes. Most major cities will have a shop like that, or if they’re lucky, a few. When news comes that they’re closing down, it’s often met with disproving ‘sign o’ the times’ sentiment. A city can only stand to lose so many of these kinds of shops before they begin to rewire their very own DNA. It’s a cautionary tale. The Eager Beaver was already an endangered species. Now it’s sadly extinct. That’s the thing with places so deeply woven into the cultural fabric of a city. Something else doesn’t just replace them. It takes a long time to reach this kind of stature. There’s a staying power involved that shops rarely seem to have now. It’s all about following the money. Making a buck and then making a move. “In 1986, the properties were cheap and around the area there were a lot of artistic and alternative types of people.” Robert tells me, painting a picture deeply at odds with Temple Bar now. “My wife had a background in vintage clothing and it became a combination of the skills,” Robert went on. Those skills being referred to were the Dublin native’s eye for business. Don’t mistake him for an office-dweller though. Eager Beaver broke ground after Robert was made redundant from a steel factory in Dublin. The shop’s eye-catching name came after a stint as a DJ for a ship’s on-board radio. Broadcasting his selection of songs for all interested ears as the ship sailed around the Indian Ocean and Far East. Robert’s slot was called the ‘eager beaver’, a name he felt too good to leave behind on deck. Temple Bar retained the charm of a forgotten Dublin for longer than most of the city. As developers moved into the capital in the 1960s, Temple Bar was left largely untouched, somewhere to build around rather than in. Fastforward two decades and bus company Coras Iompair Eireann was planning a depot. Temple Bar needed a facelift. As an incentive for businesses, the area was offered at low rent to kickstart a micro-economy and artists, studios and independent traders soon flocked to the area. Robert and Siobhán were two of the early proprietors, “When we opened up here, there weren’t many vintage shops around. The second-hand stores weren’t quite built up like proper shops at that point, with window displays and things,” Siobhán told me. A country deep in recession at that point, the business was a risk, but they were able to offer something to people. Quality second-hand clothes at an affordable price. It was a businessmodel that found almost immediate success and Temple Bar continued to grow. Situated on Crown Alley, the street right outside of Eager Beaver was the first to become pedestrianized in 1990. This quickly changed the footfall of the area and a changing demographic prompted Eager Beaver to begin selling more retro and vintage clothes, rather than just second-hand fare. 45