The famous Waltons music shop is now closed

Waltons

The famous music shop Waltons shut its doors on the 12th February. Located in the heart of Dublin for more than 90 years, the shop is now moving all its business to Blanchardstown due to the rising rents in the city centre.

The music shop has been part of the Dublin music scene since the early 1920s. The shop was first opened by a talented musician named Martin Walton. Last month, Niall, managing director of the store, announced and explained the shops closure on a blog post. “With the ever rising costs of doing business in the city centre we need to make sure that our cost base does not make us uncompetitive. We want to be able to give our Irish based customers the best instruments and accessories at the right price in Ireland.”

But even though the shop is moving, the Waltons New School of Music will continue to operate in Georges Street.

The main reasons behind the closure are the rising rent prices and the growing number of customers buying online. Michael Dunphy, general manager of the shop, has been working at Waltons for 22 years. According to him, ”it’s getting very hard for retail shops to compete with the online stores and cover all the brick and mortar costs associated with it.”

The shops closure came as heartbreaking news for a lot of good customers of the shop. Among them, Breda Reid Hammond, a regular client who regrets this moving: “I think the shops in Dublin city centre are slowly dying, so Waltons should remain in the city.”

The Dublin institution is well known for its appearance in the oscar winning film “Once” which starred Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová. This claim to fame often attracted visiting fans of the movie.

Despite the store’s closure, the staff do not despair. “Waltons has been a part of Dublin since the early 1920s and we were lucky enough to have generations of loyal customers calling into us. The positive aspect is that we can continue as a business from Blanch and it’s the main shopping destination in Dublin,” said employee Michael Dunphy.

Because of rising rent prices, many music shops have been tempted to close in the city-center and Waltons is not the only one to shut its doors. In 2013, the music shop Opus II, was also forced to move out of the city centre in order to keep business going.