It was “like part of Dublin dying,” Paddy Campbell, the owner of the iconic Bewley’s cafe on Grafton Street said, announcing he planned to close both that cafe and another on Westmoreland Street with the loss of 234 jobs. “It’s a moment we were hoping wouldn’t happen. The tide was eventually running against us.” “The rents in Grafton Street are the fifth-highest in the world. We’re not getting support from anywhere,” Campbell explained. It was 2004 and Campbell was speaking to RTÉ the first time he closed Bewley’s after accumulating losses of a reported €4 million. Hugh Orman, the author…
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