Twenty years ago, when Eamonn Quinn walked through the crossroads in Sutton, the north Dublin suburb that housed the head office of his father’s supermarket empire, he could see banks, video stores and a range of standalone shops offering different products. Now, like in most provincial towns across the country, they have disappeared. Banks have shuttered a vast number of their branches, video stores have been rendered obsolete by streaming and many smaller independent retailers have been outmuscled and undercut by symbol chains and online shopping. Quinn, however, is not downbeat about the structural changes that have upended traditional retail…

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