Interview: Maria Dickenson, managing director, Dubray Books

The past 20 months or so have not been easy for local bookstores and the need to move to online sales has required an innovative and creative approach, as Maria Dickenson, Dubray’s managing director, explains to Róisín Burke

Maria Dickenson, managing director, Dubray Books: ‘Books have weathered a lot of challenges in the last few years. People are still reading and still loving it, and we’re still in a period of growth.’ Picture: Fergal Phillips

While staff were setting up at the new Dubray Books store in Dundrum recently, a man called in with a box of chocolates.

“He’d seen us opening up and wanted to wish us good luck,” Maria Dickenson says, smiling. “He remembered the first shop in Bray. We get that a lot, people who remember and have a bond there.”

This is the artful achievement of Dubray which, although it is now owned by the Eason ...