Dublin riots reaction: ‘This is a stain that has been growing... we’re circling the drain’

Derek McGrath woke up on Friday to messages from contacts in international investment funds asking if Clerys department store on O’Connell Street had been damaged in the riots that engulfed Dublin the previous night.

The chief executive of Core Capital, the company behind the redevelopment of the iconic store, said he was embarrassed to receive such messages.

“I don’t mean embarrassing for me as a developer, I mean for us as a nation,” McGrath told the Business Post. “We were on the global stage.”