HMV to reopen in Cork twelve years after Patrick St closure 

Music chain HMV is to return to Cork, creating 10 new full and part-time jobs, 12 years after the closure of its Patrick St outlet, the company have confirmed.

The new store is to be based in the Merchant’s Quay shopping centre and is expected to open before Christmas.

The chain opened its first Irish store in a decade on Dublin’s Henry St in 2023, with a Limerick store opening in May of this year.

The Dublin branch currently employs 23 people, with 12 working in Limerick.

Receivers were appointed to HMV (Ireland) Ltd in 2013, leading to the permanent closure of its 16 Irish outlets.

Their Cork store at the old Pavilion cinema building on St Patrick’s St, now occupied by Golden Discs, saw sit-ins by former staff members protesting over unpaid wages when the company closed.

HMV shut its final premises in Ireland in 2016 and went online only, before it also shut down the website here two years later.

In 2019, Canadian firm Sunrise Records, owned by music retail mogul Doug Putman, bought the remaining UK business and assets of HMV out of administration, saving 100 stores and nearly 1,500 jobs.

Today the chain has 120 stores across the UK as well as an ecommerce website and recently announced it was returning to its old Oxford Street store, which it vacated in 2019.

The chain opened its first Irish store in a decade in Dublin in 2023, with a Limerick store in the Crescent Shopping Centre opening in May this year.

A spokesperson for the company told The Echo that the news marked “a significant step in its continued expansion with three new stores across the UK and Europe, including Cork, in the latter stages of development and all set to open before the end of the year.

“The expansion reflects HMV’s confidence in the future of physical media and its renewed focus on prime high-street locations,” they said.