Such a shame to lose a national treasure like this. A business or toy / doll museum would be so easily relocated at somewhere like the national museum. their shop alone looks like living history and I’m sure it could bring big numbers of new faces and families to the national museum too. I wish them all the best.

Oh gosh I hate to hear stories like this. Rates can really cripple small business, it strips the soul out of cities when only massive chains can afford to be there.

Another quintessential element of who we are fades away, only to be replaced by Starbucks, or the like.

I have so many happy memories of visiting the dolls hospital when it was in Mary Street.
Thanx to all the repair work my teddybear is still going strong 56 years on

What a pity, my girls love this shop. There is a costume and toy museum recently opened in Rathfarnham Castle that might offer a good home for the collection.

Many people will be sad to see the end of this unique business and I hope the owners succeed in their plans for a museum. Forgive me if a make a “political” point: For the last 10 years rents and rates have been driving small specialist Irish businesses off our main streets and often out of business completely. I am planning to move to Spain, just look at the comparison – Ireland I have a rent of €106,000 each year, in Spain I get 50% more space for as low as €7,800 per year. My rates alone here are over twice what my rent would be in Spain. If we can’t can find a solution to these costs many more businesses will have no option but to close their doors.

I saw this on the news during the week. Very sad altogether! On a slightly related topic I found it rather strange that in Mahon point when La Senza closed and other shops struggle – Teddy Bear Mountain which opened briefly for Christmas has decided to stay for the foreseeable. It’s a funny old world. Sad to see the hospital go . I was always hoping to send my toys there as a child.

it wasnt just girls who loved this shop…they patched up my action mens battle wounds too! very sad to see this close..best wishes for online business and museum plans

I had never heard of it but just told my fiancé and her reply was a grieving ‘Nooooooooooooooooooooooo! We should go in today’. Hope they reopen elsewhere.

I personally know this couple,and you wond find a more honest and hardworking pair.Melissa devoted her life to the shop.She has made so many children happy.Sadly,another victim of the crippling cuts.If Melissa cant make it work,you can expect to see a lot more go down the tubes.Time to all stand up,and say,we have had enough.Well done to both of you.

damn health cutbacks….

George’s Street was the shopping street of choice for my mother, and as children we dutifully followed behind her like little ducks on Saturday morning expeditions. Even today, I can’t walk down the street, without seeing the ghost of Cassidys and other long forgotten stores in which we shopped, while my father waited for us further up the road supping a pint and reading the paper in a pub which I think was called The Swan. No visit to town was complete without a peep inside the magical doll’s hospitals where children sent their dollies and teddies to be fixed.

It’s a sign of the times :/
Bloody coalition cuts!

Let’s make sure to mention the absurd insurance charges that contribute to the cause of folding businesses. And how about the legal profession too, sucking the life out of the country.

Very sad indeed. The key fact for closure is OVERHEADS being too high making it impossible for ordinary businesses to survive in the main street. Hence, the natural move to the Internet. The main street is doomed. Goodbye Dolls Hospital. Hello Dolls Hospital.

Oh no, this is terrible. I loved that place. They always had the place beautiful. This its really sad. The retailers have been in about upward only rents for ages. Another election promise broken.

Shame to hear of such an innocent business and old, going out of business. :(

A business with a history of happiness. (I.E The actual items brought joy to people)

I have to be honest I’m sad to see any business go and another vacant premises scar the street scape of Dublin city .
That said my experience and my two daughters was not a good one as we where let down two Christmases in a row with dolls houses we had ordered that never came .
We called and called as Christmas came closer and closer and I have to say the treatment we received was typical of how businesses treated people at the time ! Badly !! We where told eventually 3 days before Christmas the dolls houses we ordered they did not have and they could give us some different house but I’d better rush in as everything was selling out if I wanted something !
I have to say I was that upset I called the radio at the time as it was the second time this business treated me and my little girls this way .
So to that point we never stepped foot in that store again so maybe if they had have treated their customers a little better back then they may have had a better following today.
I know everyone’s experience will be different and some will be great mine was not .
Not saying they deserve this just my opinion which I’m entitled to .
So I wish them the best with their online business as that’s where I turned to afterwards to buy my kids dolls and dolls accessories and was never let down !
To me customer loyalty is earned not given like the plumber who dose not show up for the 3rd time if you have a choice you won’t call a 4th ! Not disputing their lineage but like a lot of great businesses they lost the run of themselves during the Celtic tiger years in how they treated their next generation of customer , and are now paying the price .
Just my opinion .

Really sad – i had my Crolly doll Eileen repaired there back about 40 years ago – thought it was a miracle how fast they repaired her – two new legs in 5 minutes :))

So sad. Shame no investor. National treasure

Ahhhhhhhhhhh such a shame to lose this because of rates,and recession.

Upward-only rent reviews have claimed another victim. The government pledged to allow commercial tenants, who are prisoners of these feudal leases, a rent review to market rents last year and then did a u-turn on budget day 6th December. Let the Liars Lead on.

O reilly has a lot to answer for …