Sally Rooney's Intermezzo helps Waterstones Ireland to €14.57m revenues

Gordon Deegan

Sales of Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo and Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These helped the Irish arm of bookseller, Waterstones, to revenues of €14.57 million last year.

New accounts for Waterstones Booksellers Ireland Ltd show that despite the 6pc increase in revenues to €14.57 million, pre-tax profits more than halved to €1.78 million due to higher costs in the 53 weeks to the end of May 3rd last year.

Bookstore Manager at Waterstones’ flagship store here, Hodges Figgis on Dublin’s Dawson Street, Tony Hayes said on Thursday that the store enjoyed “a very strong year”.

He said that revenues at the store “were up considerably” on the prior year.

Mr Hayes said that Hodges Figgis is “in the top 4” of Waterstones best performing stores sales-wise in the UK and Rest of World, where group sales last year climbed to £565.6 million (€653.5 million) as the number of stores rose to 316.

Mr Hayes said that Hodges Figgis enjoyed a very strong bounce from the refurbishment of the store that commenced in May 2024 and was completed in September 2024.

Mr Hayes said that the customer response to the refurbishment “has been fantastic - there has been very good feedback”.

He said that the store enjoyed “a very good Christmas” in 2024 and some of the best-selling titles included Booker Prize winner, Samantha Harvey’s Orbital, Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo, Asako Yuzuki’s Butter, and Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These, while Johnny Sexton’s Obsessed and Conor Niland’s The Racket were the best-selling sports books.

Mr Hayes said that revenues for the current year “will be close to last year but won’t be as high”.

Mr Hayes said that the best-selling book at Hodges Figgis for Christmas 2025 was ‘Run Home, Little Fox’ by former RTE journalist, Tom McCaughren and Erika McGann.

The book won the Children's Book of the Year (Junior) at the 2025 An Post Irish Book Awards. Mr McCaughren has written fifteen books for children and young adults, and his award-winning 'Run with the Wind' series has been translated into 20 languages.

Waterstones also operates a store on Cork’s Patrick Street, and Drogheda, with operating profits at Waterstones Ireland declining by 29.5 per cent to €2.02 million.

Net finance costs of €231,000 reduced profits to a pre-tax profit of €1.78 million.

Numbers employed remained at 76, and staff costs increased from €2.4 million to €2.8 million.

The profit last year takes account of non-cash depreciation costs of €1.25 million.

At the end of May 3rd last, shareholder funds totalled €7.2 million, which included accumulated profits of €5.8 million.

Separate accounts filed by the UK-based Waterstones Booksellers Ltd show that the group recorded pre-tax profits of £39.97 million as revenues rose by 7 per cent to £565.6 million on the back of seven new store openings during the same period.