Giant's Causeway: 71-year-old family shop set to close

The National Trust has decided not to renew the shop's lease

The McConaghy family has been selling souvenirs at the Giant's Causeway in County Antrim for decades.

But, after 71 years, that business will soon be at an end.

The National Trust, which owns the McConaghy's souvenirs site, has declined to renew the shop's lease after it ran out in November 2017.

The organisation wants to build more toilets there instead. Shop owner Tommy McConaghy said the decision came as a total shock to his family.

"It was out of the blue," he said.

Tommy McConaghy, the shop's owner, has been involved in the family business since he was a boy

"I was reared here. When my mother had a shop down below at the causeway, I worked in the shop with her when I was a boy of 10 years of age.

"My daughter worked with me when she was about 10 too, so it's just a big loss after so many years."

Mr McConaghy had started a petition against the decision not to renew his lease, and he had also begun to challenge it through the courts, but that process is too expensive for him to continue.

"We might have won but it was just too big a risk to take," he said.

Mr McConaghy said it was a shock to hear the lease was not being renewed

"There was a chance we would lose a lot of money and we just can't afford that.

"The last thing we wanted to do was close and when that happens, to be quite honest, it will be a sad, sad day.

"I thought this was automatically going to my daughter, after my wife and I retired, but it's not going to happen.

"I've loved meeting people from all over the world but it's the end of an era, it's just finished for us."

The Giant's Causeway on the north coast attracts 1,000,000 visitors each year

A National Trust spokesperson told the BBC the organisation was limited as to where it could build new toilet facilities, because of the Giant's Causeway World Heritage status.

In a statement, the spokesperson said: "The National Trust submitted a planning application for change of use of the space adjacent to the Causeway Hotel, in order to provide baby changing facilities and additional male, female and accessible WCs.

"This is in response to growing visitor numbers and requests for facilities to be available outside visitor centre opening hours.

"Since 2011, visitor numbers have increased at the World Heritage Site from 533,000 visitors to 1,000,000 visitors in 2017.

The National Trust said it needs the shop's site to build new toilet facilities

"The National Trust acknowledges the contribution that the McConaghy family has made at the site and confirms the decision to submit the planning application was not taken lightly, but with good intent to address increasing visitor pressures."

Tommy McConaghy plans to spend the next few weeks selling off the stock he can from the shop.

He will shut the doors on his shop, and on seven decades of family history, at the end of this month.