Clinton Cards is to place its Birthdays Ireland chain into liquidation.

In a statement today, the greetings cards retailer said: “All of the Clinton Cards stores and Birthdays UK stores currently operated by Clintons are unaffected and will continue to trade as normal.”

Birthdays Ireland has 14 loss-making stores, all in the Republic of Ireland.

Clinton Cards, which warned on profits in January, has been struggling with Birthdays Ireland for some time.

In October last year Clinton Cards said Ireland was under review. It said in the 10 weeks to October 10, like-for-likes rose 5.4% at its Birthdays UK arm, but slumped 15.5% at Birthdays Ireland.

Managing director Clinton Lewin said at the time that the economic situation is “probably even worse” in Ireland than the UK, and that the retailer is still “looking at all the options we have”, which included exiting the country.

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