Mullingar's World of Wonder store to close

Staff at the Byrne's World of Wonder toy store store at Lakepoint in Mullingar said that they had no idea that the business was to close when owner James Byrne came in and made the announcement last Sunday.The 12 staff at the shop will lose their jobs at the end of March and the store is currently in the middle of a closing down sale.In all seven of the 19 Byrnes World of Wonder stores are to close. The Mullingar store and six others were described as "unviable" in a statement released by James Byrne yesterday morning. Mr Byrne said that the closures were part of an "on going restructuring"."We would like to thank our staff for their tremendous efforts and support and we deeply regret the impact of this closure on our staff in Mullingar," read the statement. Mr Byrne declined to make comment on the total number of staff to be let go.Speaking yesterday a member of staff at the Lakepoint store said that while she was well aware that things were quiet, she had no idea that the plug would be pulled so quickly."We were and are very shocked," she said."It's terrible, there's nothing out there. It was just announced on Sunday and we only have until the end of March."The Byrne's chain started with just one shop in Wexford more than 29 years ago and was expanding right up until 2007 when the brand had expanded to 19 shops across Munster and Leinster.