What if Tesco hadn't bought Quinnsworth?

Nobody bought the entire operations. Some closed down permanently, some were bought out by Quinnsworth or a Supervalu franchiser and basically never closed, some closed but a new operator opened up where they had been.

I think there's a few cases where an existing smaller nearby operator moved in to the better H Williams space, so the physical store got reused but nothing else.

As an aside, the Tesco Ireland wikipedia page was massacred a few years ago, got rid of any reference to the 80s Tesco Ireland and has entirely inaccurate history of supermarket takeovers. Don't trust it for anything useful.

Allegedly, Grafton Street planners thought Pizza Express sounded too low-rent. But there already was a Pizza Express in Bray, IIRC.

Perhaps a similar thing to how a tiny Adelaide takeaway had the trademark in Australia for the name Burger King, so the Burger King franchise is called Hungry Jack's in Australia.

I don't have a car, and all I had to do was walk 90 seconds down the street. I'm not a frequent Tesco shopper because I don't particularly enjoy the Tesco shopping experience. I hate the fact they only want you using self-service checkouts and in some shops, they don't even have a manned till anymore. Many of its shops are dark and cold, and some are looking very dated as well. So there's no point in me signing up to Clubcard. The only reason I went to Tesco first last week was because it was the first supermarket I passed (and I wasn't aware of the big difference in price for Clubcard vs non-Clubcard holders)…had I passed Dunnes first, I'd have gone there first.

The short visit to Tesco was still useful, because it reminded me why I don't like shopping there.

The Tesco takeover was announced 28 years ago yesterday, and was the front page story on all the papers on this day in 1997.

https://www.rte.ie/archives/2017/0319/859919-tesco-to-take-over/

There was eventually a proper price war caused by a foreign supermarket chain in Ireland.

But it was Lidl (and/or Aldi), and in the late 00s/early 10s.

We now have fairly normal priced groceries; its just that people compare prices to the UK - for obvious reasons - which has exceptionally cheap groceries. Americans are often shocked at how cheap it is here, and we used to see it the other way.