Irish retailer Dunnes Stores has pulled out of Scotland, closing all its five shops in the space of four months.

Less than three years ago Dunnes had 11 stores in the UK including six in northern England.

Dunnes shut it's store in Heywood, Lancashire, its second-last remaining shop in the UK on St Patrick's Day on Saturday. That leaves a branch in Northampton as its last remaining story in the UK.

The group, which primarily sells food, clothes and household wares, continues to operate 16 shops in Northern Ireland.

The Herald:

There were reports in Britain that the company was considering scaling up the business by adding 40 stores.

The retail chain's store in Bradford was closed suddenly in 2015, whilst over the past few months all five of the Scottish shops have closed.

Late last year, branches closed in Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow and Clydebank, while branches in The Forge Shopping Centre in Parkhead, Glasgow and Cumbernauld closed in recent weeks.

READ MORE: Dunnes Stores up for sale in Sauchiehall Street as two other businesses close in a week

The retailer has reportedly told staff they were pulling out of the UK market with Brexit future costs being seen as the main contributor to their decision.

The last store in Scotland to shut was in Glenrothes, Fife on March 3.

It emerged in December, that the Dublin-based family-owned retailing company took a dividend of £250 million from its UK-based wing.

The Herald:

Newry-registered Dunnes Stores (Bangor), through which most of the group’s sales in Northern Ireland and Britain flow, recorded a loss before tax of £5.1 million in 2016, compared with profits of £13.2 million for the previous full year.

The huge dividend payment is recorded in the group’s cash flow statement, and cut its accumulated profits on the balance sheet by three-quarters.

The dividend payout was seen as a major departure from recent years where the company paid out much smaller dividend payouts of £310,000 in 2015 and £760,000 in 2014.

READ MORE: High streets in crisis: Scotland losing shops faster then rest of UK

Analysts believed that by taking the large payment now, the Dunnes family eliminated future currency risk if sterling, as expected, fell further against the euro as the effects of Brexit sink in.

Dunnes Stores opened its first shop in Ireland and has been operating for around 70 years with at one time more than 140 stores across the UK employing around 15,000 people.