THE Irish market closed sharply lower in response to the weakness in London and Frankfurt and the weaker opening on Wall Street where dealers were unnerved by suggestions that the next move in US interest rates could be upwards.

It was more a general drift than any sustained selling in Dublin, with most of the leaders moving lower. Further weakness may be on the way, however, as the indications are that Smurfit may drop at least another 3p after Dr Michael Smurfit's bearish comments on current trading and the consequent profit and earnings downgrades.

Smurfit closed down lp in Dublin on 163p but was well offered at that level with the best bid in the market at 160p. CRH was hit by some profit taking and closed down 5p on 595p while both of the main banking stocks closed easier AIB down 1p on 337p and Bank of Ireland also a penny lower on 442p.

Second liners were their usual mixed bunch. In the foods, Golden Vale remained unchanged on 63p despite its recent super levy travails. Turnover figures for Wednesday show an extraordinary level of trading in Golden Vale shares the £8.27 million turnover that day equates to more than 6.5 million shares when double counting is excluded from the calculations.

This is equivalent to over 4 per cent of the shares changing hands in a single day's trading, although some of the turnover figures may be previous day's deals not matched until Wednesday.

Other food stocks were mixed, with Kerry coming off its high and closing down 5p on 635p, Avonmore up 2p on 150p and Waterford Foods unchanged on 94p. Elsewhere, rand weakness continued to dog Independent which closed down 15p on 500p while Irish Life was 3p lower on 251p.