I rated this edge of town shopping arcade at 3 star though I was initially minded at 5 stars.
There's one reason for this; it's the sign near the free car park that notifies that if you park up and 'leave for any reason at all, business or pleasure, your car will be clamped'. Charming.
This is a F U from the land of 100,000 welcomes; cead mile failte my derrière. I do understand that folks shouldn't park up all day and amble off to work elsewhere but the message is stark and uncompromising and allows no concession but if they have cameras detecting when humans enter or leave then they can detect them that abuse parking.
It has a few anchor stores Penneys and Tesco. We spent upward of €500 in under an hour in this place so the sign irritated me (as you can see) and what I really liked about the centre itself is the number of local independent businesses where we spent the most money jostling space and competition with national and international businesses.
After shopping we had decided coffee before leaving this prison town. We determined too that we'd find an independent local as the only coffee option in the shopping centre was Costa.
There is a nearby Frankie and Benny's in the shopping complex but we've never been inside one as we think it's mostly factory produced, pre frozen industrial food that's deep fried or oven heated in - store so no thanks.
Now I had thought I was getting too old for this nonsense but as the unwelcome sign told me FU, I decided FU2, so we did leave our car there and for pleasure too as we walked into the town centre just a few minutes away.
We had great coffee and lemon meringue pie in town (and it's a really quaint town full of welcoming friendly folks) in a superb local cafe The Pantry Cafe and Walled Garden.
On return 40 minutes later our car had remained unclamped which is just as well as it saved us returning over €500 of purchases. read more