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Local residents are responding to the Shop Kilkenny appeal

It appears more and more people are opting to buy from businesses around them

Local people are supporting local businesses more this Christmas.

There’s been a big push for people to be more conscious of where their money is going this year to help shops and companies struggling to stay afloat after two lockdowns.

Minister of State Peter Burke yesterday on a whistle-stop tour of Kilkenny City visited a number of sites & spoke with traders & shoppers. He also paid tribute to adaptations made to provide a more comfortable shopping experience in the midst of the pandemic. (More on that visit here).

Fiona Deegan from Kilkenny County Council is part of the Shop Kilkenny campaign and she says it seems to be working, telling KCLR “I’ve been speaking to a lot of the craft producers and the food producers over the recent days and in fact, they’ve never been busier so it’s really, really positive to get that feedback that people are definitely conscious of that shop local message and they’re making that conscious decision to shop locally here in Kilkenny as much as possible”.

She adds it’s so much more important to shop local this year, saying “We started Shop Kilkenny two Christmases ago so really we were ahead of our time and really what the campaign is about is to encourage shoppers to look local and to shop in their local shops so we’re doing a huge focus on the key towns around the county and encouraging people to shop in their local shops where possible but also to shop online with the many Kilkenny businesses who have adopted e-commerce”.