Shopping in Northern Ireland

etcetc

kleefarr wrote: »

Right, if it's going to be ASDA then it looks like it'll be Kilkeel. According to the ASDA website, it's the closest, but looks like a hell of a drive. Is there a car ferry across Carlingford Lough?

dont go to kilkeel

tiny asda, small village town limited shopping

tedious drive also be quicker going to asda belfast

kleefarr

mick_irl wrote: »

Looked it up for you on the AA Route planner. No mention of a ferry, but you are looking at approx 3hr 20mins each way.

Yeah.

But it's another 20mins to get to Lisburn anyway.

brettmirl

It's not as bad as it sounds! Like I said before, I did it a couple of weeks back. The key is to hit the road as early as possible. I can't emphasise that enough...I was up there just after 8am.

Plenty of coffee/sweets and good music on the car journey up....and then the sound of cheap booze bottles clinking in the boot on the way home!

kleefarr

etcetc wrote: »

dont go to kilkeel

tiny asda, small village town limited shopping

tedious drive also be quicker going to asda belfast

But as long as they do booze, that's what we're really after. It's another 30 mins to Belfast according to online directions and also extra in fuel.

Maybe this isn't such a good idea.

brettmirl

Head to Lisburn. Big Sainsburys and M&S there, plus a few other shops. You can buy booze from 8am, which is when the store opens. The range of food is much better than whats on offer down here, variety and price wise.

See here for the beer/spirits offers of the week - http://www.supermarketspecialoffers.com/BeerandDrinkOffers.aspx

kleefarr

mick_irl wrote: »

See here for the beer/spirits offers of the week - http://www.supermarketspecialoffers.com/BeerandDrinkOffers.aspx

Will have a good look at that tomorrow with wife. Just after a quick check though.. Sainsbury Absolute Vodka £14, ASDA £11. Makes the trip to ASDA look worthwhile if the other prices are similar differences. Feck, decisions decisions.

brettmirl

Tis all swings and roundabouts really. You'll find somethings cheaper in Asda and others in Sainsburys.

Brady

Hey Guys im from Newry! so this maybe of assistance:

Im currently living in Dublin 6W near spawell, on a good day it takes me 1 & 1/2 hours to get into Newry from there.

Shopping is much much cheaper up north, espicially for Drink

however in newry you have 2 main shopping centres Buttercrane & The Quays which have everything from clothes to cameras, even buying clothes you will notice how much cheaper it is from Dublin Prices.

ive been living in dublin for nearly 2 years, i never buy my drink down here, and rarley shop for clothes either. Dundrum shopping centre is a Joke in comparasion to whats on offer up north.

DonJose

kleefarr wrote: »

Will have a good look at that tomorrow with wife. Just after a quick check though.. Sainsbury Absolute Vodka £14, ASDA £11. Makes the trip to ASDA look worthwhile if the other prices are similar differences. Feck, decisions decisions.

I keep on repeating this...
Asda - 2 x 70cl Absolut Vodka for £18

Also...
Asda - 2 x 70cl Famous Grouse Whisky for £18
Asda - 2 x 70cl Beefeater Gin for £18
Asda - 2 x 70cl Tia Maria for £18

Enjoy

Dooish

ASTRACLUB wrote: »

Straben (Newly opened) is morte than the double size of Enniskellen

Asda is not cheaper than Sainsbury (possible matching rates with one or other item variation),

Asda are creating 140 new jobs at their new store on the Derrychara Road in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh.

The move will bring the workforce in the new £20million store in Enniskillen to 320 and the store is scheduled to open for business later this month.

The workforce of 320 will be complete when the staff transferring from the closing Erneside store are included and the 41,000sq ft outlet will include cutting edge technology designed to reduce environmental emissions.


Strabane's

The 37,000sqft store will also include a customer cafeteria as well as a wet fish counter, while a new recycling centre will be incorporated within the 415-space car park.

also


Asda is cheapest chain for decade

Asda chief executive Andy Bond and his colleagues will be celebrating this weekend after being crowned Britain's cheapest supermarket for an amazing tenth year running.
The Leeds-based retailer provided the cheapest shopping list for 32 weeks of the 50 weeks covered by The Grocer 33's 2006/2007 survey. By comparison, Tesco enjoyed 10 weeks as cheapest retailer.
Asda registered an average basket price of 45.23 [pounds sterling], compared with arch-rival's Tesco's average of 45.98 [pounds sterling].

zing

northdubgal wrote: »

I was just reading all those comments on what the governemnt could do to stop us from shopping up the north and it got me thinking...

Can they tax us on the way back through the border? Kinda like the way airport customs stop people returning from America and go thru their cases??

Can you image it, border control, going through all the bags of shopping with a calculator adding up all the bit n pieces to be taxed..

Wouldn't be surprised!

Then they'd also have to tax people bringing wine, etc.. back from the likes of France on the ferries and they certainly haven't been bothered about that over the years.

Took a trip up to Newry this morning. Got to Newry just before 9 and there was a small tailback heading into the town but I'd partially put that down to school runs & people on their way to work. Took us maybe 5 mins from the back side of the traffic until we were parked in the Quays. Car park was as good as deserted at that time and we did a couple of runs through Sainsbury's - mainly food the first time, dumped that out to the car and went back in for booze. Then took our time having some breakfast, wandering around a few other shops and left Newry around 12:30 - car park was wedged with people looping the place for ages and inbound traffic at that stage was backed up most of the way out the Dublin Road.

Based on what I saw this morning I'd say you're really need to be hitting Newry no later than 10:30. Any later and you'd probably be as well off to head to Banbridge or Sprucefield.

btw - one of the girls on the tills in Sainsbury's said the 1L bottles of both Smirnoff & Bicardi were dropping to a tenner on Wed.

macplaxton

Bond-007 wrote: »

TarfHead wrote: »

I've a mental image of the Taoiseach and the Minister of Finance standing on the side of road north of Dundalk holding signs, like Fathers Ted and Dougal, with messages like 'Down with that sort of thing' and 'careful now !' !

Anyone good with photoshop?

Will this do?

Our man in Havana

macplaxton wrote: »

Will this do?

Excellent!

gaillimh

Brady - as a Newryman could you recommend anywhere in Newry (or elsewhere in the North for that matter), where I could get a good deal on an LCD or Plasma TV?
I'm currently looking at getting a 42" for sitting room and 32" inch for bedroom (LG or Samsung) and UK prices seem much more competitive. Thanks

ASTRACLUB

Right, if it's going to be ASDA then it looks like it'll be Kilkeel. According to the ASDA website, it's the closest, but looks like a hell of a drive. Is there a car ferry across Carlingford Lough?

I have heared from my friend that Kilkeel is too small to drive that long,
Better go to EK or any other area..

johnfás

zing wrote: »

Then they'd also have to tax people bringing wine, etc.. back from the likes of France on the ferries and they certainly haven't been bothered about that over the years.

Took a trip up to Newry this morning. Got to Newry just before 9 and there was a small tailback heading into the town but I'd partially put that down to school runs & people on their way to work. Took us maybe 5 mins from the back side of the traffic until we were parked in the Quays. Car park was as good as deserted at that time and we did a couple of runs through Sainsbury's - mainly food the first time, dumped that out to the car and went back in for booze. Then took our time having some breakfast, wandering around a few other shops and left Newry around 12:30 - car park was wedged with people looping the place for ages and inbound traffic at that stage was backed up most of the way out the Dublin Road.

Based on what I saw this morning I'd say you're really need to be hitting Newry no later than 10:30. Any later and you'd probably be as well off to head to Banbridge or Sprucefield.

btw - one of the girls on the tills in Sainsbury's said the 1L bottles of both Smirnoff & Bicardi were dropping to a tenner on Wed.

They can't. It would breach European Law. The European Union is first a customs Union.

connundrum

Basic question but..

For an overall shopping day i.e. grocery, booze and browsing (clothes, music etc) where is the best town up the North to go to?

I really am dreading Newry tbh. Was thinking of going up to Belfast and staying a night, although we kinda did find Newry to have a more convenient experience on our previous trips.

And now Lisburn is an option.

Bah!

milly4ever

depends on where you are travelling from. enniskillen is very good and its near the border

Esel

From http://www.revenue.ie/leaflets/pn1878.htm :

4. Duty-Paid and Tax-Paid Goods

(i) General
No additional duty or tax will be charged on goods bought duty and tax paid (e.g. in shops, supermarkets etc.) in another EU country. However, see below for Alcohol and Tobacco Products.
(ii) Alcohol and Tobacco Products
In the case of alcohol and tobacco products:

• they must be for your personal use,
• you must retain your receipts as proof that you have paid duty and taxes, and
• you must personally accompany the goods on arrival.

Where your purchases of the specific products listed below are equivalent to, or less than, the quantities shown in the table they will, generally speaking, be regarded as for personal use.

Max Goods

800 Cigarettes
400 Cigarillos
200 Cigars
1kg Smoking Tobacco
10 litres Spirits (whiskey, gin, vodka, etc.)
20 litres Intermediate Alcoholic Products not exceeding 22% vol (e.g. port, sherry, some liqueurs etc.)
90 litres Wine (of which only 60 litres can be sparkling)
110 litres Beer

mcwhirter

gaillimh wrote: »

Brady - as a Newryman could you recommend anywhere in Newry (or elsewhere in the North for that matter), where I could get a good deal on an LCD or Plasma TV?
I'm currently looking at getting a 42" for sitting room and 32" inch for bedroom (LG or Samsung) and UK prices seem much more competitive. Thanks

Ensure that where you live the tv channels are transmitted in the UHF frequency band, as a lot of counties in the republic still use the VHF band. Tvs bought in th UK generally only accept UHF.

Highsider

Headed up to Newry myself tomorrow morn. Heading off at 6 with the hope of being there at 8.30. Booze bargains a plenty to be had with 1lt bottles of Smirnoff and Bacardi going for 10 quid:eek:....what's that 12 euro.No brainer TBH

aquascrotum

Just a quick point - whilst ASDA is generally accepted as being the cheapest supermarket, there is no way it could be that much cheaper for someone from Dublin/Kildare/South-East to go out of their way to get to Enniskillen for instance.

You're already making a killing shopping in a Tesco or Sainsburys in Newry/Banbridge/Portadown/Armagh/Lisburn/(dare I mention Dungannon (Sainsbury + Tesco) also?) - imo any further saving you might make in Asda would be wiped out by the extra miles and sheer pain in the ass state of the roads. Dublin - Enniskillen is treacherous, Kilkeel isn't worthwhile. Routes to stick to are M1 and N2.

All supermarkets prices are within a gnats gonad of each other - Sainsburys might be a few pence more than a Tesco who are a few pence more than an Asda, and generally they follow each other fairly closely in terms of booze and other offers.

Allah Hu Akbar

Anyone else watch Ireland AM? There a show on tonight on tv3 about people going up North shopping.

masterK

johnfás wrote: »

They can't. It would breach European Law. The European Union is first a customs Union.

They can't do a whole lot customs wise.

I suspect it's only a matter of time before a new toll or 2 will open on the Dublin road. The only way the government can stop people going north is to toll them out of it.

josh59

gollyitsolly wrote: »

Just read on Breaking news.ie that John Gormley, minister for the enviroment, wants the government to stop the flow of shoppers to the north! What can he realistically do?

Knowing the shower of clowns we now have for a government they'll bring back the mobile customs patrols they used to have in the 80's that followed people once they crossed back over the border and stopped and searched their cars and confiscated any "contraband".

Used to be that anything over £25 (old Irish ones) was liable to vat and import duty. Of course that meant everyone used to get dodgy receipts from the shops in the North.

the groutch

josh59 wrote: »

Knowing the shower of clowns we now have for a government they'll bring back the mobile customs patrols they used to have in the 80's that followed people once they crossed back over the border and stopped and searched their cars and confiscated any "contraband".

Used to be that anything over £25 (old Irish ones) was liable to vat and import duty. Of course that meant everyone used to get dodgy receipts from the shops in the North.

the EU would never allow it

Stuart1

the groutch wrote: »

the EU would never allow it

Do you think that would stop the clowns in government??

Look at the european working time directive for instance! (why are doctors still working up to 120 hours per week?)

Also from the examiner:

THE Government has failed to uphold the basic rights of victims of crime, according to an independent human rights watchdog.

It said the Government had failed its obligations set out by the UN and the European Council Framework Decision of 2001.

This government does what it likes regardless of the eu.

handsomecake

is there any of the following up there..............tommy hilfiger, fcuk,calvin klein,abercrombie and fitch????????? anybody know??

TarfHead

handsomecake wrote: »

is there any of the following up there..............tommy hilfiger, fcuk,calvin klein,abercrombie and fitch????????? anybody know??

http://www.victoriasquare.com/

http://www.junctionone.co.uk/home.asp

.. for starters

daveyjoe

Did a quick blog post about shopping in the UK and Northern Ireland, it's mostly repeating stuff that has been mentioned on this thread but take a read if you like:
http://bargainsireland.wordpress.com/2008/11/25/shopping-in-the-uk/

DonJose

big b

Going to travel on a weekday from Galway, Enniskillen looks nearest/easiest. AA routeplanner says just over 3 hours, although I'm sure 4 is more realistic.

Anyway, having gone that far, would I be better travelling a bit further, or will the prices & choice in Enniskillen be as good as anywhere else?

Probably looking at buying a big screen LCD & Mrs Big B will want to go nuts buying presents & clothes.

Probably fill any remaining space in the van with food shopping.

Thanks in advance...

smashey

big b wrote: »

Going to travel on a weekday from Galway, Enniskillen looks nearest/easiest. AA routeplanner says just over 3 hours, although I'm sure 4 is more realistic.

Anyway, having gone that far, would I be better travelling a bit further, or will the prices & choice in Enniskillen be as good as anywhere else?

Probably looking at buying a big screen LCD & Mrs Big B will want to go nuts buying presents & clothes.

Probably fill any remaining space in the van with food shopping.

Thanks in advance...

You'll probably get all you need in Enniskillen. If you were to travel any further, Omagh would be just over half an hour away and has a huge ASDA. It also has a place called DAC (Domestic Appliance Centre) where deals can be found on tv's.

rainbowtrout

big b wrote: »

Going to travel on a weekday from Galway, Enniskillen looks nearest/easiest. AA routeplanner says just over 3 hours, although I'm sure 4 is more realistic.

No you would probably do it in about 3, if you're going galway, tuam, castlerea, ----carrick on shannon, drumshanbo, enniskillen or carrick on shannon, ballinamore, swanlinbar, enniskillen

the worst part of that journey will be the traffic between galway and tuam.

big b

Thanks guys

big b

rainbowtrout wrote: »

No you would probably do it in about 3, if you're going galway, tuam, castlerea, ----carrick on shannon, drumshanbo, enniskillen or carrick on shannon, ballinamore, swanlinbar, enniskillen

the worst part of that journey will be tuam.

Fixed your post! :pac:

rainbowtrout

big b wrote: »

Fixed your post! :pac:

DonJose

Quote of the day.
'People will have to see that there is much better value in the Republic of Ireland' - Brian Cowen.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/1124/economy.html

JohnCleary

rainbowtrout wrote: »

No you would probably do it in about 3, if you're going galway, tuam, castlerea, ----carrick on shannon, drumshanbo, enniskillen or carrick on shannon, ballinamore, swanlinbar, enniskillen

the worst part of that journey will be the traffic between galway and tuam.

TBH i'd go Galway => Tuam => Sligo => Enniskillen, along the N17 to Sligo and N16 from there on, quicker route I reckon due to better roads. This will definately be done in 3 hours (or under), 2 hours max to Sligo (Unless you get caught in traffic in Claregalway/Tuam) and then 1 hour max to Enniskillen

JohnCleary

DonJose wrote: »

Quote of the day.
'People will have to see that there is much better value in the Republic of Ireland' - Brian Cowen.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/1124/economy.html

In fairness how the hell does he expect ANYONE to believe that???

DonJose

JohnCleary wrote: »

In fairness how the hell does he expect ANYONE to believe that???

Won't be long until he gets the new nickname "Comical Cowen"

bush Baby

Don't forget there's a LIDL in Newry too. Expect to save about €40 to €50 on a big basket full of groceries compared to LIDL in the republic

DubDani

bush Baby wrote: »

Don't forget there's a LIDL in Newry too. Expect to save about €40 to €50 on a big basket full of groceries compared to LIDL in the republic

To be fair there is not much difference in the prices between Lidl in Ireland and in NI. The reason is that LIDL NI belongs to LIDL Ireland, and is NOT run by LIDL UK.

Lidl in NI is significantly more expensive then LIDL in England.

mailburner

DonJose wrote: »

good job

Slunk

Thinkin bout heading up on saturday. Going to leave at about 8am for newry. Surely it will be ok at this time wont it?

brettmirl

If I were you, I'd leave to be there for 8am!

JackieChan

Slunk wrote: »

Thinkin bout heading up on saturday. Going to leave at about 8am for newry. Surely it will be ok at this time wont it?

Could be touch and go, with the mass exodus from the south and confrontations that you will meet in the carparks.Could be wise to read up on Zombie survival guide for tips on how to get there and back in one piece......It's ever man for themselves when Smirnoff 1L are going so cheap!!

Disclaimer: I'm not a vodka drinker. A Bud man, although sometimes it's easier saying your teetotal on boards for the slack you get(p**s water and all that!)

TarfHead

I have to say ..

I'm astonished at what I interpret to be the the fixation by some posters at the price of vodka, and the quantities claimed to be bought.

That's all - I'm not looking to pass judgment on vodka buyers and drinkers. It's just an eye opener for me at how high some people place the cost of a 1 litre bottle on their list of priorities.

FWIW, it's beer & wine in our house - she takes the occasional G&T.

gazzer

Does anybody know if there is a fitness/gym type shop in either Newry or Banbridge? Im looking to buy a home gym set up and some olympic bar bells etc. Most of the ones on the argos uk website are home delivery so I cant get one there.

aquascrotum

gazzer wrote: »

Does anybody know if there is a fitness/gym type shop in either Newry or Banbridge? Im looking to buy a home gym set up and some olympic bar bells etc. Most of the ones on the argos uk website are home delivery so I cant get one there.

Theres a JJB in Merchants Quay, Newry. Not sure of any others in Newry or Banbridge other than independants that I wouldn't know of off hand.