Shoptalk: Ennis, Co Clare

Ennis in Co Clare is my home town, so I'm always curious as to what new things are happening there. Forget Me Not on Lower Market Street is a clothes consignment shop that opened in December. Formerly a pop-up, owner Michelle Timoney is now running it full-time. Customers bring in pre-owned, highish-end clothes, and if they sell, they get a percentage of the sale.

Neatly organised in rails of dresses, jackets, coats, skirts, jeans, and tops, Timoney also stocks shoes and bags. I spot a Ted Baker dress for €45, a Needle & Thread sweatshirt for €39, and a Karen Millen dress for €32. Alas, I missed the size 4 – my size – Louboutin shoes for €46 that came in that morning and were instantly sold.

Nearby is Scéal Eile, a charming second-hand bookshop, with a working range and two armchairs, where browsers can sit by the fire in winter.

Craft books are in an old wooden chest, there are mass-market paperbacks upstairs, old New Yorkers for €2 each, and first editions and collectors' items under glass downstairs. A first edition of Elizabeth Bowen's Death of the Heart is €25, minus the dust cover. There are also a couple of tiny tables outside, where you can have tea or coffee, each €1.50.

James Brohan's hardware shop on Parnell Street is crammed with all the useful objects you need to maintain a house.

There’s everything here from mirrors to mops, paint, French polish, birdseed, fire irons, ironing boards, pie dishes, kilner jars, and even several versions of the Child of Prague.

The Ennis Gourmet Store and Bistro on Barrack Street is small in size and giant in what it delivers in such a bijou space.

Every shelf is beautifully and thoughtfully displayed with gourmet produce; pasta, wine, jars of sweet and savoury treats, tea, coffee, truffle oil, and unusual biscuits, such as dark chocolate and cardamom.

There are a few much-in-demand French-style bistro tables and chairs, and the menu includes baguettes, charcuterie, salads, tapas and pate.

The most atmospheric shop in Ennis has to be Honan's Antiques on Abbey Street. It's hard to know where to look first. Up, at the double-height ceiling, where chandeliers and coloured glass lamps are hanging? Into the glass cabinets, containing diamond rings, and antique silver? At the room lined with grandfather clocks?

This cavernous shop contains multiple treasures; from writing boxes, to chinoiserie vases, from crystal glasses to cerulean blue porcelain.

I coveted a tiny set of reference books in a specially-made stand, created by Asprey of London. Mine for €600. Or yours, since I didn’t buy them.

Rosita Boland