Bargain hunters invade Newry

Newry: Recession fears across Europe have consumers spending less and retailers fearful of the future. But one Northern Ireland border town is enjoying the biggest shopping spree in its history.

A record-strong euro and deepening recession in the neighbouring Republic of Ireland have turned Newry in recent months into the most intensively shopped spot in Ireland - if not the continent. The 8-km traffic jams and patience-shattering hunts for a parking spot are already the talk of the island.

The phenomenon could reach its peak just before Christmas as tens of thousands travel from up to 12 hours' drive away to cash in on Northern Ireland shops pricing goods in record-cheap British pounds.

"No, never been to the 'black north' before. Never seen any reason to come," said Sean Magee, 35, a short-of-work construction worker from faraway Limerick, southwest Ireland, in the parking lot of Newry's glitziest shopping centre, the 55-shop Quays.

Magee bore the broadest of smiles and the fullest of shopping carts. He and his two friends, who had travelled eight hours by work van the night before and slept rough in the back, were pushing similar loads of cider and beverages - much of it produced in the Irish Republic yet available for less than half the price in Northern Ireland.

"Never bought so much booze in one go before, but you'd be crazy not to. Think I'm good 'til St Pat's," Magee said, referring to Ireland's national holiday of St Patrick's Day on March 17. "And this is sure to be a New Year's to remember!"

Ebb and flow

Then he donned his best Arnold Schwarzenegger-as-Terminator accent and cast a cold eye back on the shopping centre. "I'll be back," he said to laughter all around.

Veteran shoppers, store owners and retail experts long have watched the ebb and flow of shoppers across Ireland's border.

Different sales-tax policies and the shifting values between the north's British pound versus the euro - and, before 2002, the old Irish punt - usually have meant particular goods were cheaper on one side than the other.

But never like this since Ireland's partition in 1921. These days, about the only thing cheaper in the south - increasingly decried by shoppers as 'the Rip-off Republic' - is the vehicle fuel required to make the trip north.

Several months ago, the pound was worth 50 percent more than the euro.