Four outstanding Offaly stores among the winners at Gala Awards

Four stores in Offaly have been named as amongst the best Gala Retail stores in Ireland at the 2025 Gala Retail ‘Delivering the Difference’ annual conference.

Held at the Great Southern Hotel in Killarney, two Offaly Gala stores also picked up the big awards on the night, with Dolan's Gala, Tullamore named as Social Media Champion of the year and a worthy runner-up in the Chilled Retailer category. Darcy's Gala, Mount Lucas, was a worthy runner-up in the Brand Champion category.

Both stores were celebrated as Gala Retail Excellence Award winners, joined by Mulrooney's Gala, Birr and Maunsells' Gala, Tullamore, who each achieved Gala Retail Excellence Awards.

Mulrooney's Gala, Birr

Sports broadcaster, Jacqui Hurley, was MC for the Gala celebratory evening event, and speakers Bernard Jackman and Geoff Ramm featured at the morning conference.

The Gala Excellence Awards are presented to Gala stores that are deemed ‘outstanding’ following a comprehensive and independent assessment process. More retailers than ever before achieved the standard, which is reflective of the Group’s focus on quality, community-centric and innovative retailers.

“Gala Retail stores in County Offaly consistently feature as some of the best performing stores across the Group,” explains Gary Desmond, CEO of Gala Retail

Mr Desmond adds: “I’m delighted to see our Offaly retailers getting the recognition they deserve and would like to thank each of the Gala store owners and their teams for their loyalty, hard work and dedication to quality convenience retailing.

“Our theme at this year’s conference was ‘Delivering the Difference’ and these stores make a difference to their shoppers and communities every day.”

At the Gala Retail conference, it was announced that over €100,000 of Gala Greener Grants have been gifted to retailers by the convenience retail group – part of a €500,000 fund that’s been created to help retailers transition to energy-efficient and sustainable retailing of the future.