Fashion retailer Laura Ashley trades Cork city for suburbs

Fashion and homeware retailer Laura Ashley is to leave its long-held Cork city centre shop on St Patrick’s Street, after 30 years trading there at the Merchants Quay Shopping Centre: it is moving instead to suburban retail park.

Laura Ashley was one of the first retailers companies at the brand-new Merchants Quay Shopping Centre, joining the likes of Marks & Spencers in a then-transformative wave of UK retailers’ arrival to Cork.