PEOPLE OF WESTPORT and Kilkenny, you can feel pretty smug today.

Retail Excellence Ireland have named you Ireland’s best town and city respectively, following a survey of 16,000 residents and business owners in 100 locations around the country.

However, in terms the overall results table, Kilkenny came in eleventh.

Westport came out on top overall with a total score of 85.6 per cent, with Killarney a close second at 84.6 per cent. Swords in Dublin was in third place, followed by Ashbourne in Meath and Dungarvan in Waterford.

The towns were rated on factors like car parking, chose of retail stores, restaurants and pubs, safety and family friendliness.

REI has stopped short of naming the ‘bottom 25′ of the 100 towns surveyed, instead breaking the bottom 75 towns and cities into the second, third and fourth quartile.

Source: Retail Excellence Ireland (PDF)

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