Longford Centre manager celebrates one year in role and welcomes new born baby

There is no place like home other than Longford Centre for centre manager Samuel Byrne.

Travelling from Dublin to Longford for a quieter life, Samuel still gets the hustle and bustle of city life from the people of Longford and the centre.

Samuel has been centre manager for a year, he was appointed last November and has not looked back since.

He said; “My experience has been great and I am really happy with how it has gone since I took over. I have just been trying to get around the community and get the face around so people can get to know me. Overall I am very happy in the position and where I am at and I hope to be there for a long time.”

Samuel has always been in managerial positions prior to the centre and he always knew business was the career for him no matter what sector it was in.

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He said; “I was always in a managerial position before going to the centre. I have worked in retail and hospitality and food and taking on this role is an amalgamation of all those different areas of business that I have worked in and I have taken all that experience into this role.”

The centre celebrated 30 years in business last October and had a big bash for the achievement.

Samuel said; “We had a three day celebration for the anniversary. There was kids entertainment, balloon modelling and we had a big cake cutting and confetti ceremony on the last day. It was such an amazing celebration and brought the community together and we hope there will be another 30 and more.”

The centre has 15 retailers however there have been two anchor stores with them since their opening, Samuel said; “Our few anchors have been Tesco and Penneys. The hopes are they will stay with us, they are the biggest draws to the centre.”

Sales have been good for the centre even throughout the pandemic and Samuel explains he expects them to ‘skyrocket’ throughout Christmas.

He said; “There is a big thing across the country to shop local but we had a very strong Black Friday and we would consider that to be the start of Christmas and we had great footfall from it. We would expect that to continue up until Christmas. It is great to see the amount of people that come in and out of the centre and it is a testament to the people of Longford as they continue to support the centre even throughout the pandemic.”

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When asked about celebrations for the holidays at the centre, Samuel explained; “We won’t have Santa this year but I hope to have him next year. We will have a number of choirs and celebrations and we will have charity groups raising money for Christmas raffles. There are a couple of things going on this Christmas but it will be next year before the big man is back.”

Samuel lives in Longford with wife Weronika and their newborn baby boy and their four year old son.

Explaining what brought them to Longford, Samuel said; “I have been in Longford for four years now and I have kind of become one with the town. My wife and I met about six years ago. We lived in Dublin and had our first child in 2019 and we had our second son recently on Tuesday, November 28.

“We moved to Longford when we had our first son for a quieter life. Living in Dublin between the cost of everything and the hustle and bustle, it is hard to raise a family and consider expanding up there so we moved to Longford for a better more community focused life and I think we got that and found the experience has worked out as we would have hoped.”

Asked what their Christmas will look like, Samuel said; “We will do a bit of travelling this Christmas. My wife is Polish and we will celebrate with her family in Carlow on Christmas Eve. We will then travel to my family for Christmas Day and it will be nice as it will be the first time they will all get to meet the new baby. We will have a mix of traditions between Irish and Polish households.”

For more information on Longford Centre or to keep up to date with the latest events happening visit https://www.facebook.com/LongfordCentreOfficial for more information.

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