Best Shops: visual delights catch the eye

The nominations for The Irish Times Best Shops in Ireland, backed by AIB, are coming in in their droves with lots of voting in the best family-run shop and best food and drink categories.

Already best visual merchandising has captured readers’ imagination far more than that best shop window category did last year. Here’s some of the early entries.

Interior architect Aoife Hayes is behind Objekt, in Newcastlewest, Co Limerick, which stocks Missoni Home, Kartell and Callegaris. It also serves coffee and has recently added a wine licence to the mix so you can enjoy a glass of wine with your consultation. Reader Patrica McKenna thinks this shop deserves an award for the quality of its contemporary design furniture and furnishings, and its visual merchandising. She discovered it last summer and was "blown away by it! It is on the site of an old mill on the road out of the NCW to Killarney. The shop stocks clever, unusual accessories. At my own request, I was given a Christmas present of some 'artificial flowers.' The only resemblance they have to flowers is a head and a stem. The colours and forms of the heads are completely different! A great space and a great buyer!"

With nominations pouring in it is time to get behind your favourite shop and vote for it in Best Shops 2016 at irishtimes.com/bestshops.

Send us pictures too. You can tweet them to #bestshops2016