Special event for customers as service station in Offaly celebrates first anniversary

LOCAL Offaly store, XL Cloghan Service Station recently celebrated its first year in business and to mark the occasion retailer Martin Grogan hosted a special event for customers to share in the celebrations.

This new community store includes an impressive ‘Plaza’ style Forecourt, a stand-out Deli offering with a large selection of ‘food to go’ and in-store diner options, including O’Reilly’s fish and chips, a large seated area, truck stop, electrical chargers, off licence, Emo fuel card, free Wifi, state-of-the-art Bewley’s Coffee Station and self-service laundry machines.

The family-fun event, which was held on Wednesday, February 14th, featured special guests former Offaly All-Ireland winning hurling captains Martin Hanamy (1994), Hubert Rigney (1998) and Pádraig Horan (1981). The GAA community has been very important to Cloghan so when deciding what art to decorate the walls of the shop Martin wanted to honour some heroes of their local community. To this end he commissioned a special piece of artwork from accomplished Canadian artist Alejandra Harrison depicting the All-Ireland winning captains, which was unveiled at the recent celebration.

The three hurling All- Ireland winning Offaly captains are part of Cloghan’s local club St Rynagh’s and were all on hand to witness the unveiling.

Commenting, Martin Grogan said, “The GAA is an integral part of Offaly and, in particular, the Cloghan area. To have three All-Ireland winning captains from the one rural club is a remarkable achievement and we wanted to pay homage to the three men and their achievement. It’s been a wonderful first year of trading in XL Cloghan and this event is our way to say ‘thank you’ to the local community and our customers.”

XL Cloghan has been a fantastic addition to the local area and is the first ever XL “green site” location, providing employment to 21 people locally and serving the local area and passing trade faithfully for the last year. XL Cloghan’s impact on the local community has been immediate and profound, as evidenced by their winning two awards at the annual XL Retailer Awards celebration in 2023.

Paul Bealin, Cash & Carry Sales Director, BWG Foods, congratulated Martin and the team on a great first year as part of the XL family, “XL is Ireland’s fastest growing retail symbol brand and Martin Grogan and his team in XL Cloghan are a terrific example of our innovative retail family. Martin is truly passionate about providing value to his customers and his store’s offering is second to none. XL Cloghan Service Station delivers great value, choice, service and exciting consumer promotions to the local community and customers.”