Rathwood Home and Garden World, near Tullow in County Carlow, offers an amazing range of home and garden furniture and accessories along with a massive garden centre, gift shop and boutique selling the hottest in Irish design.

The Beauty Boutique salon, on the main floor of Rathwood, offers beauty treatments using award winning products to suit all skin types. The salon is happy to offer complementary coffee and treats during your appointment. There is even a sparkling manicure especially for kids on the list of treatments.

There are two restaurants. The Merry Tree serves delicious locally sourced foods, roasted coffee and homemade treats in a refined and relaxed atmosphere, while The Wood Shed Café, adjacent to The Ark play centre, provides a more casual option for a light lunch or coffee while your children play.

The Ark play centre is a wonderful indoor playground suitable for children aged up to nine years. As well as the play centre, children can enjoy a trip on the whimsical Rathwood Express Train down through the forest, around the duck pond and back to the courtyard, or take a stroll in the animal park and the adjacent woods with looped walks suitable for all levels of fitness, including a wheelchair accessible option.

All the family will enjoy finding their way through the hedge maze, planted and grown in the shape of the island of Ireland, with each county built to scale and markers to indicate the county towns and rivers flowing through them.

Rathwood Events run a massive range of fun family shows at the Rathwood Big Top in the heart of the forest. The Halloween Spook-tacular and Santa Train are perennial favourites, with new shows taking place regularly. The audience are taken to the Big Top through the forest aboard the Rathwood Express, so whatever you’re going to see, the fun starts with the journey.