Over 500 new jobs are being created at the quarter, which includes retail and business units as well as residential properties, along with parking space for 1,100 vehicles.

The development forms part of the Kilkenny integrated area plan. A planned second phase will include a 121-bed hotel and a leisure centre.

Dunnes Stores is the shopping centre anchor and other retail occupants include Apollo Fashion, Barratt Shoes, River Island, Next, TK Maxx, Fields Jewellers, Gloria Jean's Coffee and Virgin Megastore. A small number of retail units are still available to rent. Residential units in the development range in price from 245,000 for one-bed apartments up to 320,000 for three-bed duplexes.

Chesterbridge Developments, backed by businessmen Paul Hanby and Paul Newman, is the major investor in the mixed use project developed on a 10.5 acre site beside the railway station. Kilkenny County Council and CIE jointly own 9% of the development.

"The opening of MacDonagh Junction marks the culmination of several years of intensive planning, design and construction work which has taken place in co-operation with the city authorities and Iarnrod Eireann, " says developer, Paul Hanby. "This process has yielded a new city quarter which will be very highly regarded not just in Kilkenny but throughout Ireland. Kilkenny has a proud heritage and it has served as the engine of the wider regional economy for centuries before today.

"It is fitting that a world class development of this nature has been put in place, which will attract further commercial, consumer and residential activity into the city."

The new quarter is named after Thomas MacDonagh, one of the seven signatories of the 1916 Proclamation, who worked for some years as a teacher at St Kieran's College in the city.

In 1966, CIE renamed Kilkenny railway station MacDonagh Station in his memory.