As the oldest pharmacy in Castlecomer, we have a long family history of providing independent medical advice and medicines to the people of Castlecomer and North Kilkenny. We provide private consultations, free of charge and a range of other services, including prescription services, photography, cosmetics and health food. We specialise in the procurement of rare high-tech medicines for complicated health problems, so please contact us if you are having difficulty obtaining unusual prescriptions. We also specialise in veterinary pharmacy and have played a leading role in transforming pharmacy to meet the needs of our farming community. We have a highly professional team, trained in all aspects of pharmacy treatment, including three pharmacists, two pharmacy technicians and two medical counter assistants.

Giles graduated as a Pharmacist from UCD in 1975. After a brief time working in the pharmaceutical industry, he established Barrett's Pharmacy in Castlecomer. He quickly built a strong reputation for advice and the provision of cutting-edge service - introducing the first computing system to Castlecomer in the 1980's. Giles follows in a long family tradition of pharmacy. His grandfather was a pharmacist in Co. Mayo, and his father, Tom Barrett was also a pharmacist and a co-founder of United Drug, which later grew to be one of the largest drug companies in Europe with a listing on the Irish Stock Exchange. After establishing Barrett's Pharmacy, Giles recognised that the farming community in North Kilkenny, and across Ireland were not benefiting form the expertise of the pharmacy profession in the treatment of animals. To help remedy this, he established Pharmachem - an organisation dedicated to improving the safe supply of medicines to animals. As chairman of Pharmachem, he acted as advisor to the Irish Government and the European Commission in drafting legislation for the safe provision of such medicines. He delivers an annual lecture at Trinity College Dublin on the subject of veterinary pharmacy. In recognition of this work, he was made a Fellow of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland in 1999 - the highest honour in the profession of pharmacy.

We work in close partnership with all your local health providers. These include GP's, Dentists and other services listed below. All the information listed was current as of July 2014. The HSE maintains a comprehensive and up-to-date list of these services.

If you are interested in joining us, please get in touch! We are dedicated to professional development and training of all our staff. We can support pre-registration training for pharmacy graduates, through the National Pharmacy Internship Programme leading to the award of an MPharm degree provided by the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI), and we have a strong track record of training pharmacists through this Programme. We can also support pharmacy technician training through the Carlow IT Pharmacy Technician Course, leading to NFQ Level 6 qualification. Our counter assistants receive training in Vichy skincare and Rimmel makeup products and they complete the Irish Pharmacy Union Medicines Counter Assistant Training course. All our staff receive continuing professional development training.