{"id":416478,"date":"2026-02-09T17:11:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T17:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/416478\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T17:11:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T17:11:11","slug":"mckillens-shoe-shop-ballymena-historic-and-family-owned-co-antrim-business-announces-closure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/416478\/","title":{"rendered":"McKillens shoe shop, Ballymena: Historic and family-owned Co Antrim business\u00a0announces closure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Managing Director Mr Thomas McKillen.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/2_Belfast_Telegraph.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_caption1 beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_secondary beltel-66f0fec7_regular beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom0 beltel-1d70522a_marginleft0 beltel-1d70522a_marginright0 beltel-1d70522a_margintop3 beltel-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Managing Director Mr Thomas McKillen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_paragraph beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_primary beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom0 beltel-1d70522a_margintop0 beltel-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">A historic family-run Ballymena shoe shop has announced it will close after 100 years in business. <\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_paragraph beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_primary beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom0 beltel-1d70522a_margintop0 beltel-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">McKillens, which was established in 1926 by the family of the same name, said the decision to close was made with \u201cdeep regret\u201d, and was down to factors including \u201cincreasing overheads, online shopping and the demise of the high street\u201d. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Managing Director Mr Thomas McKillen. A historic family-run Ballymena shoe shop has announced it will close after 100&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416479,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1900,84,59,10985,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-416478","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-antrim-news","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-gb","11":"tag-james-mcnaney","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}