Most passersby would see only shopfronts. Three of the four bays of a handsome arcade have been swallowed by projecting retail additions over the years, and only one bay remains fully open, still carrying foot traffic through the building to the yard behind. That yard is known locally as the shambles, a word with a specific historical meaning: a place where meat was slaughtered and sold. The name alone tells you this was once a working market-house, a type of civic building common in Irish towns from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, typically combining a ground-floor arcade for trading with an upper floor used for assembly, court sittings, or municipal business.

The structure itself is rectangular, running on a northwest to southeast axis, and built in a manner typical of its type: rendered walls with exposed chamfered limestone quoins at the corners, the stonework cut at an angle to give a neat, slightly decorative edge. The front arcade runs to four bays with semicircular arches, and on the first floor above there are round-headed window openings, though the central one has been blocked and two of the others replaced with smaller sash windows. The roofline adds a further quirk: chimneys sit atop each gable end, with a third chimney placed slightly off-centre, suggesting the interior was divided or altered at some point. A Church of Ireland church stands immediately to the southwest, a reminder of the civic and ecclesiastical clustering that shaped so many Irish town centres.

The northwest bay of the arcade is worth seeking out on a visit. It remains open as a passage, and stepping through it gives a clearer sense of the building's original form than anything visible from the street. The shambles yard beyond is accessible from this passage, and the contrast between the busy shopfronts on Davis Street and the quieter space behind is a small, instructive lesson in how thoroughly commercial layers can obscure older civic architecture.