Charity shops an essential part of the landscape of the new Irish society

It may not apply across a broad media front. It may not even apply right across the Irish Examiner’s front. A lowly columnist cannot be held responsible for what news editors and leader writers decide.

But, within this little section of the paper, I hereby declare a moratorium on Bertie Ahern, Manchester, Houses, Whiparounds, Michael McDowell, Sulks, Socks in Hot Presses and Tribunal Leaks.

Now, don’t you feel better? Of course you do. Everybody needs a temporary refuge from further discussion of those topics. An asylum from topic-battering.

It might be going too far to establish an association of Victims of Topic Battering, but after the last fortnight, you’d have to consider the possibility. It’s not too bad when the bludgeon is good, sizeable and weighty. A good round political bribe of a million or so makes for a satisfactory bludgeon, whereas adding up the hundreds peeled off the rolls of banknotes Manchester businessmen keep handy for whiparounds delivers much less of a thrill. It’s sort of like being beaten to death with a loofah.

Taking refuge from it, last Friday, I was importuned by Destiny. Destiny is three years old, African-Irish and super-confident. She accosted me in a charity shop and indicated that I should follow her around the corner to where the children’s clothes were displayed.

“Princess,” she said simply, pointing at a pink dress trimmed with broderie anglaise.

Now, THERE’S economy of words for you. What she clearly intended me to understand was that the purchase of this dress would make her feel like a princess, and was I up for it?

I went searching for her mother, who was first mortified and then relieved: the dress was too small for Destiny.

“Other one,” Destiny said, pointing further along the rack.

Sure enough, there hung a larger version of almost the same dress. Selling, according to the hand-written label, for three euro. Three coins in her hand, off she went to the cash desk. Where, other than in a charity shop, could you turn a little girl into a princess for three euro?

I first got hooked on charity shops in the United States, when a friend gave me a lift to the airport. I was heading off to America. He was surprised when he lifted my big case. Surprised by the weight — or, rather, the lightness of it — and by the funny way it rattled. I had to explain that it was empty except for another, smaller, suitcase. I planned to do serious shopping in the States.

“Oh,” he said, “So you don’t know about the Vincent de Paul?”

Vincent de Paul?

“I never take suitcases when I go to the states on holiday,” he said. “A few days before the end of the holiday, I just go around to the St Vincent de Paul Society’s thrift shop in the area — there’s always one in every major town — and buy a discarded suitcase there for a few dollars.”

I tested it out, and discovered that you can get mighty suitcases in all sizes for a fiver or less in the VDP stores or those run by Goodwill. I bought a hard-shell wheeled suitcase in bright canary yellow for three dollars and it lasted forever. I used to leave it on the carousel until all the other passengers had gone so they wouldn’t know it was mine. It was as raucously cheerful and indestructible as one of those Blackpool postcard jokes about false teeth.

Charity shops represent an interesting aspect of Irish society, right now.

We have more of them than ever before. That’s not unexpected, given the immigration of the last few years.

The “five and dime” stores in American cities in the late 19th century, many of which grew into the Woolworth chain, catered to the same market of the low-paid but hard-working who wanted a cheap-and-cheerful version of what older, richer citizens could buy.

Not only does Ireland have a plethora of charity shops, but they get cleaner, brighter and more professional with every passing week. (They also have a surprising tendency to be located next door to, or as near as dammit next door to, sex shops. God alone knows why.)

Charity shops are embedding themselves in the spending patterns of poorer people through impressive merchandising and supply-chain management.

Some of them have depots where donors can drop off their offerings for sorting and distribution. The sorting is sophisticated and as fast as card-dealing by a Las Vegas croupier: this item goes to one kind of shop, that item goes to another, the third wouldn’t sell in either and goes into a bin for a different kind of recycling.

Some of the shops get their merchandise through supermarket bins. An oddity about these bins is that they’re fed, not just by the charitable, but by the crooked.

Last year, my house was broken into and my wallet stolen. Two days later, I got a call from the Cerebral Palsy people: we have your wallet. The burglars took the cash and tossed the rest into the nearest supermarket bin. A not infrequent happening, it seems.

Burglars apart, charity shop donation is part of the pattern of many people’s lives, and they take pride in the way they do it. They wash and iron clothes before packaging them carefully and shipping them off. Or, in some cases, dry-clean them.

The other method of donation is facilitated by charity shops which drop sturdy folded-up plastic bags through the letter-box, inviting homeowners to look around their homes for clothing, bed-linen and towels, stuff the bag with them and leave it outside the front door on a designated day for collection.

Customers of charity shops are a fascinating mix. New citizens can be found, searching for the essentials they need to set up their homes at a price they can afford. Pensioners buy books and bric-a-brac. Young women hunt for vintage dresses and jewellery.

Starbucks and Harvey Nichols are at one end of Ireland’s social continuum, delivering must-haves at a guilt-inducing price. Charity shops are at the other end, delivering guilt-free retail therapy.

They might do even better if Brian Cowen’s upcoming budget were to incentivise people to donate to them, rather than add discarded clothes to the mountain of waste generated in this country. In America, receipts for donations to charity shops can be set against your income tax for the year.

It’s a win/win worth copying.