Habitat’s closure of operations in Ireland last week had zero fanfare. Not so much as a fart from the saddest little trumpet in the world. There was just a simple notice on the door of Habitat’s bloated flagship store on Dublin’s College Green, which informed customers that trading had ceased. There was no special help-line for the one and a half million billion slightly pushy well-to-do ladies, who now have one less place to drag their bored, slightly embarrassed partners around. I bet the men were quietly punching the air though, now that Saturdays will be less one other completely boring, utterly vapid obstacle to watching football on the telly.
Habitat is the glamour club – the Spurs ca. 1989 - of interior furnishing stores. So when its closure in Ireland failed to cause hysterical national mourning, I was so shocked, I spilled my vanilla latte all over my gorgeous DKNY shirt, covering my freshly waxed chest with second degree burns and a vague smell of burnt milk. Instead, you could feel the country exhale with relief that times are finally changing: Bertie is gone, and good riddance, and so are the shiny distractions of his culturally vacuous times. The arrival of Brian Cowen as head honcho means that for the first time in a generation, we stand a chance of finding ourselves again, and not before our souls have been completely sucked out of us by the UK high street cloning project that we've been involved with for the last age.
There were, however, a few thirtysomething wannabe yummy mummies sitting on the curb outside the entrance, clutching their ageing Fendi handbags, the stitching coming undone like their feeble new-monied minds, as they sobbed into grande Cappuccinos the price of an Italian football bribe from the filthy, overfull McStarbucks across the road. Morale is low with these label monsters: Their Fake tan is peeling like wall paper in an old folks home and their Mastercards have burst their limits, in much the same fashion as their once swanky Guess jeans. No-one told them that Cappuccinos make you fat and even if you did they wouldn't believe you. Within minutes, the riot police were able to disperse them efficiently, luring them down dark alleys using knock-off Marc Jacobs sunglasses as bait, then bundling them into the back of a cattle truck for processing.
I'm delighted it's gone, though, and not just because I was stupid enough to pay a million Euro for a Chinese lantern I could have made with some Kleenex and straws. Habitat was a place that had about as much class as a B&Q-store rampaging on a cocaine binge. Habitat flourished on business drummed up by pandering to our worst instincts of fetishistic consumption. Their stock was overpriced, over-hyped, and worth a fraction of what they demanded, all in the name of lifestyle shopping. And we were the gobshites, blinded by our own vanity, for buying into that lifestyle in the first place.
The decade and a bit that is bookended by Bertie Ahern’s tenure as Ireland’s leader gave us plenty to reflect upon, but absolutely nothing substantial. A lot of dumb show, embarrassing melodrama at the tribunals, the odd bit of excitement. The one golden moment of history in Norn Iron owed its momentum to Tony Blair's 179 seat majority in Westminster, rather than Bertie ineffectually shambling up to Stormont. In short, Bertie achieved nothing substantial, because he wasn't a politician of substance. And his only gift to us domestically was a divided society and the economy, which is slowing down rapidly.
The fact is, however, that the the Celtic Tiger never existed anyway. It was just a myth cynically dreamt up in the rush to spin Ireland into being like Britain in the 80’s, all brash and tripping with on a dangerous cocktail of hubris and credit cards. The truth is most people are fighting to make ends meet. The truth is, that somewhere during the last decade we confused expense with success. That's why Habitat closed down, and that's why it's a sign of better things to come.
So to all the temporarily hard up, maturing Terenure Totty, worry ye not - a brighter future beckons! IKEA is on the way – classy, straightforward and affordable. A bit of substance after bloating yourselves on the pre-dinner breadbasket you were looking at during the Ahern years. Admittedly it’ll be on Dublin’s north side, but at least if you take off your blinkers, you’ll learn to keep it real about what you’re doing and who you are.
The same is true of our leadership. Cowen, is IKEA. Clever, pragmatic, he can stand up to be counted when it matters. Bertie never did that. Not because he was some masterful politician, but because he had absolutely nothing to say for himself.
Consumption has always afflicted Ireland. In the forties, it was the name of a disease of the lungs that ravaged our In the naughties, it was the frenzied purchasing of any old shite we could lay our label-craving hands on.
Times are gonna be tougher, but they'll be more satisfying than we realise, and we’ll be better off for them.
