Orna Mulcahy on people we all know...
Antoinette rears up like a cobra from behind the till when she sees the three Americans coming through the door of Celtic Charms. Off goes Gerry Ryan so that Enya can be heard in the background and just a couple more drops of lavender oil on the burner to get rid of the damp smell. Then, checking her aura - it's so important to give off positive vibes - she sidles over toward the soap display where the ladies are toying with some shamrock-shaped bars that have gone a bit crumbly around the edges.
"Anything I can help you with, just let me know," she says with what she likes to think of as her welcoming smile, though in fact it makes her look like a Bengal tiger about to pounce. With the stockroom full of knitted sheep, bodhráns, lucky stones from Blarney and a hell of a lot of Belleek, Antoinette can't afford to let this lot get away, even if they've only stepped in to get out of the rain. Yes, she knows the type - nice, gentle, well-off people from somewhere in the Midwest, with lots of friends back home needing presents and possibly a niece getting married who just loves Irish crystal.
Good, they're now fingering the patchwork tweed which has been woefully slow this year, due to global warming or their appalling cut. "These are terribly popular," she says brightly, hauling one off its hanger and helping one of the larger ladies into it. Immediately the poor woman's eyes start to water from the hairy tweed, but the thing is a work of art and it does get very cold in Minnesota, doesn't it? "What a marvellous fit, and those heather colours really suit you. What about a mohair scarf? You know the secret with mohair is to put it in the freezer, then it won't get up your nose!"
Amazingly, they buy three scarves each, so they're obviously fair game for some Aran. "The wonderful thing about Arans", she tells the ladies, now hanging on her every word, "is that each style of stitch tells a story, stories that were handed down through the generations." She's not entirely sure what the stories are but "gone ... gone ... the sea has taken them all" pretty much covers it, doesn't it? "Oh goodness me, how terrible," say the ladies, moving away from the heaps of cream wool and engrossing themselves in the linen napkins that Antoinette knows for a fact are made in China though they're cunningly trimmed with shamrocky lace.
"Carrickmacross lace," she says, "lovely work. Started by the nuns over a century ago and still going today." They take the lot, and throw in some silk scarves printed with bits of the Book of Kells for good measure. There's nothing like Americans for spending, but God they're annoying looking for their VAT-back forms, and maybe those lace napkins were just too cheap, she thinks, hauling out a fresh batch from the back and adjusting her price gun upward.