Tomorrow's Dublin Flea Market marks the start of a new life for Kylee O'Brien, who is selling almost everything she owns, writes RÓISÍN INGLE
YOU NEVER know what you will pick up at Dublin Flea Market. Over the past two years it has become a monthly institution for bargain hunters and vintage hoarders, and this weekend Australian Kylee O’Brien takes it to a new level with a stall full of all the treasured possessions and cluttering tat she has accumulated over the past 13 years of her life.
Earlier this week O’Brien, who came here for a working holiday when she was 21 and decided to stay, sent the following email to all her friends and acquaintances: “This Sunday we are selling just about everything we own at the flea market . . . so if you have seen anything you might like in our house it’s going to the highest bidder. Huge selection of kitchen, garden, baby and random knickknacks. 13 years of my life and I’d like it all gone on the day. Bit broke? Then drop down towards the end of the day and whatever is left will be given away. Would like to drive home with an empty car.”
The 34-year-old has decided to move home to Australia with her Irish boyfriend and their two children Nia (4) and Felix (2). “Going back was always on the cards but the last few months has just got too miserable here and not just financially, which is why we are moving,” says O’Brien, who runs an ethical children’s clothing business, Fairly Traded, which will close when she leaves.
“I am sick of it. You can’t open a newspaper without being told that you are buggered, that small businesses are closing down, there’s negativity everywhere. It’s as though people are shut off to anything good ever happening again. People seem to have forgotten that we still had fun when we were waiting tables for a fiver an hour, we just did it differently. I don’t see anyone being happy anymore.”
Once she’d made the decision to move she began to think about what the family should take with them. The original plan was to have everything shipped over to Australia but then she had a revelation. “I realised this was a chance for me to get rid of all the stuff I had accumulated and to start again completely uncluttered and free of everything that I’ve bound myself to for the last 13 years,” she says.
She put off packing for weeks, afraid of the emotions that sorting out her possessions might stir. In the end she found the sorting therapeutic and she grew more excited by the idea of the family landing in Sydney owning only the contents of their suitcases.
“It was completely cleansing. Over the years you buy into things and get attached to them because you think these material positions will bring joy and happiness, but it’s nothing to do with objects: it’s about the people who gave you those things or who remind you of them and even if you clear it all away those people are still there.
“I’ve made amazing friends here and I will be paralysed by the grief of missing them but I know they will come and visit and we won’t lose touch.”
O’Brien has been an avid collector of vintage items, clothes and curios, so visitors to her stall will find everything from hand-blown wine glasses to vintage airline salt and pepper shakers, to baby slings and kitchen appliances. Having done promotional work in the past she opened up dusty cupboards to find five boxes of Fáilte Ireland pens and dozens of bottles of Listerine. “So we might give away a pen and Listerine with every purchase,” she says, laughing.
“There are some nice things and some atrocious things and some stuff that is just insane.”
There has been one downside to all this extreme decluttering: “I’ve now got a four-year-old who is petrified that I am going to sell everything she owns,” she says. “She’s been hiding her puzzles and we’ve had to explain to her that no, we are not taking one-armed Barbie with us to Australia but we are selling her so she can buy a new one.”
O’Brien’s daughter Nia will have her own little stall of her toys and clothes at the market. “But buyers should be aware that she will probably try to guilt them out of their purchases,” says her mum.
13 years of a life Some of what’s for sale
Soda siphons from the 1950s/1960s
“I spent years collecting a specific kind of siphon, so I’m a bit sad about these”
Small statues of Buddha
“My mother, who is a total hippie, went through a phase of sending me these from Australia”
Novelty clock collection
“There’s one shaped like a little dog and another that’s a robot”
Airline salt and pepper shakers from the 1950s
“They are tiny, the size of your little fingernail. I love them but I don’t know if anyone else will want them”
Dublin Flea Market takes place tomorrow in Dublin Co-op on Newmarket Square, off Cork Street, Dublin 8, from 11am to 4pm
