Gift shop at Antietam is great for Irish Brigade gifts

Irish Brigade gifts at Antietam's gift shop

I was watching a re-run of Fág an Bealach on the Irish language channel TG4 the other night (Links here still work if you want to watch) when I remembered something about Antietam that really surprised me, particularly as compared with Gettysburg.

As I mentioned, the gift shop at Gettysburg is massive, a Wal-mart of Civil War merchandise. Antietam's, by comparison, is a broom closet.

Still, Antietam has one line of gifts that Gettysburg does not – Irish Brigade merchandise. Lots of it. Books, tee shirts, baseball caps, posters, flags, pencils and other knickknacks all to do with the Irish Brigade.

I asked the woman at the register how popular was the Irish Brigade stuff and she said, "Very. People come from far away to buy the Irish Brigade gifts." My memory's not clear now, but I'm pretty sure she said it was the most popular range of goods in the store.

One purchase I made was a bag of soldiers for my son. Irish Brigade toy soldiers, which may well be unique. Why? Well they may be the only Irish toy soldiers you can get. I don't know what it's like in the rest of Ireland, but all the toy soldiers available in the toy stores near where I live American, British or generic/nondescript soldiers.

So now my son has an "Irish army" with an Irish Brigade flag, General Thomas F Meagher and even Fr. Corby, the "Fighting Chaplain." These are probably the only toy soldiers ever made with a chaplain.

They have a web site, but if you're interested in Irish Brigade gifts it might be worth giving them a call because there were more products in their store than they have in their Irish Brigade list on their web site. The woman I spoke to was friendly and very helpful. Could be a good idea for an unusual Christmas present.

West Point offers a welcome alternative to Woodbury Common

Woodbury Common, Woodbury Common, Woodbury Common. I've come across that name so many times here in Ireland. Read it in the papers, heard it on the radio, even heard it from my children who heard it from friends of theirs. Woodbury Common is so well known that it often seems as if a visit there is the primary motivation for most Irish people's trips to America.

If you don't know, Woodbury Common is a huge discount retail park, full of brand name outlets, near New York City. Over the past few years the combination of the Celtic Tiger's inflated prices and the favorable euro-dollar exchange rate has turned an American vacation into a shopping bonanza for Irish people. The prices are too good to pass up.

At first Irish shoppers were happy with the prices in Manhattan at Macy's and Bloomingdale's, but gradually the more canny among them learned that a trip to New Jersey or further afield could net even greater benefits. Woodbury Common was one of the 'outside the city' locations that Irish people discovered.

Woodbury Common became so well known that it seemed like people talked about it as if it was just on the outskirts of Dublin. Everybody here seemed to know about it. Everybody but me.

I didn't know where it was, although gradually I came to understand it was somewhere near Newburgh, NY. A few times I've met people here and when the inevitable "Where do you come from?" question elicited my answer "upstate New York" there was an instant follow up of "Near Woodbury Common?" Sometimes they seem deflated when I responded, "No, and in fact, I've never been there and I'm not really that sure where it is."

Well no more. I was over in America with the family last week and we stopped off at Woodbury Common (exit 16 on the Thruway if you're interested). Now I know where it is and what it looks like. Sort of.

I drove to Woodbury Common, but I never got out of the car. Everything I now know about Woodbury Common I know thanks to my wife and daughters. It's very crowded; there are loads of British & Irish people there (some wearing pajamas – Uggh!); the stores have chip & pin devices; it's really nothing special; it's really way too crowded.

That's right. I didn't go to Woodbury Common. Thanks to some excellent planning and a few wise words in my 9-year-old son's ear - he's never a happy shopper - I found somewhere else we could go to spend some time while the women folk shopped. West Point.

It takes about 25 minutes to drive to West Point from Woodbury Common. That's 25 minutes each way to avoid the fate of walking around crowded stores, waiting for people to try on clothes, etc. I'd have driven 3 hours if I had to.

And West Point's worth seeing. I'd been there back in 1990 and things have changed. You can no longer just drive onto the campus, park the car, hop out and walk around as you could then. September 11 put paid to that. Security today requires you to park and buy tickets for a bus tour.

The two tickets cost me $21 and truthfully I felt a bit rushed on the tour. I really wanted to walk around more. On the up-side, the woman who was our tour guide was very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about West Point. My son really enjoyed it. He wants to go there when he finishes school.

Would I recommend it? In a heartbeat. Anything beats shopping. I even mentioned to our tour guide that they should offer a longer tour starting at Woodbury Common.

I bet there are many Irish men (and British and others) who would like nothing better than to escape the hellish shopping experience for a bit of military history and beautiful scenery. West Point is your refuge.

How much would you pay for a bowl of Lucky Charms?

There's a relatively new store in a near-by town here in north Wicklow where you can find all sorts of specialty and high quality foods – with prices to match. The store is in Greystones, a very nice town somewhat overstretched by Celtic Tiger excess. Generally speaking the people of Greystones are fairly well-heeled, which explains why the owners of the food specialty store chose to locate in Greystones.

They deal in great-tasting cakes, fine wines, exotic fowl and fish, imported Italian ingredients, etc. You get the picture. Only, there's one shelf devoted to American 'delicacies' that might not strike the average American shopper as worthy of such an establishment. I'm talking about Pepperidge Farm Goldfish, Jif peanut butter, Betty Crocker cake mix, Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, Marshmallow Fluff and other 'fine foods'.

All of these 'exotic' American foods come with the same mark-up as the rest of the food in the store. I actually like peanut butter and would love a jar of Jif, but I balk at paying an exorbitant amount for a $4 jar. You can get an Irish peanut butter that isn't too bad for about a third of what the Jif costs. As for the Fluff the very idea repulses me, which makes it all the more inexplicable that someone would spend top dollar for a jar of the stuff.

Of all the items, however, the ones that I was really surprised by were the cereals. You can get a box of Fruit Loops for €9 ($12) or a box of Lucky Charms for €10 ($13.30). Just how desperate for Lucky Charms do you have to be that you'd lay out that kind of money for a small box?

It's not like it's a case of porridge or nothing here. Your average supermarket stocks most of the cereals available in America, including many of the junky, sugary ones. Cocoa Puffs, Frosted Flakes and others are available for a fraction of the cost of that box of Lucky Charms. No, you'd have to be especially keen on Lucky Charms to want to spend 13 bucks on a box. I can't imagine it.

I'd really like to know how many boxes of Fruit Loops and Lucky Charms they've sold. More exciting, however, would be to see someone actually buying a box. I'd love to get a look at the type of person who makes such judgments of value. I doubt I could resist asking them, "How much would be too much to pay for a bowl of Lucky Charms?"

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Posted by TheYank at 9/14/2009 8:26 AM EDT

We're in the middle of just about the best stretch of weather this summer (autumn here - that's another story), but our local supermarket has started stocking the Christmas items. Yup, on the second Saturday of September our local Tesco started putting out their Christmas chocolates and other items.


I know from my daughter, who has returned from her American summer, that Wal-mart has had their Halloween candy on the shelves for the past few weeks and she thought that was obscenely early, but this is beyond ridiculous. It isn't just that chocolate is perishable - I presume it'll last the 3 months - but these things take up room. Who wants to store chocolate Santas in their house for three months? And, it's not like you won't be able to find these items six weeks down the road.
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Comments:

marsman wrote:
Great article, nice to have to have pointed out. Matter of fact:
last Christmas was a disaster for any such advertising strategy
and it is likely to be repeated all over again. Some businesses
made already fools of themselves, learned it the hard way -
and are going to learn the next hard lesson again. Because
that's already into the counterproductivity of advertising,
getting people to hate it with all consequences.
If someone likes to the problems of the ad industry easy,
they are suffering from declining ad revenue everywhere,
the "Mad Avenue Blues" can be recommended, a song
parody in which fun is made of the ad industry's problem.
Fun that inlcudes, anticipates all those results of stupid
ad strategies. Much better to have fun, be two steps ahead
than simply be annoyed and disgusted.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CqRcCHk_Pc
9/15/2009 5:21 AM EDT

TheYank wrote:
marsman

That is a fantastic video / song. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.
9/15/2009 4:13 PM EDT