Shane Hegarty's encyclopaedia of modern Ireland
If you ever wondered, watching the closing scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark, what kind of vast place they were filing away the Ark of the Covenant in, then by now you might have figured it out. It was a DIY store. Possibly B&Q, maybe Woodie's. And the ark was stored between self-tapping screws and denim-print toilet seats.
Hardware stores used to be small, local affairs where nails and weedkiller were piled on shelves in no particular order, and only the dusty old man who ran the shop knew the location of the item you needed. Now they are places that require their own postcodes. Mobile-phone and radio signals cannot penetrate them. Customers cannot find a way out of them. There would be room to make an attempt at the world land-speed record down their aisles. The shelves tower above you, stretch away into the distance. Going in search of a particular item requires food supplies and a trail of breadcrumbs. Excuse me, where can I find self-assembly bird tables? "You go down this aisle, take a right, then a left and keep going until you reach the Kerry-Cork border."
Everything is on an exaggerated scale. B&Q has giant instructions for how to install guttering, waterproof a roof or whatever else you fancy. The detail is horrendously complicated. But the jolly, oversized writing implies that, once read, only a simpleton would be unable to fit a Jacuzzi. Which is why you will encounter two types of men in these places.
There are those who are giddy with the DIY thrill, who have tape measures hanging on their belts and pencils behind their ears, who enjoy nothing more than buying a new set of drill bits and who will rewire the house just for the challenge. And then there are those who want to run screaming from the place, whose brains shut down at the first syllable of "three-bar pump", who are here only because their wives ordered them and who have been led to believe that spending every Sunday afternoon at Atlantic DIY is a prerequisite of masculinity.
Help also comes in two shapes. There are older, experienced assistants who will answer a simple question with a lengthy, complicated answer that involves such phrases as "self-aligning chuck" and "hub flange".
And there are the young students earning weekend cash. Who search the shelf you've just searched, scratch their heads, stare at the shelf, then search again, as if the item you seek will have magically appeared in the meantime. Who tell you that they'll go and have a look in the storeroom - before disappearing down the cavernous aisles, never to be seen again.