8 Ben Dunne Snr

Once upon a time, Irish men dressed in dark suits and white shirts with dark ties. To set off the whole ensemble, they sported black or tan shoes or boots, assiduously polished, and capable of announcing their arrival by the sharp clack they essayed as they walked along. This mode of dress seemed to go well with the demeanour of the grown-up Irish male. He tended not to say much, but nevertheless seemed to be reasonably clear about his purpose in life and what he thought about things. He tended to walk, if not exactly confidently, at least in a way that inspired confidence in the beholder. In short, he looked reasonably dignified and carried himself fairly well.

But forty-odd years ago, all this began to change for the worse. The modern average Irish man, once he has moved beyond the point of thinking about how he looks for reasons related to mating, is now a sorry sight indeed. Nowadays he wears not suits and shirts, but jumpers and slacks in terrible, bland, matching colours, beige and grey, with similarly coloured slip-on shoes made of soft material, which make no sound as he walks. The Irish male may still wear a suit while conducting business, or attending funerals, but he is always a little apologetic about it. He can’t wait to get home and change into a cheap tracksuit.

This mode of dress appears to have been accompanied by something close to an existential shift in the psyche of the average Irish male. Once he tended to move about in public on his own, joining with other males at certain appointed places: the public house, the bookie shop, inside the main door of the church. Now, he tends to go out in public in the company of his wife or girlfriend, who, it is clear, is the architect of his physical appearance. Men have ceased to be men and have become instead mannequins who model not merely clothing but an entire idea of what Irish manhood has become. In this vision of manhood, the male is not an autonomous being but the property of his wife, who disports him for competitive purposes in order to demonstrate (a) his docility and (b) her capacity to control every aspect of his life. In Ireland, we have somehow developed a culture whereby men have come to be regarded, and – worse – regard themselves, as the appendages of their female companions. For a man who is in a committed relationship with a woman to indicate independence of mind or dress is culturally interpreted as a sign of actual or potential infidelity.

If you observe such a couple walking into a teashop on a Sunday afternoon, you will, in a single tableau, be able to observe the true nature of sexual politics in modern Ireland. The man, dressed in his beige pullover, fawn slacks and suede shoes, is uncertain of himself, perhaps because he is self-conscious on account of his ridiculous apparel. He glances around uncertainly, as though waiting to be told what to do. He jerks his head tentatively towards a vacant table in the corner, and then to his female companion. She, noting his unspoken proposal, chooses a different table near the door. She indicates her choice by dumping her handbag on one of the chairs and taking off her Prada coat. The man then makes for the counter, looking backwards for signs of what his beloved might desire. You would think that men and women who have been together for anything more than a one-night stand would know one another’s preferences in the matter of beverages and muffins, but Irish men in such situations never seem to be confident about doing the right thing and invariably, on reaching the counter, have to go back to consult with their companions in order, perhaps, to avoid a scolding in the end.

Contrast this with the behaviour of, say, Italian couples. On entering the teashop, it is the man who chooses the table, by the simple expedient of sitting down at it. He is dressed in an impeccable blue suit with a white shirt. He is tieless, but only because it is Sunday. His female companion goes to the counter. She knows what he likes and is not afraid of anyone knowing that she is interested in pleasing him.

All this, or most of it, is the fault of one man. His name was Ben Dunne. In 1944, Dunne opened his first department store in Cork. Within twenty years he had become the wealthiest and most influential businessman in Ireland. For Dunne, the customer was king, or, rather, queen. His stores sold cheap clothes bearing the St Bernard label, usually simplified copies of garments produced at much higher prices by the larger international brand names. Dunne was an advocate of ‘self-selection’ retailing: he believed in piling the merchandise on the counter and letting people handle the produce before making a choice.

From modest beginnings Dunnes Stores grew rapidly through the 1950s and 1960s, bringing a semblance of international fashion within the grasp of the ordinary Irish housewife. In 1965, anticipating that shopping was turning into a recreational activity, Ben Dunne opened what would become his company’s flagship store at Cornelscourt in south Dublin, Ireland’s first drive-in shopping centre. It is said that, after his retirement, he and his wife would drive out there every Sunday to sit outside in the car park and watch the couples coming and going.

Until the arrival of Dunnes Stores, Irish men had tended to buy their own clothes. They went along to the tailor or outfitter, got measured up and went back a couple of weeks later to collect the new suit. But Dunnes changed all that, reducing the average Irish married male to a walking manifestation of his wife’s determination to define him.

Dunne, a gruff, conservative man, almost invariably declined requests for media interviews. Once, legend has it, he was approached to appear on the The Late Late Show. But when the programme’s researcher went to meet him, he answered every question with the Dunnes Stores slogan: ‘Dunnes Stores’ Better Value Beats Them All.’ He assured her that it was his intention to answer each of Mr Byrne’s questions in the same way.

Once, back in the 1960s, in an episode that was to have reverberations many years later, Ben Dunne was severely humiliated by one Charles Haughey, then a cabinet minister, who forced him to dismantle a stand he had erected at a trade fair in New York because Haughey felt it was conveying the wrong message about Ireland to the world. On this occasion Ben Dunne was showcasing a new product: the bri-nylon shirt, which could be drip-dried and required no ironing. When Haughey arrived and saw, on the St Bernard stand, a white bri-nylon shirt drip-drying in the air-conditioning, he was, by all accounts, horrified. He approached Dunne. ‘What do you think this is,’ he demanded, ‘the fucking Iveagh Market?’ Haughey instructed officials from the Irish trade board to dismantle Dunne’s stand.

It was a cruel and humiliating episode for Dunne, but Haughey could do no more than admonish the tide. Perhaps, with his usual perspicacity, Il Duce was able to see the future nadir of Irish manhood, dressed in clothes chosen by women to advertise the reality of the changed relations between Irish men and women in the dawning age of beige.