Oh look, it’s something about the St. Patrick’s Festival in Marks and Spencer – or at least it looks like it. Same font, same graphics. Only when you stop to take a look do you realise it’s to advertise the fact that they are open on St. Patrick’s Day. Open during the parade too – so instead of watching all that you can go and buy some crappy ready to cook meal and a cheap bottle of plonk.

It’s about 3 or 4 years now that shops have been open in Dublin on our patron saints day. Then the creep started, driven by bigger retailers. “Ooh look, there’s all these people in the city centre and we’re losing out. Let’s start a trend to open on the national holiday”. Once the big retailers start opening in shopping centres – everyone has to follow suit, which means a hell of a lot of people have to work in the 4^th emergency service – shopping. How important is it to shop on St. Patrick’s Day?

But back to M&S. They are a sponsor of the festival which seems to give them carte blance to produce signage that makes it look like they are great supporters. Are they though? Beyond this sign you’ll find nothing promoting the festival. With the massive footfall a busy M&S has, they could have had signage and information about festival events. They could have had mini booklets showing various events (which I’ve seen in Spars – not sponsors). The back of their tills could have promoted events like the Pix.ie competition.

Instead, they use their status as a sponsor to produce a sign to promote themselves and making it look exactly like festival literature.

That’s Your M&S. Proudly supporting your national holiday. They can take their St. Patrick’s Day opening and shove it up their hole.