The Dublin Community Blog

If you’re read my last post, you’ll be aware that I bloody well hate shopping in Dublin at the best of times.  No surprise then, that I’m a fan of internet shopping.

A huge benefit of shopping over the internet is that you don’t have to run the guantlet of chuggers that is Dublin’s city centre. So here’s a novel concept: shop online, avoid the chuggers, and retailers will reward you by ….. giving money to charity anyway? Sounds fanciful?  Not quite.

Two engineering graduates of University College Dublin (who must hate shopping as much as me) have come up with www.charityshop.ie, which acts like the front door of a cyber-shopping centre.  Top online retailers like Amazon, CD-Wow, iTunes and eBay are all on board. By going through the ‘front door’ of www.charityshop.ie, you pick a charity (currently either Oxfam Ireland or Unicef), and then carry on to shop through whichever retailer you want to spend your cash with.

The retailer will then make a donation to your chosen charity, and the more you spend, the more is donated on your behalf. You can book holidays on it, bet on the gee-gees, and even buy your boring office crap from Viking Direct.  All without any extra cost to you, and most importantly, without having to play dodge-the-chugger-guilt-trip.

There’s plenty of room for more retailers and charities, and the charityshop.ie lads are keen to recruit. Contact them here.

Failing that, Oxfam Ireland have shops around the capital where you can buy modern-day indulgences, with top marks going to the one on South King St, just beside the Gaiety Theatre.