Corona Republic

The nGardaí Sicíni, patrolling the streets of Dublin to prevent people spreading the corona about the place.

‘Excuse me ma’am, could you not step out of the vehicle, please. Keep your window rolled up about three quarters of the way, that’s it now. Now, what’s your business being out and about of a Tuesday? You know that Simon Harris has told all auld ones over the age of sixty-seven to stay indoors for the foreseeable.’

‘Excuse me, Gard, I’m only sixty-three-and-a-half, and I’m just going down to Centra to get the messages.’

‘Go on so missus, good luck to you now.’

Elsewhere in Dublin, on La Touche Bridge, between South Richmond Street, Dublin Two, and Rathmines Road, Dublin Six, two extremely youthful members of the Defence Forces have blocked the way to traffic using sandbags, cans of Harp and multi-packs of Tayto cheese-and-onion. As night falls, a lone figure emerges from the Harold’s Cross vicinity walking towards the make-shift barricade.

‘What’s that over there?’ says Private Peter Buckley to his comrade-in-arms, Tommy Farrell, who is sitting on his arse on the Rathmines side of the bridge. Tommy recently managed to pass his repeat Leaving Cert Irish oral with full marks (by default), even though he’s shite at Irish.

‘Wha’?’ says Tommy, looking up from his Nintendo Switch.

‘There’s someone over there, carrying a big white yoke,’ says Peter. ‘Look.’

Tommy stands up and squints his eyes in the direction of the figure emerging from the darkness. ‘Jaysus, it’s some wan with a load of toilet roll.’

‘Who’s there?’ roars Peter. ‘Friend or foe?’

‘This isn’t the bleedin’ war ye thick,’ says Tommy. ‘Ask what their business is.’

‘What is your business?’ shouts Peter. Tommy rolls his eyes and sits back down on the ground.

‘I’m going down to see me daughther to give her this jacks roll,’ replies a woman’s voice.

‘You know you have no business leaving your house after the six-p.m. curfew missus. Turn back please.’

‘Ah here. Me daughther needs these jacks rolls for her three shitein’ children and she can’t get any of them anywhere for luv nor money.’

‘Stand down!’ shouts Peter threateningly. The woman is now only yards from the bridge.

Tommy looks up from his Nintendo Switch again. ‘Calm down to fuck would you,’ he says, but Peter takes no notice. ‘I’m warning you. One more chance to turn back or I’ll fire.’

Cut to Henry Street, Dublin One, which is lit only by the Christmas lights, inexplicably still up in mid-March. An eerie silence hangs over the place, broken occasionally only by the rustle of rough-sleepers in sleeping bags. In the doorway of Roches Stores, as Harry settles down for the night he hears the distant echo of a far-off noise that sounds like a gun-shot.

‘There goes another one,’ says Harry aloud. ‘Fuckin’ nineteen-sixteen all over again.’

‘Shuddup,’ says a woman’s voice from across the way. ‘Tryin’ to get some bleedin’ sleep here.’

‘Ah, fuck off,’ says Harry quietly to himself before drifting off to sleep. He dreams of a verdant scene of rolling low hills, like something from the Lord of the Rings films. Up in the sky the sun shines brightly, only when you look closely at the sun it’s actually the radiant face of An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar. He speaks in his characteristic monotone, and his Churchilian platitudes echo around the land.

‘We will fight the corona on the beaches. We will fight it in the air. We will fight it on land, and sea. It will be my finest hour.’

Harry wakes with a start. It’s early morning now, and the sky is navy-purple. Someone sleeping in the doorway of the Meteor shop snores loudly. A man wearing a trench-coat and gas-mask passes by, walking his greyhound. The dog comes over to sniff Harry, and Harry pets him. When the man and dog have passed by, Harry observes the man squirt an entire small bottle of hand-sanitizer on the dog’s head with a rubber-gloved hand.

The man and dog disappear in the direction of the Jervis Centre. Silence descends again.

x

x

St Benedildo’s College, Chill Mo Chuda

If you want a vision of hell, go to the Stillorgan Luas station on a windy Wednesday morning. It’s not even in Stillorgan. It’s lawless out there. The wolves walk around the place wearing those blue stripey shirts with white collars that Sean Fitzpatrick et al wore during the Celtic Tiger. Some people have pink hair. Some people eat chicken-fillet wraps wrapped in a further layer of cling-film. Think of the children Joe. They don’t even have velcro here, Joe. How’s the childerints supposed to be fastening thezzir shoe-laces Joe? It’s cridiminal, so it is.

You can smell the poor people a mile away. They pretend they’re going to work at Vodaphone [sic.], but no real job starts at ten in the morning. Narrow windows. Nothing else but to curtain-twitch.

Gallop your gee to Fanny. Make a clock with your cock, and dwell forever in detached suburban grimness, occasionally driving your Volkswagen Beetle down to Centra for a plastic-packed tikka masala. It’s like being in America, only with less nuclear power and more heroin. Happy children playing together in school. They’ll be dead eventually, like ourselves. Sinné Fianna Fáil, atá ag dul go bás.

Prayers After Riding

On page 79 of Alive O 8 (for 6th class students), the page that most diligent parents tear out the moment they purchase the book, you will find a section in small print headed ‘Prayers after Riding’. This is the section that Breda O’Brien fought hard to erase from the religious curriculum, but in acknowledgment of the fact that omitting it might cast some poor children into hell, the Archbish of Dubdub decreed that it should be included, for better or for worse. This is pure filth, they say. You’ve been warned.

Prayers After Riding 

O God, who makes us all live together in harmony and loveliness, we thank you for the lovely experience of the ride. Please let us make a baby together and live forever and ever in holiness and loveliness, only having a lovely ride when we truly want to make a baby. Amen.

Holy Mary, who definitely never ever rid, make sure that we don’t catch chlamydia (or however you spell it) or whatever other form of clap that’s going around at the moment. In the name of your holy Son Jesus Christ. Amen.

Lord Jesus, who gave us families, infertile couples, and single mothers, please make sure that if a baby should result out of this ride we have just had that we should have the decency to get married and try our best to bring the child up together, even if we are twelve. Amen.

Mrs Kinsella's Creche, Donnycarney, Dublin Nine

'Get us a cup of tea will ya Jimmy?' croaked Mrs Kinsella, drawing heavily on the three smouldering cigarettes she held in her fist. 'You what? I know you bleedin' scalded yourself with the kettle yesterday. Did yer mammy not put any Sudocreme on it? Jaysus. Neglect, that's what it is. Pure and utter neglect.'

Jimmy was five. He looked quite terrified, and his right hand was covered with bandages.

'C'm'ere t'me Jayden. Yeah, you,' roared Mrs Kinsella. 'Have y'any of them jelly babies left? No? You bleedin' glutton.'

'I gave the last one to you, Mrs Kinsella,' said Jayden, his eyes fixed on the ground in an intense stare of shame.

'Yeah, but who ate the rest of them? It wasn't me, was it Jayden? You cheeky little shite. Fuck off now and go back to cleanin' the bath.'

Mrs Kinsella got up out of her armchair with great effort. She fastened her pink dressinggown around her waist. 'Ah Jaysus, me back,' she moaned.

Mrs Kinsella was only twenty-nine years old, but she already had seven children of her own, all of whom she sent to boarding school as soon as they were old enough. The creche didn't make her quite enough money to afford all the school fees, but she also had the social, her disability allowance, her father's CIE pension money and the compensation she got from the hairdresser who burned her ear with a GHD in 2009.

Mrs Kinsella was nothing if not enterprising. Ten quid a day to look after a child was quite a bargain, and so every mother in the area dropped their children to Mrs Kinsella in the mornings. Her two-bed council house was small, but it just about accommodated the fifty-two children she looked after daily. It was good life experience for them, Mrs Kinsella told the mothers. They learned useful skills like making tea, cleaning out ashtrays, ironing, basic sewing, and polishing things with Brasso.

Speaking of which, Janice Dempsey was polishing the fender around the fireplace as Mrs Kinsella stepped over some small boys to get to the cupboard where she kept her vodka bottles.

'Janice!' shouted Mrs Kinsella. 'The fuck are ya doin'? There's bleedin' streaks alloverih. Go an' get yourself a clean yellow cloth.'

'There aren't any more cloths Mrs Kinsella,' said Janice, almost despairing. She had been using the same filthy cloth for the last week in repeated failed attempts to clean the fender. She was seven.

'De fuck do I care? Get yourself on the 20B and go down to Talbot Street and get a few new ones. There's fifty p. Bring me back a Cornetto as well.'

Janice was about to say something in response but Mrs Kinsella cut across her. 'Hurry up to fuck!'

​Mrs Kinsella's creche was eventually closed down when she was reported to the police for locking three​ small children in the broom cupboard which she alleged was inhabited by a mythical Chinese man. Her profiteering from innocent children's misery was of course denounced in all the red-tops, but secretly most of her neighbours were envious: why hadn't they thought of doing that?

Social Democrats Fight to the Death

Following the departure of Stephen Donnelly TD from the Social Democrats party, remaining co-leaders Roisin Shortall and Catherine Murphy will Fight to the Death in order to see Who is Better.

Ringside seats will be available for the public spectacle of a left-of-centre bitchfight, which is to take place in a large purple boxing ring, to be erected specially on the lawn of Leinster House, Merrion Square, Dublin Two.

Whatever you're having yourself

As part of Fine Gael's magnificent several-point-plan to Get Ireland Working, a new national industry has been created, through which many millions will be pleasured.

Every home in Ireland will shortly receive a new dildo, hand-made from peat from genuine Irish bog. The dildos have been made lovingly in Co. Clare by a lady in a shawl who looks like Peig Sayers. Each dildo comes emblazoned with a pencil-drawn image of Hibernia, in the guise of that very famous American, Lady Lavatory, who used be on the pound notes.

The stated purpose of these dildos is to take pressure off the government: now everyone can fuck themselves to save the government having to do it. As a result of this cleverness, taxpayers' money will be saved in droves and rediverted to such useful purposes as RTÉ comedy, filling up cracks in roads in and around Rathfarnham, Dublin Fourteen, deporting refugees, and not looking after homeless people.

A launch event for this new scheme will take place in Collins Barracks hosted by Gay Byrne, who is still not dead. There will be (quite literally) one for everyone in the audience.

Pissing

It was a Friday morning and Mass was in progress in the Church of the Holy Prepuce, Glasnevin West, Dublin Eleven-and-Three-Quarters. Father Billy gave a lovely sermon about the weather in Crete on his holidays, and now he was in the business of consecration.

As the host was raised, Barry Gough was so overcome with the excitement of the moment that he wet himself spectacularly. Not just a dribble, but piss everywhere.

--O Jesus, he said. O holy Jesus.

The elderly nun two pews away from him heard what he said, and sure that he was having spiritual orgasms turned and beamed at him. Her smile faded to a look of bemusement and then horror when she witnessed the spectacle of a grown man helplessly pissing himself.

Barry stood up and fiddled with his trousers. He couldn't stop pissing. He began to scream.

Father Billy couldn't see very well and so put the host down and peered into the middle distance. 'Is everything all right out there?' he asked.

The whole congregation was transfixed by Barry's piss. With such fulsome flow he'd surely have put the Trevi Fountain to shame. Eventually it stopped, and the congregation looked back around just in time to sing 'He is Lord', accompanied by Sr Phagina on the Wurlitzer. Mass continued and then ended (thanks be to God), and all the while Barry was slumped half on the kneeler sodden with piss. As the faithful departed, everyone pretended he wasn't there, stepping past him as if he were a dead badger on the side of the road. Eventually, Father Billy passed nearby and sniffed.

--What's that at all? he said.

--It's Barry Gough, Father, said Barry. I, I--I had a bit of an accident. Could you help me, please?

--Holy God, the absolute bang of piss.

Father Billy walked away, whistling 'Sweet Heart of Jesus' to himself tunelessly and barely recognisably. Barry lay there for several hours until some holy aul'ones came in to say the rosary and found him, by which time he was dead, God love him. He was cleared away that afternoon. They've been spraying Air Wick around the place several times a day ever since.

I'll say one thing for being dead: you never have to worry about being caught short again, that's for sure. RIP Barry; sure we hardly knew ya.

The 99¼th anniversary celebrations of the 1916 Rising

‘I’m Harney, Mary Mary Harney,’ blared the deafening speakers alongside McDowell’s Happy Ring House, O’Connell Street Upper, Dublin 1, as a fork-lift lorry carrying an enormous woman draped in a St-Patrick’s-blue gown trundled slowly towards the GPO, orange lights flashing and warning sirens beeping.

Mary was being wheeled out at last minute to represent One of Ireland’s Worst Governments in place of Brian Cowen, who was still too pissed from the night before. A few years out of public life meant that none of the young people had any idea who she was. Having forgotten the PDs were ever a thing, she was to them no more than a much jollier and more attractive Ann Widdecombe.

The gathered crowd cheered eagerly as the fork-lift came to the podium whereupon Her Ladyship was to be unloaded. ‘WIDE LOAD’, read the fluorescent orange sign at the back of the fork-lift. With a flick of a switch, she was upturned and upended in a most undignified manner onto the podium. A swarm of journalists gathered.

‘Minister, can you please comment on the state of the health service?’

‘Minister, can you please comment on the state of what you’re wearing?’

‘Minister, can you please comment on the state of your face?’

‘Minister, can you please comment on the absolute state of yourself?’

Mary brushed them away with an irritated flick of the wrist, accidentally knocking off Fintan O’Toole’s glasses in the process.

‘Minister, can you please comment on the rumour that you have a tattoo on your arse that says “WIDE LOAD”?’ asked Pascal Sheehy, RTÉ News.

‘I didn’t authorise the tattoo,’ began Mary, ‘but in the interest of public safety...’

Well-wishers threw hamburgers from the viewing stands nearby, and Mary gratefully received them in her gob. When three o’clock came a number of extremely elderly FCA men walked past the front of the GPO in a laughable attempt at military formation. Mary reviewed the troops from a recumbent position, sipping a can of Coke Zero through a straw, and declared herself amused with the proceedings. Everybody had a lovely time and the five confused Italian tourists who were left standing at the barricade beside Henry Street applauded, even though they didn’t really know why.

Following the review, Mary was delivered back into obscurity where she belongs, and now spends her days watching reruns of ‘That’s Life’ with Esther Rantzen from circa 1987 to 1989. Geraldine Kennedy occasionally calls over for tea, but finds it very difficult to make eye contact with Mary when she is lying on the floor.

***

We interrupt this programme to make the following announcement:

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have traced the genesis of bigoted political opinions to the eating of chips wrapped in newspaper. The over-educated boffins have discovered that sheer vitriolic bile and pure shite written in some of our finest rags had an effect on the perception of normal people when consumed in the newsprint which adhered to vinegary chips wrapped in newspaper. The wrapping of chips in newspaper was outlawed in 1985, and this explains why there are very few complete nutters under the age of 35.

However, total nutcases in older age groups sadly prevail. One particular example is failed Eurosong competition entrant John Waters, who for many years wrote for the moderate liberal Irish Times (previously ‘Geraldine’s Gossip Rag’), but always ate his chips wrapped in the pages of the Daily Telegraph. Recently he has founded a campaign called Fist Families First, the purpose of which is to oppose the introduction of same-sex marriage by all means necessary. When questioned about why he is so opposed to same-sex couples marrying, Waters gave the following eloquent answer:

‘We don’t want men touching each other’s mickeys. That is disgusting and wrong. This referendum is about enshrining in our Constitution a man’s right to touch another man’s mickey. I have campaigned for years for a man’s right to touch his own mickey, but for it not to be touched by another man. Only women should touch mickeys, like Sinéad O’Connor touched mine. Except for doctors, who can touch men’s mickeys, but only when strictly necessary. Bum bum arse willies.’

Rumour has it that some right-wing Catholic parents feed their children chips wrapped in the pages of that august publication ‘Alive!’. In another example of nannystateism, the government, led by Dr Noel Browne beyant-the-grave, has recently introduced legislation which criminalises the feeding of newsprint-stained chips to children as child abuse, unless of course the newsprint is from the Cork Examiner, because nobody cares about that.

Separated at Birth: Part VII

Joseph Haydn, Austrian composer and ladies' man.

Jeremy Paxman, difficult British man.

Separated at Birth: Part the Sixth

Irish author and unwitting progenitor of this august blog (est'd 2007), Bram Stoker.

English composer, Basil Harwood.