THE TESTAMENT OF MRS. JOAN KELLY.

I write this testament so that one day you, Jeremy Henderson, and the world, will know the truth. I write as I am barricaded into the crypts of Christchurch Cathedral, the only place I know that I am truly safe from that damned Legion of Mary and Catholics at large ever since the Archbishop named me an outlaw in "The Irish Catholic".

I was born along the tramline somewhere between Windy Arbour and Cowper in 1867 to a respectable Protestant family. My father was a house-wife and my mother was an Admiral in the British Navy. I was an only child, and I was reared by my father and our maid. I left home at sixteen to marry my sweetheart, David Kelly. I never saw my parents again. Shortly afterwards I heard that my father had killed himself with an iron, and my mother was killed in the Battle of Trafalgar. After all this tumult, our now unemployed maid was often seen drunk talking to Bang Bang and puking on Charles Stewart Parnell as he went for his morning stroll on Parnell Street.

My husband David was from a well-to-do Protestant family from Rathmines, and so his parents paid for our foreign honeymoon. We went to Brighton where we met Kitty O'Shea-Parnell. Kitty, like me, had an overwhelming passion for lovely jam jars and until the day she died we corresponded and often swapped lovely jam jams with each other. At Christmas 1891 just after Charlie died, Kitty came over to visit to have a romp in my Olde Knockin' Shoppe, and during that week we held exhibitions of our favourite jam jars on Kingstown pier on a daintly table that I bought on Capel Street, just beside the mashed bananas.

I opened my Olde Knockin' Shoppe in Monto in 1888, after the premises was purchased for me by David's mammy Joqueena Kelly for my 21st birthday. I made sure that I found all the nicest looking girls in Dublin. I even imported some from Kinnegad and Tipperary, both of whom turned out to be my best hoors. The gentlemen of Dublin quickly flocked to my genial hooring establishment for all sorts of fun and frolicks, and soon I was the most famous Madam in all of Ireland. My best clients included Parnell, James Joyce, Brendan Behan's father, Bang Bang (before he was mad, when he like a bang bang every now and again), the Lord Lieutenant, the Chief Secretary, and all the gentleman British. We even had the honour of being visited by Queen Victoria who'd heard all about it from Albert, and who particularly liked the fireplace. Even Pope Leo XIII paid us a visit after we won Best Brothel in the 1896 Vatican Awards.

My husband David was very supportive of my profession and he regularly availed of the services of my hoors. Life and work for me were very successful until my spate of misfortunes began in 1916, after my beloved husband David was shot by the IRA up in the Hellfire Club for stealing picnic baskets. All I had left was my young son David Jr and my beloved Knockin' Shoppe. However, David went to fight in the Great War and I was left alone with nobody to defend me and the Knockin' Shoppe. The only protection we had were the tougher hoors and a few bottles of stout.

Times became more difficult during the War of Independence when my young clients became less interested in shagging and more interested in flying columns (their own columns). The greatest catastrophe happened after one of my hoors was killed when riding a Black and Tan when his rifle went off in his trousers and shot her straight up the gee. Some more of my hoors caught syphillis from the Black and Tans and eventually the HSE removed my Knockin' Shoppe's hooring licence and from then on we had to deal in secret.

Shortly after my hooring licence was removed I got a visit from a cloaked young man one night who handed me a ten-shilling note and asked me for my best hoor for the evening. I showed him to Susan "The Lips", my hoor who back in 1918 had won the under 21s category for hooring in the 24th Feis Gee, and I left them to it. As they were riding in the back room, suddenly I heard Susan scream. I ran in to the room only to find that the man's face had been revealed and it was none other than Archbishop John Charles McQuaid. I didn't know what to say to him, as Susan cowered in the corner, covering her gee with clingfilm. McQuaid told me that if I told anybody about the fact that he had visited the Knockin' Shoppe that he'd have me excommunicated, but I told him that it didn't matter anyway because I was a Protestant, at which point he puked all over his mickey. He told me then that if I didn't keep quiet he'd have the Legion of Mary come and burn down my Knockin' Shoppe and kill me and all my hoors. I told him that if he let us live in peace that he could have free romps twice weekly, and so he agreed.

This arrangement worked out rather nicely for a couple of years until McQuaid somehow discovered the truth, that Susan had given birth to you, Jeremy, his child and heir-bastard. Somewhere in history the situation arose that gave rise to the writing of a Catholic ecclesiastical law that states that the bastard son (and his descendents thereof) of an archbishop is entitled to all the property and temporal powers held by that archbishop during his tenure once he is deceased, whether or not he dies as archbishop. When McQuaid discovered that his brief romp with Susan had caused her to become pregnant and bear a son, he immediately instructed the Legion of Mary and their commander General Frank Duff to begin the Battle of Monto.

What looked like a Catholic crusade against vice was nothing more than a smokescreen for McQuaid to kill all those who knew about his bloodline and to make sure than he had no heir-bastard who could upscuttle the church in the future. The Legion attacked my Knockin' Shoppe and burned it to the ground, killing all my hoors including your poor mother Susan. They were allowed by their religious mandate to kill only sinners (the hoors) but could not kill you or I, you as you were an innocent child and I because I was not a hoor. However, they tried their best to scorch me with holy water and Marian paraphernalia (since I was a Protestant), but this did not work, and so they burned off my hair instead. They made sure to cut off your mickey and took you to the Magdalene sisters where you would be brought up as a girl who would never know the truth about your father and your entitlement to all the riches and power of the church in the archdiocese of Dublin. When they had taken you, I retrieved your little severed mickey and preserved it in one of my last surviving jam jars in some malt vinegar from Beshoff's chipper, adding some Miracle-Gro in the hope that by the time you find it some miracle of medicine would be available in order to have it reattached.

I tell you all this, Jeremy, so that you may know the truth and that you may avenge your mother's death and that of her hoor friends by claiming your rightful inheritence from the Catholic Church, which has made all our lives so miserable. I fear also that you may need to avenge my death too, as only this morning McQuaid named me an outlaw in "The Irish Catholic" and I am free game to be killed by any Catholic for the reward of a plenary indulgence. I am here in Christchurch as I know it is the only place I am safe from Catholics, but now I have heard rumours that my own kind have turned against me also, and that Douglas Hyde has ordered my assassination by the IRA for giving Protestants a bad name. I shall leave this testament in the care of my son David to bring to the Hellfire Club, where my husband and I had our first romp back in 1883 and which remained our favourite hideout until he was tragically killed there in 1916. Somehow I hope that he will be able to find you and lead you there to discover the truths that you seek.

I only hope that this testament will give you the answers for which you have no doubt long searched.

—MRS. JOAN KELLY.

Hendy read the last words aloud wistfully. S/he now knew all the answers. What was next? Claim his/her inheritence? Reattach his/her mickey? His/her mind was in a daze.

Just then, before any of them could speak, they saw a fourth figure emerge from the shadows, carrying what appeared to be a bag of organic onions and a pitchfork.

"I heard it all. Now stand against the wall."

It was Trevor Sargent.

THE FIRST LAST GOSPEL OF MR(S). HENDERSON.

"O Jeremy, it really is you!"

So it was true. Mr(s). Henderson had lived in Papua New Guinea as a man in a relationship with the gay gay (as in the gay guy and straight guy). S/he really didn't know what to say.

"Hello?"

"Jeremy, what's wrong with you? Why are you dressed like a woman?"

"Because I am a woman darling, or at least I think so," replied Mr(s). Henderson somewhat unsurely.

"But Jeremy, don't you remember all the good times we had together in Papua New Guinea?"

"Don't call me Jeremy, please. My name is Sue now."

"But darling, you were always Jeremy to me! I never thought I'd see you again after I was relocated to Chicago during the Depression. It was so miserable darling, I had to work as a jazz singer in the filthiest clubs, and after that I had to ride dirty randy fat Italian men in pinstripe suits for money. It was terrible, Hendy, it was really was. But it's all behind me now, we can live together once again as happy homos, man and husband, once I go to the STD clinic."

"But I'm not a man!" protested Mr(s). Henderson. "I haven't a mickey! I'm here in Dublin to get a gee."

"But darling, you are a man, I know it! You're a faaabulous man! Why on earth would you want a gee? All you need is mickey."

Somewhere in the near-distance, near Harcourt Street or Adelaide Road or somewhere else pukeable, a trumpet played the French national anthem. Mr(s). Henderson jumped suddenly. S/he'd just realized it. S/he was lying to him/herself. It was all clear now. She had a sudden flashback to a dimly-lit brothel in 1920s Dublin.

FLASHFLASHFLASH

A load of holy aul'ones standing around with pointy crucifixes. The strong stench of incense and holy place, but it wasn't a holy place (though it was a holey place, but that's another story).

"There's the bastard," says some withered old nun.

"And there's the hoor," says another old bat.

"Cut off its mickey and kill the hoor," came a booming voice from the far distance, as if amplified by Gawd himself.

"But General McQuaid, what does the third commandment say?"

"And you're asking me, God himself of Dublin, almost? How dare you be so impertinent! Off with your habit! Now kill the hoor and cut the bastard's mickey off!"

"Yes, my Lord and my God."

Suddenly Mr(s). Henderson remembered the screaming of hoors and the grinding of teeth, from the next room. And then s/he knew...the hoor that screamed was his/her mother. But suddenly the screaming faded and s/he recalled a sharp pain in the mickey area...

FLASHFLASHFLASH

And Rufus was lifting up his skirt.

"O, sorry girls, did I ruin the moment?"

Amid all the confusion and flashing, Mr(s). Henderson and the gay guy both failed to notice Rufus still there waiting and wondering why he was no longer the centre of attention (a one-man guy in the morning, the same in the afternoon).

"O, gay guy!" exclaimed Hendy suddenly.

"Yes darling?" answered Rufus.

"No, not you, him—the gay guy from gay guy and straight guy."

We're now on Diabelli Variation No. 31 as Beethoven refers to himself as his compositional life comes to an end, just as Mr(s). Henderson's odyssee comes to an end.

"Yes..." said Hendy, "...John!"

"O Hendy, you remembered!" shouted John, the gay guy.

"Yes, John...I know now. I was the son of a hoor from the Monto. McQuaid made the Legion kill my mother and cut off my mickey, and that's how I became a manwoman!"

"But why, Hendy? Why would they do that?"

"I don't know John, but I have to find out. I'll get to the bottom of it if it's the last thing I do!"

"OooooOOoooOoOooo!" says John, comme usual.

Rufus's ears pricked up suddenly. "Darlings, do I sense a gay adventure coming on?"

"Ooo!"

"I have to know the truth. I won't rest until I know why they killed my mother and cut off my mickey. But where shall I start?"

FLASHFLASH

Aaaaaa.

---Men.

"I'll get you lot back, I will! How dare you come into my Olde Knockin' Shoppe and kill my hoors and cut off their children's mickeys! I always knew you Catholics were bastards. I'll show the world what a pack of hypocritical holy fuckers yez are and what a dirty prick that Archbishop of yours is!"

Silence. Then the sound of matches being lit and screaming and the smell of singed hair.

"You bastards! You'll regret this! It'll be on the front page of the Anglo-Irish Times tomorrow, you just wait! Geraldine loves a bit of gossip. I'll send my son along with the news, be sure of that. Go get down on your knees and pray to your pope you fuckin' papists!"

"That's enough from you you filthy proddy!" shouts Frank Duff from the door as he fires a bottle of black Protestant porter at Mrs. Kelly, narrowly missing her singed head. "Smash those ashes, Sister Paphaloushis!"

"No! No!" screamed Mrs. Kelly. "Not Mr. Kelly's ashes! And that lovely jam jar I got as a present from Kitty O'Shea!"

"That proved English prostitute, eh?" shouted Frank Duff. "Smash it sister!"

The sound of smashing glass and the screams of Mrs. Kelly, good Protestant as she was.

"Now, you heard what the Archbishop said, kill her."

"You won't get away with this, yiz feckers! I..I..."

DONG.

DONG.

DONG.

Mrs. Kelly couldn't believe her luck. It was a sign from the Protestant God, Jehovah. "The Angelus," she whispered silently. "Thank Jaysus, for once."

The nuns and Frank Duff all prostrated themselves suddenly towards Rome, momentarily oblivious to their murderous mission given to them by His Lordship and Quasihemidemisemigodness McQuaid.

"The Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary..."

"AND SHE CONCEIVED OF THE HOLY SPIRIT HAIL MARY FULL OF GRACE..."

The Legion oblivious, Mrs. Kelly suddenly grabbed as many of her important belongings as she could get her hands on and ran faster than she had ever run until she was at the gates of Pat's Cathedral, before she realized she had left behind her the most important thing...baby Jeremy.

FLASH

"Mrs. Kelly knows the truth!" exclaimed Mr(s). Henderson. "But she must be long dead...where do we go from here?"

"Jeremy..." interrupted Rufus, "...I think I met her son in the Yellow Lounge!"

TO BE CONTINUED.

deV and Domhnall.

A continuation of the gospel according to Mr(s). Henderson.

Last time we heard from gallant Mr(s). Henderson, s/he was trekking across North America in search of something called love. This may have been a place, a gay bar, a Broadway show or a run-down brothel, which of course was her last place of employment

-----Flashback-----

Back in the days when Mr(s). Henderson was but a wee boy, he lived in the durty auld Dublin town where his mammy specialized in the trade of hoorin' down the Monto in Mrs. Kelly's Olde Knockin' Shoppe. Mrs. Kelly was a grand old woman who had once lived in the Dublin Mountains. Her husband was shot in 1916 for stealing picnic baskets up in the Hell Fire Club. She subsequently moved into the heart of Dublin and started her roaring whoring trade up behind the Pro-Cathedral. Because she was a good Protestant, Mrs. Kelly was permitted to have her husband's remains slightly singed and then fully blown to bits (also known as cremated) and put in a lovely Chivers jam jar that she'd been keeping for a special occasion such as that. She placed the jar on the fireplace in her beloved brothel and urged the young men to admire her lovely vessel accordingly.

The whoring trade had a roaring trade until 1925 when Frank Duff and a few holy auld wans arrived at the door carrying bottles of holy water and armed with 1798 vintage pikes, muskets (good Catholic weapons), a few Rosary beads and a big gold crucifix with a pointy end for smashing windows and killin' hoors. Just for extra reinforcement they borrowed several of the Pro's baptismal fonts to break in the doors that had been cleverly barricaded with hoors and the occasional bottle of stout. The Legion broke into Mrs. Kelly's Olde Knockin' Shoppe, killed all her hoors with the crucifix and set Mrs. Kelly's hair on fire. They even smashed her husband's ashes, the bastards. She was particularly upset at the loss of the lovely jam jar, which she'd been keeping since 1893.

Now, Mr(s). Henderson fits into all this tumult somehow. We'll now do this in exquisite style. He (yes, he) was the bastard child of one of the nicer and nicer-lookin' hoors who was killed by the Legion in the Battle of Monto, 1925. The Legion took pity upon the poor orphan child and decided to send him into the care of the Magdalene Sisters. You can see where this is going, the poor little shite. Before the Legion sent him away, they made sure that he would never become like those durty young fellas that did be shaggin' the poor young wans in places like the Monto. So, they promptly cut off his mickey and all related appendage with the help of the Holy Knife of Padre Pio, some nice incense, some Our Fathers and a few Hail Marys ('tis the Legion after all).

Mrs. Kelly survived but never recovered from having her hair burned off and the loss of that lovely jam jar that she'd got as a Christmas present from Kitty O'Shea-Parnell who had come to Dublin for a romp in Mrs. Kelly's gaff, back after Charlie died. After all, Kitty was a proved English prostitute, so says Tim Healy, harr harr. Mrs. Kelly lived on a few more years until she was shot by the IRA who had mistaken her for Grant Mitchell. However, her son David went on to become a well-respected actor and gentleman. In later years, he met Willy Wonka, a great achievement for any Irishman.

Dotdotdot...WAKE UP

As Mr(s). Henderson shook his/her head and came back to reality, s/he turned to her beaver, Anne Gyna. As they floated down the Miss/Misterissippi, s/he spotted a distant luminous edifice. "O, Anne Gyna," s/he exclaimed, "could it be Love?" Anne Gyna said nothing—predictably, as she was a beaver. Mr(s). Henderson dived out of the boat and swam to the bank of the river three and a half miles away, leaving Anne Gyna alone in the boat. Dam, thought Anne Gyna.

Mr(s). Henderson swam with a spring in his/her step. Eventually s/he stood at the foot of the imposing pink edifice, the castle-like structure. S/he entered like s/he'd never entered before. Fear shook her/him, not unlike the Sisters had done all those years ago. S/he nearly pissed him/herself. Just as s/he was putting his/her hand on the doorknob...

---------Flashback, but this time in colour and a little more exciting.--------

There she was, a little girl/boy sitting alone in front of an empty fireplace. Why did the girls think she was so strange? Especially.......

------door-----sudden-----pink-----Love----------

...out came Rufus Wainwright wearing a dress and generally looking faaaaaaaabulous.

"Hi and welcome to the Yellow Lounge!"
"Yellow Lounge? It seems quite pink to me."
"O, honey, don't be so judgemental! Everything I touch turns to pink. They say I have the Midas touch!"
"O, how did we get to Berlin?"
"Wow, Berlen? Let me tell you, in spectacular style!"

Suddenly, the statues came alive and became half-naked German men including Herr Bogsbonny and Rufus's fella, Jorn, playing the (skin)flute, as he clearly did so well. As the stairs inverted, Rufus broke into song, a rendition of "Tiergarten" while swinging the mic(k) in rhythmic motions. While this ridiculous occurrence did...well, occur... Mr(s). Henderson's mind began to wander as she watched Rufus's dress swinging in the arms of .......

_-_-_-_-_-_-FLASHING-_-_- Rufus flashing......FLASHBACK.....

The nuns had inflicted the punishment of a long, cold bath administered by a couple of evil little young one nuns upon young Mr(s). Henderson.

"Jaysus, Sister Jacinteh, c'mere! Look ah dis! I waz just abou' to wash her gee an' I seen she hasn't even go' wan. An' it looks like she used to have a mickey!"
"The bleedin' little freak."

............Flashflashflash (choochoo) swish swish goes Rufus's dress in the wind, forget your troubles, come on get happy.

REAL
ITY.

S/he remembered at last. S/he was a s/he. S/he suddenly ran out of the castle. At this stage, Anne Gyna had built a massive dam and the river was beginning to flood. Seeing the water coming towards him/her, s/he dived into the nearest wormhole and passencore rearrived by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.

Rufus was shocked (for once) and slightly embarrassed. The elephants had come out and all!

"What did I say? Was I too straight?"

(To be continued, in true sitcom fashion....)