“It’s official, I can now formally announce to all that my nephew David, the sister’s eldest lad, has decided to run in the local Templemore / Thurles Municipal district elections, next Friday”, said Mikey Ryan.
We were above in the Arch Bar in Liberty Square, last night when Mikey broke the news, causing not a few patrons to cough into their gin and tonics.
“That’s the qualified electrician”, said I, “begod I thought he had emigrated, like everyone else, to America, Mikey.”
“You are indeed correct my friend” confirmed Mikey, “sure, he got ‘the start’ as an electrician with the US Prison Service over in Florida. Sad to say he got sacked during his first week. He refused to service the electrodes on their electric chair. Mind you, he would still claim that in his professional opinion that chair was a walking death trap if anyone sat on it. No, he is home again now, working the black economy, as an electrician, but hoping to fool enough people into giving him a job as a local councillor to earn that extra €17,000 plus expenses etc. for doing feck all.
“Well, you know”, said I “we the great oppressed people of Ireland are allowed, once every five years, to decide which particular county councillors we want to represent us; to suppress us even more. It’s an old tradition going back to the early 1900’s, demonstrating that democracy is alive and well in rural Ireland.
“You probably won’t believe this”, said Mikey in hushed tones,“but our David swears it’s true. He was out canvassing the other day and as he walked along the river walk at the back of Thurles Shopping Centre, didn’t he come across a lamp partially buried in the bank. He rooted the lamp out; gave it a rub to remove the slime. Then in the flash of an eye, didn’t a Genie appear, informing him that he had been granted one wish”.
Mikey went on to explain; “Knowing that the local elections were coming up, David thought long and hard for a minute, as indeed one would when found in the presence of a Genie. Wondering what would best benefit the town of Thurles; he eventually made a choice. I want to live forever he informed the Genie. No way said the Genie, Union Rules, only God is allowed to grant eternal life”.
Mikey continued, “OK, says our David, I’ll rephrase the text of that wish, I don’t want to die until after Thurles gets funding for that long-promised Ring Road and certainly not before Liberty Square gets its upgrade.
“Damn it, you’re a crafty little fecker“, said the Genie to David, before granting him his wish. Now surely that same shrewdness and cute-whorish activity is what’s needed in Tipperary politics today. I reckon he deserves my No.1″, continued Mikey.
” Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood and looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.” Robert Frost
“Well it’s as I see it”, said I, “Thurles voters next Friday morning will stand like the poet Robert Frost did in his Yellow Wood; with one path leading to downright despair and utter hopelessness and the other path leading to total extinction. So, let’s hope we have the foresight to make the correct decision between the only two choices on offer.
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