The torrential downpour of tolerance which inundated that odd quadrangle of space so dear to the harp-spangled history of Irish Freedom – the courtyard of Dublin Castle – brought tears of unrestrained joy to all those who had foregathered there under the Rainbow of Revolution two years ago.
But most of all it brought those most sincere tears of all, those tears which are dearest to the heart, handkerchiefs and blinking eyes of the thinking pink marketeer: the tears of self-congratulation.
-We have become a Benchmark of Equality for the rest of a Backward World !
Re-spect.
Up to this the benighted citizenry south of the Black Sow’s Dyke had to bear the cross of the RC Church with its no-miss mass; from now on it will be the Crass Lass of the Snog-oak Monolith who’ll regale the Gaels with her Me and Youlogies.
-Sleepless in Seattle, Dreaming of Dublin.
Thus was paved the way for the picking of Leo the Blue Shirteenth to be the permanent-wave Prime Minister of the Free Southern Stateen whose rule will be based on the following dictum, purloined perhaps from The German Queen’s English speech:
-In-tolerance – out !
-In-tolerance – out !
– In-tolerance – out !
Within a p.m. of being crowned P.M. indeed, he was faced with his first blooming test: the Feast day of Leopold. In which Molly Malone is replaced by Molly Bloom, in which streets broad and narrow have been wheelbarrowed away and substituted by a bedroom of sheets bawdy and of cupid’s arrows
Put it another way, Citizen Varadkar was faced with the dilemma of the most crucial chapter in the Book of Irish Literature, the Not Emma by Jane Austen. That would be the most universally celebrated and simultaneously unread novel in New Age Literature, the timeless tome called Ulysses by James Joyce.
The Irish novel, as it were, which is destined to go through the stateeen in whose garden the praties grow, WITH a Grecian bend, if not a chignon. The stateeen where the crafty, arty maties grow – in Aos Dána, influnece and in self importance alike.
The Ulyssean chapter in q. is, of course, the one featuring The Citizen in Barney Kiernan’s pub on Little Britain Street. A chapter and verse of anti-Erse; of racism, restrained racism, be it admitted, but racism of the soiled variety nonetheless.
A chapter of In-tolerance which has yet to be shown the outré Out-tray.
The inevitable knawvshawlies (who are, alas, always with us) are already bellyaching and whinging that the new PM of the FSS has yet to attend to this uber urgent matter and him to have his bum on the plum seat of politics but an am and a pm itself.
Happily, The Perkin’s inner pickled gherkin-eater, is not numbered among them, this cool hombre preferring to keep his cucumber out of sight but not of mind, under his jerkin. Knowing as he does, the new PM’s schedule, as hectic as it is eclectic, mainly on the mainland.
For, from a harp-spangled high, Leo had to come down with a bang on Downing Street like the proverbial ton of body politics. For his Oscar-nominated performance there, he merited a ten out of Ten. At least. Primarily, Leo was there for Pete’s sake. As in:
-For Pete’s Sake, roared Leo, make a POM the captain of the Lions !
And so it came to forward pass that Peter O Mahony, the Munster Fusilier who embodies the Passch for the game of Crashball and Bash, the Tame Colonial Boy of Thomond Park who is always up for the game, was duly chosen to,erm, line out and stand shoulder to shoulder high with his fellow Home Countrymen to lead the Lions into combat against the All Blacks. That would be the antipodean team which the stats indicate have the most tats per capita and whose haka the hacks of The Unionist Times, sadly, just cannot hack.
-Passchendaele, as it were, for Slow Learners.
Or, never mind the wit, feel the feline: having daubed the Celtic Tiger on the walls of Baile Átha Ballsup the moving FSS finger, having writ, moved on and wrote the Celtic Lions.
-Re-spect.
Meanwhile back in the day, the Bloomsday, James Joyce, a dutiful product of the civilised educational establishment of Clongowes, like the Bullock-befriending Bruton and predecessor of Leo Vee, opted to equip Citizen Cusack (for it was he !) with a canine rather than a feline, a ferocious saliva-dripping mongrel by the ironic and iconic name of (gulp) Garryowen.
(That would be Garryowen as in Seán South rather than in George North).
The motto of Clongowes, by the way, is: Aeterna Non Caduca which that noted linguist, the Gregorian-chanting Crooked Mouthed One would effortlessly translate as:
-Eternal not Falling.
Which quite possibly, to be perfectly Jesuitical about it, refers not to the F-word, that would be F for Fees:
-Which, in the Year of our Lord, ’17 stands at a paltry 17 thousand squids.
Paltry, that is, by contrast with the ditto digits pertainining to the alma mater of one, Dr. L. Varadkar, GP, King’s Hospital (sic) School, Dublin 20, where their toffee-noses are kept just ahead of their Irish coffee Catholic counterparts, forevever destined to play catch up:
-Which, in the Year of our Lord ’17, stands at a not so paltry, 17 thousand AND 249 squids.
Meanwhile, Leo the Cinéaste was having a blast in 10 Downing Street where indeed his day did come:
-Tháinig a L.A.
Love, actually, was the exact tack taken Leopold Bloom to the attack of Citizen Cusack: that (gulp) love and life are better options than force and hatred. Bloom scurries from the pub in a hurry as the myopic Citizen, who founded the cylopic GAA for the Common Lowclass Gaels such as Paddy Stink and Micky Muck, ridicules Bloom’s call for love.
By suplementing the saliva-flecked snarls of Garryowen by flinging a flurry of insults and a biscuit tin of (gasp) Jacob’s after the irreproachable LB, hero-to-be of the yet uninvented LGBT.
Citizen Varadkar was, of course, born to be a Cinéaste. Having been named for the one genuine world class (gasp) Irish Lion. That would have been the Leo who was born in the Zoological Gardens of Dublin on March 20, 1919.
It was that Leo who went on to become the Lion who roared and growled his way into millions of motion picture houses as the Logo which shakes his mane for Metro Goldwyn Mayer . The Logo which boasts ‘Ars gratia Artis’ as its motto.
Actually, Leo the Lion was originally named Cairbre (after a mythical Celtic hero / anti-hero ) before morphing into Slats and finally, Leo the Logo Lion.
(Just as well Leo Vee was not named Cairbre – never ye mind, Slats ! – as this would place him firmly in the camp of the Cusack Stand, in the shadow of which the hawkers of a Sunday can be heard squawking their mellifluous wares:
-Get the last of the Cairbre fruit and nut chocolate bars !)
How well the Mainland lends itself to the shaking of his mane by Leo Vee but, which, incidentally, was not the only reason why he roared in Number 10:
-Roarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr !
He also had to make himself heard over the Din emanating from the Dining Room in Downing Street where Theresa ‘Money’ Mayweahter and Arlene ‘The Notorious’ Foster were making a meal of their knees up ‘negotiating’.
And even as Leo Vee was waxing eloquent about the thrill of it all, seeing with his mind’s eye Hugh Grant sashaying down the staircase, Arlene was on about the Huge Grant she was in the process of demanding in her downbeat DUP kinda way.
As she was rattling her tin cup and chanting her familiar Fermantra:
-Gimme the bally money !
-Gimme the Bally money !!
-Gimme the Ballymoney !!!
Oh, to be a (gasp) Floyd on the wall of Teresa Mayweather’s Downing Street Dining Room.
(To be contd.).
Perkin
“That would be the most universally celebrated and simultaneously unread novel in New Age Literature, the timeless tome called Ulysses by James Joyce.”
It is possible that your good self and James Joyce may have something in common …!!
Excellent article,Joycean but light entertainment
You have heard of “Buckshot” Foster. Now meet Baksheesh Foster.