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Ireland's answer to Magic Mike on what's the best and worst thing about being a stripper

A stripper from Ireland’s Chain Gang revealed all.

MIKE Chain Gang Chain Gang

THE LADIES HAVE waited long enough, but it’s finally here – the opening weekend of Magic Mike XXL.

If you haven’t seen the first, don’t worry, you’ll pick up the storyline in the sequel.

The verdicts from the women in TheJournal.ie and DailyEdge.ie are already in, but we wondered what’s it like for a male stripper in Ireland.

The Chain Gang have been pleasing the ladies of Ireland for over twenty years now.

Here’s just a little taster of what they do:

TheChainGangShow / YouTube

Ireland’s answer to Magic Mike, the Chain Gang’s, Six Pack, has been dancing with the group for over ten years.

MIKE

So, why stripping?

When I first got into striptease it was about more than just being good at something. It was about the idea or the possibility of excelling at something. Now that more than a hand-full of years have gone by and I started to realise my dreams of making it into the dance industry. I’m drive to continue to raise my own expectations and go the extra mile.

Six Pack said one of the scariest things to happen to him while on stage was when a woman jumped on stage with a scissors.

I was about to take my G-string off when a woman jumped on stage with a scissors to cut them off. She scratched me on the back – it was not very serious but it was still very scary.

The best and worst things about being a stripper?

Christina Finn / YouTube

Read: 23 honest thoughts we had at the Magic Mike XXL Irish premiere>

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26 Comments
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    Mute Diarmaid Twomey
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    Jun 11th 2012, 9:28 PM

    This is getting hilarious at this stage. At what stage are all these supposed “intellectuals”, “intelligent politicians” and lest we forget the blessed academic insulated economists, going to get it! It aint working lads, so I know uprooting the whole system puts all your publicly paid gravy trains at risk but sher that’s just tough! Wait for Italy to go caput next and then just wait for the meltdown. Any chance the journal would get all our learned economist friends like Mr Whelan on here? Didn’t he tell us we’d have €700 billion at our disposal if we voted Yes? There’s €100 billion gone already and markets are still tearing Spain apart. You just have to question credibility at this stage! Oh dear oh dear, everyone feathering their own nests while Europe burns!

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    Mute Joe Maher
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    Jun 11th 2012, 9:31 PM

    thank god for all the intuitive geniuses who write on the journal

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    Mute Fagan's
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    Jun 11th 2012, 9:32 PM

    That 700 billion alone will only last for Spain. Italy and France are in the waiting room.

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    Mute Stray Mutt
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    Jun 11th 2012, 10:03 PM

    Hence my policy not to invest within the Euro zone.
    In the longterm the Euro will falter as we know it.
    That is of course just my opinion.
    What is yours?

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    Mute Sean O'Keeffe
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    Jun 11th 2012, 10:10 PM

    Joe, there’s no need for any intuition here. A cursory study of economic history clearly demonstrates that there is no easy or painless slution to this crisis.
    Over eighty years ago, Ludwig von Mises forewarned the Wall St. crash with this now ominous quote. “There is no means to avoid the final collapse brought about by credit expansion..”
    We have just lived through the largest expansion of credit in the past 40 years. Expect a collapse of similar scale.

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    Mute Elvis Clarke
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    Jun 11th 2012, 11:15 PM

    Just looking at Richard Bruton here on tv3 news saying that the Spanish bailout has stabilized the situation are they for real this government, we need to get out on the streets enough is enough

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    Mute Kerry Blake
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    Jun 11th 2012, 11:23 PM

    Sure in fairness Richard is talking bull. Sure wasn’t it the fiscal compact that was going to provide stability?

    So which countries have signed up for the fiscal compact? Greece? Yes. Spain? Yes. Ireland? Yes (or soon to do so as the referendum was passed). Portugal? Yes. Anyone notice a pattern her? Have any other countries ratified it?

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    Mute Paul Mallon
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    Jun 12th 2012, 10:14 AM

    It’s all about the positive signals, and the stability, we’ll be graaaaaand. There are positive signals everywhere now, nothing to worry about. It’s sorted.

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    Mute Peter
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    Jun 11th 2012, 10:30 PM

    Economic issues like this will lead to massive social upheaval, my money’s out of Irish banks! And have started to become fully self sufficient for food … City folks will look well when the powercuts come

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    Mute Sean O'Keeffe
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    Jun 11th 2012, 10:44 PM

    In 1971, the gold standard system, established at Bretton Woods, was abandoned in favour of a fiat currency system with the US dollar positioned as the global reserve currency. This allowed the US to bridge funding gaps, caused by the cost of funding both the Vietnam war and the ongoing Cold war with Russia.
    The world benefitted greatly from this momentous decision.
    Firstly, the US, liberated from the monetary shackles of the gold standard, could finance enhanced military expansion/adventurism without subjecting American voters to onerous levels of taxation.
    Secondly, fiat currency offered enhanced economic capabilities to central planners (governments, central banks). The volume of currency supplied into the economy could be increased to stimulate growth (monetary easing) during recessionary episodes. This was particularly opportune for nations like the US & Britain as their domestic manufacturing industries were in decline in the 1970′s. In both these nations, uncompetitive businesses were allowed to fail as any economic impacts were, or would be, mitigated by a, soon to be, thriving banking and financial services sector courtesy of the enhanced monetary capabilies now available to central planners.
    An anomaly of fiat currency is it’s requirement for constant monetary expansion and it’s propensity to generate credit fuelled booms and debt. As fiat currency holds no intrinsic value, to ensure monetary stability all new currency is issued as debt. Central banks issue new currency to governments and Market participants as collaterallised debt. To allow for repayment of this new currency (debt) the volume of new currency must constantly increase (constant monetary expansion). Needless to say, the rate of monetary expansion has increased exponentially over subsequent decades.
    http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse/chapter-8-fed-money-creation
    While governments issue bonds to their central banks to access new currency, Market participants faced increasing difficulty sourcing, the expotentially increasing quantities of securities required to access new currency. The danger of a collateral drought were that the wheels would come off the accelerating fiat currency merry-go-round.
    In the US, this problem was overcome by issuance of toxic securities. In many cases these were facilitated by the expanding subprime mortgage market.
    European banks, as well as trading in toxic securities also, accessed collateral via the government bonds of nations, whose creditworthiness had recently been enhanced, such as Greece. Also, newly created collateral courtesy of credit-fuelled property booms in countries such as Spain and Ireland.

    http://mises.org/daily/6065/The-Fiasco-of-Fiat-Money

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    Mute Peter
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    Jun 11th 2012, 11:05 PM

    Ron Paul!

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    Mute Dmc
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    Jun 11th 2012, 11:59 PM

    Bring back the gold standard

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    Mute Sean O'Keeffe
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    Jun 12th 2012, 12:45 AM

    I don’t entirely agree Dmc. The twentieth century was dominated by two currency systems (or variants). Firstly, the gold standard up until 1971. This was abandoned because it did not provide enough liquidity for free-spending governments and properly functioning economies at the same time.
    Then fiat currency which we will soon see disappear down a sinkhole of inflation and debasement.
    The ideal solution is a currency system where the supply of currency matches the demand for currency. While there is not an oversupply as we currently have now with paper money.
    Mexican Hugo Salinas Price has suggested a hybrid duel currency system. This involves the issuance of paper currency long side the issuance of silver coins.
    US Professor Larry White goes a step further, suggesting complete liberalisation of the issuance of currency.
    Either system could prove extremely useful for Ireland in the near future.
    http://www.freebanking.org/2011/09/13/the-free-competition-in-currency-act-of-2011/

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    Mute Scrap Croke Park
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    Jun 11th 2012, 9:40 PM

    Why can’t the create a separate vehicle for bailing out banks on their own? Think we might have had a glimpse of what would happen this morning. Spanish bond yields fell until it became apparent that Spain, and not it’s banks, was on the hook afterall

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    Mute Fagan's
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    Jun 11th 2012, 9:44 PM

    The EU/ECB had a chance in 2009 to resolve this, by being radical then. They refused and dithered, looked at the German economy, saw it was doing fine and left it at that.

    The problem festered and grew, growth collapsed under austerity and the debt remains. Now growth is stalling across all countries, including the so called core. Holland heading in to a recession and Germany will as well.

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    Mute Dmc
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    Jun 11th 2012, 11:51 PM

    This is funnier than my Fr Ted boxset!!! All this crap is caused by fear and stupid clowns gambling with the stockmarkets. The funniest thing is governments know this but wont do anything about it!!!

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    Mute Karl O Flynn
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    Jun 12th 2012, 12:05 AM

    Batten down the hatches! This is going to be a bumpy ride. The euro in its current form looks doomed. No more band aids left. The game is up. The euro political zombies have bottled it.

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    Mute Senan Kelly
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    Jun 11th 2012, 11:05 PM

    there is one simple, tried and tested solution and its called bankruptcy.

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    Mute Waterford
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    Jun 11th 2012, 11:54 PM

    The conspiracy theorists think this banking crisis is to force the countries into a united states of Europe controlled by the big banks..what a ridiculous idea. Idiots!!
    Although who s running Greece and Italy at t moment…hummm, nah it couldn’t be bankers??

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    Mute Brendan McCaffrey
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    Jun 12th 2012, 12:25 AM

    Waterford do ur homework it’s actually not a theory anymore it’s fact . The bankers are actually sucking the world economies dry . It’s down to fiat currency and for fiat currency to survive it must always have ppl spending that’s why you have Christmas valentines day paddy s day Easter the currency must always be circulating . There’s no solution fiat currency does not work . Our civilisation is going to collapse the way it’s going so the ppl in charge may see this as a reason to create a super communist state where everything I’d controlled .

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    Mute Anne Kerins
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    Jun 11th 2012, 11:29 PM

    Can we have more bandaid please, the bit we thought fixed Spain has vanished, where will it all end

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