HOW WILL WE remember the post-boom years in time to come?
Donal Conaty of TheMire.net has been chronicling the fall of Celtic Tiger Ireland through daily spoof news posts since 2009.
Extracts have been gathered into a new book, Ireland In The Bailout Years: Tall Tales from Ireland in The Mire, available to buy here for Kindle.
Each weekday until Friday, TheJournal.ie brings you a taste of the book’s savage satire, year by post-boom year.
Today: 2009.
Kenny documentary axed – flies die in vain
Thursday, 10 September
A fly-on-the-wall documentary about Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny has had to be cancelled in mid-production.
Embarrassed sources at RTÉ and the Fine Gael press office have confirmed that five flies died during pre-production and 17 have fallen into trance-like states.
“We were hoping to portray Enda as a Taoiseach in waiting but this is a disaster,” the Fine Gael source said.
RTÉ sources confirmed they had sought help from some of the best documentary makers in the business but to no avail. “We even brought in an insectologist. Nothing worked.”
The insectologist, who refused to be named, said it was unlikely any of the 17 comatose flies would recover. “At least they are not suffering anymore,” he said.
Angry Cabinet protests against Government
Wednesday, 07 October
Traffic was severely disrupted in the centre of Dublin today as angry members of the Cabinet took to the streets to protest against the Government.
Many citizens were surprised to see Taoiseach Brian Cowen and all of his Government ministers protesting against his government but Mr Cowen said it was vital that the public realised “that we are as angry and disillusioned as they are going forward”.
Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan said he couldn’t stand idly by while the economy and the public finances were in such an appalling state. “It is my duty to protest,” he said.
Tánaiste and Minister for Trade, Enterprise and Employment Mary Coughlan was typically forthright in her criticism of herself and her colleagues. “No one gives a fuck,” she said. “Look at my job title. It’s meaningless. There is no trade, enterprise or employment. What sort of fucken eejit do they take me for?”
Green leaders caught urinating in neighbours’ compost bins
Friday, 09 Oct
Vital talks between Fianna Fáil and the Green Party on revising the Programme for Government had to be delayed this morning as some members of the Green negotiating team were helping gardaí with their enquiries.
Incredibly, Environment Minister and Green Party leader John Gormley, Energy Minister Eamon Ryan, Fresh Vegetables Minister Trevor Sargent and Senator Dan Boyle were all found to have entered their neighbours’ back gardens late last night to urinate in their compost bins.
“We caught them wet-handed but we are still trying to establish whether or not this is a crime,” a Garda source said.
It seems unlikely that the owners of the compost bins will want to see the Green leadership charged. “It was positively heroic, and great for accelerating the breakdown of compost,” one neighbour said.
However, The Mire has learned that Mr Gormley may have a more serious case to answer than his colleagues as his neighbours don’t have compost facilities. “It would appear that Mr Gormley or someone answering his description somehow gained access to their house and urinated in their highly sophisticated kitchen sink waste disposal unit,” the Garda source said. “The owners are distraught.”
Monitors reveal 37% of state employees are probably dead
Wednesday, 28 October
Results from Performance Evaluation monitors placed on 200 public servants have come to the controversial conclusion that as many as 37 per cent of state employees are probably dead.
Figures vary according to which department the dead employees work in with as many as 64 per cent probably dead in the health service while only 23 per cent appear to be dead in the Department of Arts, Sports and Tourism.
“Even if they are dead,” a trade union spokesman said, “they are working as hard as they can in appalling conditions.”
The highly sophisticated monitors were expected to give a clear indication of the percentage of time each public servant spends working and how hard they work during that time.
Virgin Mary disputes claims she will play Knock on Dec 5th
Tuesday, 03 November
The Virgin Mary has disputed claims that she will appear at the Knock Basilica on 5 December as she has a long-standing engagement to appear at the tree stump in Rathkeale, Co Limerick on the same date.
“I am the Virgin Mary, not some wannabe with a couple of videos on YouTube,” she said. “My engagements take two years to plan and all these random one-off shows are playing havoc with my schedule.”
The holy mother said anyone interested in booking an appearance by her should go through the proper channels.
“I have a long term contract with the Catholic Church. Talk to them,” she said.
Doctors say coma man was working for FÁS
Wednesday, 25 November
A man doctors thought was in a vegetative state for 23 years was actually working for FÁS.
Medical experts believed the unnamed individual had suffered an awful trauma and treated him as though he were in a coma since 1986.
To the astonishment of medical staff, however, the man rose from his bed on Tuesday morning and announced that he had to go and attend the picket line for the public service strike.
“This is an extraordinary breakthrough,” a leading coma specialist said. “We are currently reviewing all of our vegetative state cases to see how many of them are actually working for FÁS.”
Sexperts fear quitting golf could damage Tiger’s ‘game’
Monday, 14 December
Some of the world’s leading sexperts are concerned that Tiger Woods’ decision to quit golf “indefinitely” could have a terrible impact on his performance between the sheets.
“Sexual athletes are not like other athletes,” one sexpert said. “So much of their game is confidence. And it is the little things, like perhaps a round of golf, that help them to remain calm and confident during the sex act.
“I have always felt,” another sexpert said, “that a large part of what made Tiger such a great sexual athlete was the fact that he played golf. It is precisely because he drives straight down the middle of the fairway in golf that he gets to spend so much of his sex life in the rough.”
Although the sex industry is concerned that Tiger may never reach the heights of the past few years an industry analyst called for perspective. “We need to look at this calmly,” he said. “Tiger has quit golf. He didn’t say anything about giving up sex.”
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