The Day Stephen Donnelly Joined Foster and Allen
While gutless others shivered
alone in wardrobes of their own making,
debating whether to kill
by strangling, or have sexual intercourse with,
themselves;
you strode into our national crisis
stage left stylish
as a string quartet about to fiddle out
on viola, cello, Stradivarius
something by the late Benjamin Britten;
a set of implausibly perfect teeth attached
to what sounded like a brain.
Your intelligence so vast
you had to get the builders in
to extend the dome of your skull
to accommodate a Masters
degree from Harvard.
Not content to be the usual
slight disappointment, you reveal
yourself to be the thinking wing
of the Foster and Allen Party; politically flexible
as a cross-community Belfast brothel;
slick as rubbery bacon; aesthetically pleasing
as a Chicken Snack Box thrice reheated
before nine o’clock in the morning
or a third hand pair of trousers grown
pungent with badly digested cabbage;
but destined tonight to be wildly applauded
in darkest Arklow by those who’ll have
the shirts torn from their backs
when next the market crashes.
KEVIN HIGGINS
THIS is
utter
drivel
No
With a capital “D”
DRIVEL
it’s the worst thing since Jack Whitehall.
I don’t know who or what Jack Whitehall is Bertie
Count your blessings.
They don’t like rude words up in the tower.
They’re rather precious like that.
Huge disappointment. I could understand him leaving the Social Democrats but this… What was he thinking.
Wicklow is the Irish equivalent of Virginia, it has the urban, the suburban, the rednecks and the hillbillies!
Donnelly would have been better to have formed a proper centre ground party like the Liberal Democrats which would have been more in tune with the urban and suburban electorate of Bray, Greystones, Delgany and Enniskerry, and perhaps Blessington.
Instead he is now the Grandmaster of the Backwoodsmen of Wicklow Fianna Fail who inhabit the dark ravines and isolated outcrops of Ballinaclash where men are men and sheep are scared!
Cool story, bro.
Hmmm. Not being a native, I was trying to figure out who Stephen Donnelly is.
On the subject of Liberal Parties, Canada is governed by a Liberal Party (they’re quite good) and it would appear you must definitely need a real one. Fianna Fáil are not liberal democrats, even though they managed to slither their way into ALDE )Alliance of Liberal Democrats in Europe) Neither the Labour Party, Green Party or the Social Democrats are true liberal democrats for that matter. They’ll all lefties with varying hues of pink, and nothing like the FDP in Germany, the Lib Dems or indeed our Canadian Liberals. Most Irish parties mentioned above have acquired ‘Social Liberalism’ and passed it off as their own. What they lack is the Reformist nature of Post Modern Liberalism. In other words it’s not in their DNA
So Pat, you have a point, there should be one and there isn’t.
Eh yeah, alright. Sounds like you know nothing about Wicklow but don’t let that stop you, Pat. (Funny that only the more northern parts of the county seem to register to you as places worth mentioning, too…)
Ballinaclash is in the south is it not?
Wicklow Town…. a nice dormitory town for taxi drivers, and as for Arklow, it’s good place for a safe house :-P
Wow
You are so funny knowing that the place Ballinaclash exists and using it an online blog! Ride me.
Will have to start taking a daily swim at Druids Glen.
More petulant whining from Galway’s chief narcissist Kevin Higgins. His arty mates will lap it up but the rest of us can spot the bitterness and hatred a mile away.
We sure can Peter a mhic
Fester and Ailin’ more like.
I liked the poem. I particularly liked the “politically flexible as a cross-community Belfast brothel” line. Genius.
I also liked the poem.