Wacky Eire E-Book

Geraldine Comiskey

• Herausgeber: Liberties Press
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Welcome to Wacky Eire - it's stranger than fiction. Imagine RTÝ's Nationwide crossed with the cult series Eurotrash, or BBC's Country File mixed with Father Ted . . . Now imagine it as a book of true stories, written by an insider who has travelled the length and breadth of Ireland seeking out the weird, the wacky, the raunchy and the downright shocking . . . this is Wacky Eire. In this hilarious account on modern Irish life, Sunday World journalist Geraldine Comiskey takes the reader on an outrageous romp through the real Ireland - where ancient traditions and modern obsessions make lively bedfellows and where people will constantly surprise you. From naughty farmers, animal antics and dodgy faith-healers to secret swingers and strippers, from scandalous exposés to charming vignettes of rural life, Wacky Eire is the naked face of modern Ireland.

Leseprobe

Wacky Eire

Geraldine Comiskey

To Mam and Dad – and Irish mammies everywhere.

Contents

Title Page

Preface

Acknowledgements

Chapter One: Rebels

Pothole Man

Cockerels and Chainmail

The Ming and I

HeLL Plates

Achill Henge

Chapter Two: Animal Passions

Woodstock for Farmers

Boozy Bull

A Baaaad Haircut

Where the Buffalo Roam – in Cork

A Moo-ving Story

Sow Scary!

Chapter Three: Ireland’S Soul – Spirituality And The Supernatural

The Holy Stump of Rathkeale

Holy Joe

Penance on Lough Derg

The Temple of Isis

The Agent of the Devil

Chapter Four: Good Sports

Effin’ Eddie

The Playboy of the Sunny South-East

The Mammy of Cork Football

Gaelic Football is in the Blood … Pudding

Racy Casey Rides Again

Chapter Five: Showtime – Showbiz, Showing Off And Showing All!

Losing his Shirt in the Recession

Ladies’ Night at the Red Cow

Naked Nation

Calling Elvis – to Bundoran

There’s No Show like a Joe No-Show

Chapter Six: A Wacky Irish Welcome For Vips

A Royal Nosh-up

A Raunchy Royal Tour

The Royal Wee

Bar-ack of Chocolate

Chapter Seven: Wild Things

Invasion of the Giant Rhubarb

Puckering up to the King of Kerry

Sharks and Stingrays

Chapter Eight: Irish Pride

The Real Craggy Island

Ravin’ Redheads

Keeping it Culchie

Potatoheads

Chapter Nine: Dodgy Dating

Love, Lust and Laughs at Lisdoonvarna

Mrs Whippy

S&M in the City

Swinging in the Country

The Eco-Dildo

Chapter Ten: Scary Eire

Séance in Clonony Castle

The Poltergoat

Stubborn Spooks

Dublin’s Scare City

A Swift Return from the Other Side

Spook Head

Copyright

Preface

As a roving reporter, I often feel like a gypsy crossed with a rally driver – whose navigator has just gone crazy. One minute, I’m ambling along at a leisurely pace, enjoying the view, having the craic with the locals; the next it’s total mayhem as scenery, animals and people jump out at me. Ireland’s winding roads are no place for the person who likes life to be predictable – there’s a surprise around every bend.

I feel privileged to have had a close-up, driving-seat view of this strange little island, to have seen more of my native land than most inhabitants have in their lifetimes – and to have taken part in some of the wackiness. I don’t subscribe to the traditional view that a journalist should be a disembodied voice, reporting on other people as if they were animals in a wildlife documentary. When I’m reporting on something amusing, it’s far more interesting if the joke is on me too.

Of course I can’t get involved in a story when I’m in my other guise, as a serious news reporter – but I have found that my walk on the wacky side has helped me to be a better all-round journalist than I would have been if I had restricted myself to straight reportage. I have learned, for example, that people are far more complex than they appear at first. It’s often said, but rarely understood, that you should never judge a book by its cover. Ireland has many wise fools – and many foolish wise-guys who can’t see beyond the mask of a jester or the tears of a clown. Having walked many miles in some strange shoes, I know what it feels like to be an outsider and an insider all at once, to be shunned and welcomed. And I feel honoured to have met many fascinating people, who have shown me their wacky side.

And I’ve come to believe that Ireland is a magical place, where ordinary people enter chrysalis every time the fancy takes them – and sometimes when they don’t expect! The Queen and Barack Obama went native in spectacular style. Every night of the week, rugged farmers are transformed into twinkletoed rhinestone cowboys as they head into their local hotels to strut their stuff at country’n’Irish dances. Several times a year, respectable men and women strip off and show off their wobbly bits to the world – usually the Sunday World, if I have anything to do with it.

And of course, just like my newspaper, I was born here, bred here and am read here. So when I tell you Ireland is the wackiest place on earth, I’m speaking from experience.

Acknowledgements

Most of the people I’d like to thank for making this book possible would be mortified to find their names in these pages. Some, who unintentionally helped me, would be furious. So I won’t expose you this time; you know who you are, and I hope you see the funny side while you’re reading it.

Huge thanks to Sean O’Keeffe, Caroline Lambe, Clara Phelan, Alice Dawson and Dan Bolger at Liberties Press.

A big toast to my literary agent, Jonathan Williams, who spotted my potential as an author long before I did and put in countless hours, not just on this book but on others to come, and to the Sunday World’s news editor, John Donlon, the Godfather of Irish journalism, who indulged and encouraged my wacky side while continuing to take me seriously when it counted. I am also grateful to the Sunday World’s deputy news editor, investigative journalist and author himself, Eamon Dillon, for some of my wackiest assignments ever; fellow author and investigative journalist Jim ‘Agent of the Devil’ Gallagher for recruiting me as his disciple; showbiz editor and investigative journalist Eugene Masterson, and crime reporters Alan Sherry and Niall Donald for some great ideas (and in Niall’s case pretending to be my ‘husband’ at a swingers’ party); novelist and crime writer Niamh O’Connor for encouraging me to give the literary world another go; three successive picture editors, Gavin McClelland, Dave Dunne and Owen Breslin and my many colleagues, past and present.

The Sunday World is a breeding ground for authors, and great credit is due to Editor Colm MacGinty, and MD Gerry Lennon, who have always given us the freedom to develop our own styles and identities through its pages. My own profile got a huge international boost as a result of Managing Editor Neil Leslie’s decision to send me after Thierry Henry. Special thanks to Assistant Editor J. P. Thompson for sending me off on a few wacky adventures outside Ireland; Sarah Hamilton for dealing with all the correspondence, messages and strange packages that arrive for me in the newsroom; Seán Boyne for publishing my very first Sunday World article and giving me a crash course in how to write tabloid-style when he was news editor; Fashion Editor Fay Brophy for her part in my ‘wedding’; social network section editor Daragh Keany for taking a gamble on me and being a good sport about it, and to all the staff and contributors who make the Sunday World a bestseller every week.

It was a treat to work with so many brilliant photographers down the years, in Ireland and abroad, who combined artistic talent and investigative skills with a sense of mischief – and, on occasion, doubled up as bodyguards. They include legendary Sunday World snappers Val Sheehan, Liam O’Connor and Ernie Leslie, who have worked with me on everything from wacky features to hard news, and (in alphabetical order): Gary Ashe; Marti Berenguer of Solarpix; Matt Britton; Bryan Brophy; Mary and Patrick Browne of P. J. Browne’s Photography; Kevin Byrne; Arthur Carron (of Collins picture agency); James Connolly (PicSell8); Aidan Crawley; Frank Dolan; Andrew Downes; Mark Doyle; Ann Egan; Christy Farrell; Willie Farrell; the late Austin Finn; Philip Fitzpatrick; Brenda Fitzsimons; Mick ‘de fish’ Flanagan; Brian Gavin (Press 22 agency), Noel Gavin; Rory Geary; Keith Heneghan; Ciara Hennigan (JMac Photography); Pat Hogan (of Provision agency); Emma Jervis (Press 22 agency); Mark Kelleher; Michael Kelly; Clare Keogh; Eamonn Keogh (of McMonagle Photography); Barbara Lindberg; Peter Lomas; Martin Maher; Hany and Carmel Marzouk; Philip McCaffrey; Mick McCormack; Brian McEvoy; Jason McGarrigle; Eoin McGarvey; Billy macGill; Andy McGlynn; Ciaran McGowan of the Irish Sun; Philip McIntyre; Jack McManus; Don McMonagle (McMonagle Photography); Peter McParland; Mike and Daragh McSweeney (Provision agency); Adrian Melia; Gerry Mooney; Pat Moore; Robert Mullan; Paul ‘Nico’ Nicholls; and Solarpix Agency in Marbella, for giving me a taste of international fame; the late Dave O’Connor, his wife Marie and son Ken; Pat O’Leary; Conor O’Mearain; Valerie O’Sullivan; Willie Smith; Dave Stephenson; Lorraine Teevan; Dylan Vaughan; Jim Walpole; Eamon Ward, and Ciara Wilkinson.

I am indebted to the Irish Sun’s crime editor, the legendary Paul Williams, and their picture editor, Padraig O’Reilly, for their timely advice and encouragement while they were working for the Sunday World, and to my past bosses, notably my taskmasters at the Irish Daily Star, the great Bernard Phelan, Star Chic magazine editor Moira Hannon and columnist Terry McGeehan. I would also like to thank Des Gibson, Fiona Hynes and Paul Mallon at the much-missed Irish Daily Star Sunday; Daily Mirror Editor-in-Chief Jumbo Kierans and his team, including News Editor Niall Moonan, Deputy News Editor James McNamara, Pat ‘Buddha’ Flanagan, Declan Ferry and Lindsay Fergus, who all put the quirky stories my way when they were at the helm; Christian McCashin, who was my editor at the Irish Sunday Mirror; Paul Drury and Ronan O’Reilly at the Irish Daily Mail; Paul Clarkson and Fiona Wynne of the Irish Sun; Eoghan Corry of TravelExtra, who first sent me on my wacky way when he was Features Editor at the old Irish Press and Deputy Features Editor Seán Mannion; the late Dermot Walsh and Johnny Roche of the Wexford People and Jan Van Embden, who took me on as teenager at the Bray People; Ken Finlay, who gave me my first official work placement with Southside, later to become the Southside People, and his successors Jack Gleeson and Neil Fetherston, as well as honchos Tony McCullagh and Ray O’Neill, and all my ex-colleagues at the Dublin People.

Thanks to the late Peter Carvosso of the Evening Herald, the late Howard Kinlay of the Irish Times; and the late legendary Irish Times editor Douglas Gageby, who treated me like an experienced reporter right from the start. I’m also grateful to his successor, Conor Brady, for standing up for me and journalism against commercial interests and showing true integrity while I was a teenage trainee, the then deputy editor of the Irish Times, James Downey, for some sound advice, the paper’s news editor at the time, Eugene McEldowney, former news editor John Armstrong, Mary Maher, Dick Grogan and many others in the Irish Times newsroom for the excellent training they gave me on the newsbeat. Thanks also to Jack Fagan for letting me pimp up the Irish Times property supplement on occasion; Kevin Myers for letting me give An Irishman’s Diary a sex-change; Seán Duignan (then of RTÉ) and the late Noel Conway for initiating me into the Leinster House Press Gallery; thanks also to my first ever tabloid news editor, Martin Brennan of the Evening Herald, for giving me a good grounding as a newshound, and features editor at the time, Helen Rogers, for her fantastic advice and encouragement; Mike Burns of RTÉ, who took me on as an unofficial trainee back in 1986, and Denis Madden who recommended me to him; to Paul Byrne of TV3 for his generous help and encouragement and to shock jocks Adrian Kennedy, Jeremy Dixon and Niall Boylan for giving me a taste of ‘tabloid radio’. Thanks go to my bosses at the Tribune, Vincent Browne, the late Michael Hand, Rory Godson, Colin Kerr and Dublin Tribune MD Seamus O’Neill. Thanks also to John Moore for giving me my first taste of British tabloid journalism when he was the Sunday People’s man in Ireland; Shay Fitzmaurice of the North Wicklow Times and Gerry Fitzmaurice of the North County Leader; Gráinne Willis and Valentine Lamb of The Irish Field.

Special thanks to my old teachers David Rice and Ciaran Carty of the School of Journalism at the College of Commerce in Rathmines, Dublin, and a very special thanks to the late, legendary Mairéad Doyle, who taught me shorthand; to Danny O’Hare, then of the National Institute of Higher Education, who presented me with the Seamus Kelly Memorial Award, and to the award fund’s trustees and panel of judges back in 1987, who gave me a huge boost of confidence; to author Gordon Thomas for making me his apprentice; to crime journalist Jim Cusack of the Sunday Independent for encouraging me to give journalism another go; my namesake Ray Comiskey of the Irish Times for all his advice and help; and to many more who helped me on my way.

Journalists and public relations people necessarily distrust each other, but I have been lucky to have crossed paths with some of the best promoters, publicists, marketing people and event organisers in the business, who have come up with some brilliant ideas for features, helped me gather information under pressure, and accepted it with good grace when my duties as a journalist clashed with theirs as PRs. A very special thanks to Fiona Bolger; Breffni Burke; James Cafferty (Showtours); Dave Curtin; John Drummey; Kaz and Neil Lynas (Propeller PR, Belfast); Niamh Sullivan (Hopkins Communications); Nigel O’Mahony and Michelle Mangan of OMF Publicity; Peter Philips; Hannah Rose Farrington and Dandelion PR; Pauline Madigan; Carmel Dooley; Marion Fossett and Charles O’Brien of Fossetts’ Circus; RTÉ press office, especially Karen Fitzpatrick and Rayna Connery; Maureen Catterson and her team at TV3; Linda NiGriofa at TG4; Caitriona Maguire of Lidl Ireland; Tara Gilleece; Melissa Kelly at O’Leary PR; Chris Kelly at Fleishmann Hilliard; Ailish Toohey; Caroline Moody, Nicola Watkins and the PRs at the Irish Defence Forces Press Office – especially former press officers Cmdt Eoin O’Neachtain and my first contact there, Cmdt Declan Carberry, whose decision to break with protocol and allow a female to take part in FCA manoeuvres led to the Seamus Kelly Memorial Award for me.

Bottoms up to Daragh McCoy and Rachel Solon for their dedication to the pursuit of art and fun. Thanks also to Keane Harley for accompanying me on my wacky way. My thanks to former curate of St Anne’s Parish Shankill, Fr Doyle, for giving me a big break on the St Anne’s parish magazine. Special thanks to the late author Tony Foster and to Ireland’s biggest WAG, Mary Cunningham, for their inspiration and encouragement. And thanks to many others who helped me on my way, of whom more anon in one of my upcoming books.

Above all, I thank my mother, Nancy Comiskey, for lighting all those candles to St Anthony (they worked!); my dad, Gerry Comiskey, for being the best and wisest dad ever; my sisters, Lorraine and Sallyanne, brothers-in-law Liam Kenny and Denis Sullivan, nieces Laragh and Molly and nephews Mark and Daniel, for providing a refuge from my wacky world. Hope I didn’t embarrass you too much!

August 2012

Dublin

CHAPTER ONE: Rebels

The Irish have always had a soft spot for the person who breaks rules, taboos and even laws. Maybe it’s because the Republic was founded by rebels …

Pothole Man

When a Cavan man told me the potholes up there were big enough to swim in, I took him literally. We ended up going for a dip in the road … I brought my diving mask, snorkel, bikini and thigh-high boots; he brought a giant measuring stick and stripped down to his Y-fronts.

But then lorry driver Martin Hannigan was a man on a mission. The dad of six from Cootehill, County Cavan, had been waging war on the local authority for twenty-two years, and the BBC’s Terry Wogan had even flown over to interview him in 1994. Songs had been written about him, including a trad number by Sharon Shannon and a reggae ballad that went out on You Tube and local radio. He had erected illegal road signs, published a calendar featuring pictures of Cavan’s worst potholes, gone on twenty-four-hour fasts while chained to the railings of Cavan courthouse, and held demos outside Government Buildings in Dublin. No wonder he was nicknamed the Pothole King, I thought, as Martin showed me his battlezone – the pockmarked back-roads of County Cavan. His one-man vigilante attack involved painting circles around the holes. Armed with a spray-can, he usually worked at night so as not to be disturbed. ‘The County Council powerwash the paint off – and I just go back and paint them again,’ he explained.

In 2008, the County Council took the defiant Pothole King to court for interfering with public property. ‘The judge dismissed the case but he said I’d go to jail the next time I painted around a pothole. Still, I’m not putting my spray cans away,’ he said as he vowed to defy the court order. ‘I think it’s a matter of public safety. I’m doing it to warn drivers about the holes. You wouldn’t see them in the dark or when it’s wet. They fill up with muck and water.’

Pockmarked by craters, some up to three feet deep and fifteen wide, these roads from hell would have put the fear of God into Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson. They were driving locals around the bend, and the road rage reached boiling-point in 2009. As the National Roads Authority unveiled its multi-billion speed camera project, Martin got angry – and called in the Sunday World.

Followed by local photographer Lorraine Teevan, Martin took me on a tour of the county’s worst roads, but it was more of an off-road experience – a bumpy safari ride without the exotic beasts. Even the Celtic Tiger had bypassed the B-roads of Cavan.

‘I’ve destroyed two cars on these roads,’ Martin said as I hung on to my breakfast. ‘All that bouncing around in the potholes wrecked the suspension. And I can’t count how many times the exhaust has come off my car. Once I know there are bad potholes on a road, I avoid them – but there are new potholes appearing all the time and they take you by surprise. They are costing motorists a fortune in repairs. Cars are failing their national car test because of the bad roads. And they’re an accident waiting to happen. Some of these roads haven’t been tarred for twenty-five years.’

At five miles long, Mayo Lane, in the townland of Aghagashlan is the mother and father of bad roads. It’s the link between Ballybay and the main Shercock-Cootehill Road, but local drivers are wary of using it as a shortcut. However, the seven families who live there have no choice.

It was the road to heartbreak for a bereaved family, when the undertaker could not get the hearse down the road. ‘Someone suggested taking the coffin out and carrying it, but that would have been riskier – it’s so easy to trip in a hole. So, instead of bringing the man’s corpse home for his wake, they had to bring him straight from the mortuary to the cemetery,’ Martin said.

As we bumped along Mayo Lane, local pensioner Hugh Connolly stopped us to tell us how the potholes had made him a ‘prisoner’. The bachelor, who had been living in a caravan on the boreen for fifteen years, said he was often stranded. He had to walk three miles to the shops and pubs in the nearest town, Cootehill.

‘I don’t even have a car – there’d be no point. It would be wrecked. The taxis won’t even come down this road. A few have tried but they had to reverse. It’s too narrow to turn.’

Less than half a mile up the road, Martin’s sturdy Volkwagen Passat got one of its 12-inch wheels stuck in a huge crater. I could feel the car sliding back into the hole as Martin drove in first gear out the other side. Yards on, we hit another pothole – on a dangerous hairpin bend. Then we came across a twenty-yard stretch of water and could go no farther. Martin said some holes were fourteen inches deep. And one was twenty-one foot long, seven foot wide at each end and ten foot wide in the middle.

He had warned me to bring my wellies because we might need to get out of the car. Being the cautious type, I went a bit farther, and wore the nearest thing I had to fishermen’s waders: thigh-high PVC stilettos. But, while my kinky boots may have been all the rage in Dublin nightclubs that winter, they were no match for the Cavan puddles. The muddy water was up to two feet deep in some places – and slippery.

As soon as I realised my rain mac wouldn’t keep me dry, I stripped off to more suitable attire. A bikini, diving mask and snorkel are not what you’d normally wear on a road trip – but then it’s not every day you find roads like swimming pools. And the Pothole King was just as keen to make a hole-y show of himself. ‘I don’t care if I get pneumonia,’ he said as he stripped down to his jocks. The dapper granddad had worn his best suit, complete with collar and tie for our interview, but now it was time for action. ‘I’ve tried everything to get the Council and the National Roads Authority to take notice of this public safety hazard. This is my best shot.’

A month after the exposé in the Sunday World, Martin was being hailed as a hero around the world. The wacky photos, showing Martin and yours truly giving it welly, made an impression as far away as Detroit, USA, where envious anti-pothole campaigners had to admit that our holes were bigger than theirs. Martin was hailed as a hero by bikers, truckers and motorists around the world.

But the flip side was a deluge of hate-mail. ‘I got anonymous letters saying insulting things about myself and my family. Someone sent me a blank Christmas card with a note: ‘This will be your last Christmas’. One weirdo posted Martin a copy of the Sunday World article – with ‘RIP’ scrawled on it. Martin believes he knows who sent the hate mail. ‘This fella has a grudge against me. When he saw me in the Sunday World, it really got under his skin.’ But he vowed to continue his war: ‘I’ve hundreds of spray cans in my shed, and I’m going to start painting circles around the potholes again when the snow is all gone.’

Martin’s wife, Sylvana, even dubbed yours truly ‘the Pothole Angel’. ‘People are saying the Sunday World was right to do it. It was a bit of fun, but it drew attention to a serious issue. And Martin is getting a lot of slagging about the pictures! You don’t get many men who are prepared to strip down to their underpants and get into a pothole in the road. We can’t walk down the street without people stopping us.’

But Martin’s stunt had yet to prick Cavan County Council’s conscience or make a dent in what he described as their ‘stubborn refusal to do anything about the most dangerous potholes in the country’. A Council spokesperson told the Sunday World: ‘In relation to potholes, there is a maintenance programme in place for each area,’ but declined to expand.

However, nearly a year later, the Hole-y War that had motorists’ knickers in a twist ended and the Pothole King was finally able to pull up his Y-fronts – because Ireland’s biggest pothole was no more! Martin felt like King of the Road as he told me that the council had thrown tar into it. ‘The road is as smooth as a golf course now,’ he said.

For the Pothole King, it was a hole in one.

Cockerels and Chainmail

He had many nicknames: The Birdman, Pirate Paddy, The Man in the Iron Suit and even Hugh Hefner. And every one of them suited him. When he wasn’t spinning old vinyl LPs in his sitting room where he ran a pirate radio station, or making love to his ‘bit of fluff’, as he charmingly called his latest lover, he could be found in the stands at a local GAA match – with a chicken on his head. Or down by the river, astride an ancient moped with no wheels – wearing a medieval-style chainmail suit and brandishing a sword as he defended the honour of his province, Leinster, against neighbouring Connacht.

And while it was not exactly the Playboy mansion, or Dublin Zoo, Paddy Farrell’s council house, in the town of Lanesboro, County Longford, had more wildlife.

His Russian fiancée, Lana, was happy to share the two-bedroom Council house with a golden labrador called Lucky and a cat, Paddy Garfield. They were all that remained of his menagerie, after Council officials ordered him to get rid of his flock of chickens.

Neighbours in the terrace, which is part of a housing scheme for senior citizens, complained that chicken Gloria and her mate Gaynor were keeping them awake with their amorous crowing and clucking at 5 AM.

Paddy, who was also running a pirate radio station, Big L, from his parlour, said he was especially fond of the hen because she shared his love of country ’n’ Irish music. ‘Gloria is a fan of Big Tom and the Mainliners [a showband from County Monaghan] like me. She hatched her chicks on a Big Tom LP – it was like she was hatching them on the great man himself!’

While Gloria was the love of his life, Paddy, who admitted to being ‘over sixty’, said his forty-two-year-old fiancée was just a ‘bit of fluff’ on the side. ‘She’s just my part-time girlfriend. She’s a wild woman and she goes off on me sometimes when we have rows. But I don’t mind because I was a wild boy when I was younger.’

The couple’s volatile relationship was played out on the pages of the Sunday World – it was livelier than anything you’d see on a TV soap. When Lana disappeared for a few weeks after a tiff, Paddy called me to say he had replaced her – with two ginger cats. He revealed he had named the kittens Podge and Rodge – not after RTÉ television’s risqué puppets but ‘because that’s what I used to call Lana’s breasts when we were making love!’

The couple’s on-off relationship had begun when Paddy found her homeless and broke on the streets of Longford, having being lured to Ireland with the prospect of work picking mushrooms.

It was thanks to Lana that Paddy’s pirate radio station occasionally blasted out Russian pop. Paddy said his radio station was so popular, even the local cops turned a blind eye to it. ‘I broadcast from my spare bedroom – right behind the Garda station.’ But the ‘young-at-heart’ pensioner said Lana was just one of the women in his life.

Paddy’s own grown-up kids had all flown the coop, and he had been sharing his Council house with his pets since his wife died four years previously.

Next time I saw him, he was decked out in his medieval-style chain-mail suit. His neighbour, Gezza Shurger, had taken six months to make the hooded tunic the old-fashioned way, using pliers to link the individual iron rings. He was hoping to flog it for a grand to a theatre, film company, museum or battle re-enactment group.

Paddy said he and Gezza were like old-fashioned knights – loyal to each other and always ready to rescue damsels in distress. It was strange to find medieval values such as chivalry mixed in with the hedonistic culture of Hugh Hefner, in a small country town. But a few years later, Paddy and Lana got married. They moved to a new house – and the animals came too.

The Ming and I

He earned the nickname ‘Ming the Merciless’ because he looked and dressed like the comic-book character. And, long before he turned up in Dáil Éireann wearing a bespoke hemp suit, the bearded, pony-tailed leftie was notorious for posting spliffs to journalists.

One thing was certain: Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan was not your bog-standard politician. Just one week after he had helped turf out the government in February 2011, the freshly elected TD got in some practice for the cut-throat world of national politics by sharpening his blade! He led sixteen of his neighbours on to the bog to break the soil – and the law. ‘I’m willing to go to jail for the right to cut turf,’ he said as he dug his own patch on the bog near Castlerea, County Roscommon – one of thirty-two bogs around the country that are off-limits to turf-cutters under EU rules.

The Mighty Ming was defending the rights of turf-cutters all over the country to cut their own briquettes. ‘We have the support of bog-cutters in Offaly, Kerry, the Dublin Mountains – everywhere there’s a bog. We even have Loyalist members across the border. In 2012 another twenty-three bog complexes will be covered by the ban and in 2014 a further seventy-five. They’re trying to get rid of turf-cutting altogether,’ he explained.

Ming’s message to the Eurocrats and the National Parks and Wildlife Service was: ‘Bog off’. While the rest of the nation knew him for his campaign to legalise the auld weed, in counties Roscommon and Leitrim it was all about the auld sod. And, as he declared war on his home turf, it was clear Ming was King. Since his election, he had achieved rock-star status among his constituents.

But he didn’t mind getting his shoes and trouser-hems wet as he jumped ditches and trudged through the mud like a trooper. ‘It’s only muck. And there’s plenty of that still in Leinster House,’ he said as he gave me some turf-cutting tips.

Ming laughed at my efforts to wield the sléan – an ancient bog-cutting tool. No matter how hard I tried, I barely made a dent in the turf. Still, with him doing all the hard work, ‘The Ming and I’ made a good team – until I called the plants that grow on the bog ‘grass’. Ming, who knows his grass from his weed, laughed: ‘You wouldn’t call that grass! It’s sphagnum.’ He revealed that he knew the name of every creature living on the bog. But, luckily for this city slicker, the creepy crawlies were taking a day off. ‘On a very hot day you’d get eaten alive with midges,’ Ming said, ‘but I love being out here in the fresh air. You get a great tan from it.’

He has been cutting turf since he was a little boy helping his parents. ‘We used to have a picnic. I remember once my mother brought a sponge cake. It was covered in flies but we still ate it. Everything tastes nice here. You work up a great appetite.’

His own Ming Dynasty was made up of ‘bog men’, he added. ‘My grand-uncle Harry Fleming cut turf here for sixty-seven years. Between him, my father and myself, we cut €150,000 worth of turf out of it. But the National Parks and Wildlife Service think it’s OK to throw us three-grand compensation for turfing us off the bog. If they offered me a million, I wouldn’t take it. We cut it for domestic use – to light our fires and heat our homes. It saves a family €500 a year.

‘All our national resources are being taken out of the hands of the people – our oil and gas off the west coast, our fisheries, and now our bogs. If we give up our right to grow our own fuel supply, I suggest we cut the two colours off the Irish flag and just go with the white flag.

‘The last time Irish people were evicted from the bogs was in 1915 – and a relation of mine, Father Michael O’Flanagan, stood up to the State. He led a group of turf-cutters onto a bog near Cliffony, County Sligo. When the authorities saw there was a priest leading them, they backed down because they didn’t want to go up against a person in authority. Now I have the mandate of the people – so maybe they’ll listen to me.’ Ming said everyone should be allowed cut in their own local bog. ‘We’d have to do a twenty-mile round journey to get to the nearest bog where we’re allowed to cut – so much for protecting the environment! The legislation was brought in without consulting us. The documents were all in Latin. And when we eventually got to look at the maps they used, they were out of date – there were drains marked in that were there forty years ago.

‘We know the bog but we’re being forced to obey laws made by people who have no understanding about it. They’re not even environmentalists. We arranged a meeting with a group from the National Parks and Wildlife Service and five of them came down in one car each. You’d think they’d come in a bus run on vegetable oil if they cared about the environment. We place the top of the bog in mounds so the flora will grow again. You’d imagine they would be pleased we’re looking after the bogs for them. We also watch out for illegal dumping. If any bog-cutter was caught dumping, we’d kick him out of the association.’

But it was clear that the nearest these people would get to breaking the law was cutting a few briquettes for the fire. Local man Joe Connally was weaving his tractor carefully among the mounds of stacked turf so as not to disturb them. Michael Fitzmaurice, chairman of the Turf Cutters’ and Contractors’ Association, said he hoped Ming would be able to get the ban reversed. ‘He’s our best hope.’

Ming has continued to champion the illegal turf-cutters and others who broke ‘bad laws’. One thing is for certain: instead of merely preserving our heritage, Ming is keeping it alive – along with the twin Irish traditions of rebellion and a sense of community.

I went back onto the bog with Ming in 2012, to join him in lifting a sod of turf which had been cut by a local farmer. ‘I could go to prison for this,’ he said. He introduced me to ten locals who said they were being ‘terrorised’ by the police and Irish Air Corps – who were flying over the bog to take aerial snaps of the illegal turf-cutting.

HeLL Plates

He had been branded Ireland’s worst driver – after failing his driving test ten times. So when Ray Heffernan invited me for a spin in his car, I was all set for a Top Scare. The sixty-one-year-old separated dad of two had just taken the Department of Transport to court for the seventh time, to challenge the results of his most recent driving test. But he lost his case after the judge heard he drove over a roundabout and clocked up five ‘potentially dangerous faults’, nineteen serious faults and two minor faults during the test in his native city of Cork in 2011.

Driving tester Kevin Condren said Mr Heffernan asked: ‘So where is this mini roundabout?’ – after driving right over it. The tester said he ‘felt in danger’ at least five times, because Mr Heffernan drove through stop signs, failed to signal or respond to instructions, ‘over-revved’ the engine and ‘his observation was particularly poor’.

So I made sure to wear my hard hat when Ray offered to let me test him on his driving skills in Cork city and suburbs. After half an hour in the passenger seat, I was in a tailspin. I could see why Ray and the driving testers were bumper-to-bumper. Because, while he was as skilful as a stunt-driver when it came to difficult manoeuvres, he was awful when it came to the mundane things such as stopping at traffic lights, keeping to the correct side of the road – and driving over things in the middle of the road!