Monthly Archives: August 2012
Clonoe Girl Sparks Security Alert
An 11-year old Clonoe pupil almost single-handedly suspended Stormont and left the Peace Process in tatters after writing an essay on her first day at St Joseph’s Secondary School in Coalisland. In an initiative to help soften attitudes towards the police in the area, the PSNI were invited to judge an essay-writing contest on day one of the 2012/2013 school year. Entitled ‘My House’, Maire McClure thought she’d a good chance of clinching the award only to be whisked away by the officers in attendance in an armor-plated jeep.
The Tyrone Tribulations office were able to get a photocopy of the first few sentences.
“Hello, my name is Maire McClure. I live in a terrorist house. All the houses around me are terrorist houses. All my friends live in terrorist houses too. My father says he was brought up in a terrorist house and will die in one too as it’s all he knows. Most of Clonoe live in terrorist houses.”
It wasn’t until the Deputy First Minister arrived on the scene that the incident was finally resolved. Maire’s mother quietly intimated to Martin McGuinness that young Maire was a chronic speller and was actually commenting on her ‘terraced’ house and surrounding houses of similar build. Maire’s father and neighbours were released without charge and Maire pledged to stay behind for the rest of the week to get extra help.
Artist’s impression of Clonoe
Loughmacrory Man Caught With Clear Diesel
Shamed Loughmacrory surgeon Peter Whittle has vowed to clear his name after being accused of using clear diesel in his Vauxhall Zafira on the Omagh to Cookstown road last month. In the first of its kind in the greater Loughmacrory area, Whittle was dipped as he made his way to Cookstown to buy a pair of ill-fitting jeans for a dance from a Pakistani merchant on one of the stalls at the world-famous market, and was found to be completely innocent.
“I was being flashed at by cars for about half a mile so I slowed right down to 80 thinking them bastards had the hair drier out. It wasn’t until the traffic came to a standstill that I realised they were dipping. My life flashed before my eyes as I knew I was on the clear, legit stuff.”
Whittle was clean, unfortunately
For fear of serious slagging if the word ever got out, the Loughmacrory medic tried everything to convince the PSNI that he was a hardcore red-diesel dealer in order to save face.
“I threw everything at them. I even gave them the address of my farmhouse hidden around the back of my garage which is packed to the rafters with red, green and all manner of dyed fuel even though I own no agricultural machinery at all. I fix legs for feck sake. I also admitted I was making poitin and was, in fact, half-cut at the time. They just laughed and said ‘you’re clean’ and told me to drive on. Most of Loughmacrory were pulled over at the side of the road and getting details taken. They just shook their heads as I drove past. I was mortified. In order to mend my family’s fine name, never again will I go legit.”
Whittle’s immediate family refused to comment but one uncle did remark that he wasn’t surprised at the news as “young Peter was always a bit odd like that. The sort of boy who never worked whilst signing on. Wouldn’t marry the cousin. His shame knows no bounds.”
Pomeroy Man Gets Colonic Irrigation By Mistake – Didn’t Like It
Pomeroy professional funeral-wailer Denver Douglas has managed to get his life back to some semblance of normality after a terrible mix-up with his GP led to a rectum-cleaning marathon for the 66-year old. In what turned out to be a comedic/almost tragic turn of events, Douglas ended up in the clinic bent over after a short conversation about what he believed to be personal farming problems with Dr Devlin, the local GP since 1944.
“I was saying to the doctor that I was having cramps because the crop of strawberries was terrible this year. That bollox Devlin recommended irrigation and I thought he was talking about field drainage. Little did I know he was thinking of my bowels and sticking a hose up me to clane her out. I said I’d be on for that alright and he told me to call around tomorrow to the clinic for a chat about it.”
The room where the cleansing was performed
Things got out of hand when Dr Devlin ran at Douglas when he came in with a tranquilizing needle to sedate him in case he backed down.
“I thought I was there to see plans for a new drainage system. The next thing I knew I was bent over the desk with Devlin shoving a 20-inch garden hose up my passage and told the nurse to turn her up to the hilt. I was too far gone with the injection to resist. I didn’t like it. I was like that for 2 hours, dignity gone completely like. That nurse would be a niece of mine and she didn’t need to see that side of me.”
Despite the trauma, Douglas says he’s never felt better and apologises to Dr Devlin for shattering his left jaw in three pieces when he came round. He has promised to wail loudly at Devlin’s funeral, free of charge.
Brocagh Man Admits To Having TV Licence
A Brocagh badger-catcher has stunned the loughshore diaspora when he admitted after a few pints in the Emmets clubrooms that he has a TV licence at home sitting on the mantlepiece. The astonishing admission came after a truth or dare session between a few men and women after a local bowling club dinner dance. In surreal scenes later that night, over a dozen drunken locals arrived at Pat Bucker’s abode looking to see proof of the remarkable claim.
Barman at the Emmets told our reporter:
“There was just a bit of craic going on, you know, the same oul shit-talk. Women were standing up saying mad things like they used to wink at the priest in the front row at Mass to see if he’d drop the chalice or the like. It was harmless stuff. The bowling captain has just admitted that he cleaned his arse one time with the Irish News and still read it after, when Bucker got up and shouted ‘I have a TV licence’. There was a stunned silence. Pint glasses crashed to the ground. One elderly woman fainted into the PP’s arms. I almost soiled myself. We’d never heard the like around Brocagh.”
Will this man venture into Brocagh?
There was disbelief as people waited to be told by Bucker that it was a wind-up. When it became clear that the badger-killer was serious, things threatened to turn ugly.
“Men were needing to be held back. Chairs were crashing through the window. I thought fatalities were a cert at one stage. A biggish dog was kicked straight at Bucker. Men and women were very angry that Bucker had gone against a century-long tradition in the area and that he was showing the lot up with his lawful compliance.”
Temperatures soon cooled afterwards when they visited the Bucker household for proof. Mrs Bucker answered the door and when told of the commotion she ordered her husband to “get the feck up thon stairs” and that the licence on the mantlepiece was actually the instructions for assembling the TV bracket on the wall that “the lazy good-for nothing drunken clift hadn’t even attempted since we got it a year ago“.
Omagh Banshee Retires
One of the last banshees in the county, the Omagh Banshee, yesterday announced her retirement from general ghouling and wailing in the Omagh area after weeks, if not months, of unsuccessful spooking at night. The ‘woman of the fairymounds’ had serviced the greater West Tyrone area since the Battle of the Yellow Ford in 1598 before concentrating on the county’s capital after the Home Rule Bill of 1886. Recently, though, she had been making sporadic appearances as rumours persisted of ill-health and deteriorating mental capacities.
“The time has come to hang up the comb,” the Omagh Banshee (known as the Oul Hoor in Omagh) told us on a frequency picked up on an old CB. “People are living longer and I’m sitting there whiling away the time hoping for an illness or two to savage a family. There bes days when I just take a chance and yap away outside a house in the hope that by sheer luck someone croaks it. Taking those chances were wrong and I’m just another failed run-of-the-mill mythological Irish spirit”
The Oul Hoor, depressed, yesterday
The Oul Hoor has been suffering greatly from arthritis because of the recent wet summers, making her existence a miserable all-year round affair now.
“It’s just not worth it. My once frightening keen is now like a kettle whistling. The young’uns just fire bottles and shoes at me as they see all the horror movies they want now. I’m just a joke to them. I blame the parents. In their day all I had to do was leave a comb lying about and they’d have nightmares for months. The only way to frighten youngsters now is to steal their computer games or iPhones. I might be a maggot-ridden fictional miserable old woman, but I’m not a thief.”
The Oul Hoor plans to spend her retirement playing bowls and hanging out with Finn McCool, Cathleen Ni Houlihan and Cuchulainn.
“I Landed On Moon First”, claims Stewartstown Farmer
Was a Stewartstown farmer on this?
A Stewartstown pig-farmer has stunned the astronomical world by claiming that he was the first man to set foot on the moon and not the recently deceased Neil Armstrong. Mr Felix Philpot, originally from Coagh, went even further and cast doubts as to whether the Americans were on it at all. Philpot, who rents pigs to poor homeowners who can’t afford to own a normal pet like a cat, made the startling claim in Maguire’s butchers in the middle of the town.
“All this talk about Apollo this and Buzz Adrin that has sickened me to the balls. I made it to the moon in 1967 before the Yanks or Russians could consider it. Myself and the brother Tomas were messing around in the shed with the lawn mower when the thought hit me. Why not point the mower upwards, build an aluminium cage around it, get a few of those experimental jet-propelled rockets I’d bought the previous year from China and see how far she goes.”
Philpot claims he made ‘a dozen spud dinners and wrapped them in tinfoil, 5 or 6 packets of Rich Tea, a gallon of tea in flasks, a toilet roll and the paper’ before setting off on his journey alone as Tomas watched from below.
“It was a bit of a handlin at the start with the radiation belt almost blinding me 25’000 miles up but once she settled and the oil was massaging the engine, it was shoe to the burd til I landed on the moon that night. I kept er lit as they say”
Felix described the moon as a ‘lonely, desolate and scary’ place but recalls seeing some wildlife on it, casting doubt on Armstrong’s claims.
“There’s no way Neil could have missed the serious amount of Corncrakes flying about. The ground was sandy, not powdery as he said. I’d wonder where they there at all.”
Tomas, when contacted, cast doubts on Felix’s achievement.
“Will ye wise the head for feck sake. He went up about 100 feet and landed in the big sandpit at Tullyhogue. Our boy’s a total head-case. A nut-job. Just ask about”.
Philpot claims he left a reminder up there for future generations to recognise his achievement. “I was dying to go to the toilet and the lunar module was half a mile away, so I let rip in the middle of the Sea of Tranquility. The boyo is still probably sitting there.” The mystery remains.
Cookstown Man Doesn’t Like Sausages
Outrage and anger engulfed Cookstown last night after a 66-year-old man was heard to say he didn’t like sausages. The remarkable outburst occurred as an elderly woman sauntered past Sheehy’s Chippy on Sunday morning after visiting her uncle and overheard a discussion between a Brazilian tourist and local man Seamy Gas.
Mary Mulligan told us:
My hearing aid had been turned up as my 115-year old uncle can hardly speak, so I heard the whole lot. The foreign lad was asking if this was where George Best ate his sausages. Seamy shrugged his shoulders and I distinctly heard him say “sure how would I know, I hate the hoors”. He then gave him the middle finger.
As the man says….was Bestie wrong?
Mulligan told anyone she met for the remainder of the journey of what happened, even knocking on the doors of families she didn’t know. Within an hour, up to 1000 men, women and children formed a mob and stormed through the centre of the town holding lighted blackheads and carrying banners with slogans such as ‘sausages are deadly’ or ‘you’re fuckin dead meat, Seamy’.
Late last night Mr Gas was holed up in his flat outside the Greenvale with over 5000 protesters gathered on his lawn and back field. The police refused to intervene with one PSNI constable telling us, “you reap what you sow. He has made his own bed. If there’s a riot, there’s a riot”. Mr Gas’s lawyer has issued a statement claiming Mrs Mulligan heard it wrong and that Mr Gas will eat a whole plate of sausages in the town square to appease the locals.
Dungannon to Defy Geography and Build Beach
The slant will provide great sliding opportunities
Following yesterday’s unusually tropical conditions with temperatures touching 23 degrees Celsius for the best of three hours, Dungannon Town Council have announced this morning that they’re to start work on building a beach near the town square. In the first of its kind in Ireland, the groundbreaking proposal was tabled after Lord Mayor Hugh Jeers took a spin through the town on the way home from purchasing a dozen ice-pops for his wife and ten children, taking advantage of the Spar’s deals on all ice-lollies in August.
“I couldn’t believe my eyes. The sun came out from between two threatening-looking clouds and stayed in full view for a few hours. At first we thought it was some kind of massive bumble bee but someone checked their iPhone and confirmed that it was definitely the sun. Then, lo and behold, people started taking off their duffel coats and jumpers and then began buying mineral and Frosties. When I saw the young women running about the pavements scantily-clad the Eureka moment just hit me. You could see some of their thongs. It was inspiring”
Jeers managed to fast-track the beach proposal to the male-dominated council with the only objection coming from the DUD’s Cecil Winterbottom.
“It’s bad enough having swings and slides readily available for children on a Sunday, but now we’re going to see bare arses and hairy chests all week long. I’m moving to Cappagh. Hugh O’Neill will be spinning in his grave.”
The beach will start at the bottom of Scotch Street and rise the whole way up to where Wellworths used to be. Further discussions will deal with the inclusion of jellyfish, crabs and women’s volleyball. Darren Clarke will launch the beach but will be prevented from stripping off. It is expected to be completed in 2018, having tendered to the same construction company who build other successful structures in Ireland such as the Giant’s Causeway and the stalagmites in Fermanagh
Moy To Drop ‘The’
NTIMLA (No The In Moy Liberation Army) leader Calum Donakey issued a chilling warning as it emerged yesterday that Moy have lodged detailed plans to the UK Deed Poll Service regarding the use of ‘the’ in common everyday mention of Moy. This move comes after an elongated campaign by The Moy villagers to prefix every other townland or hamlet in Tyrone with ‘the’, sometimes resulting in bloodbath on the roads and loanans in the county. Just last week, UTV Live highlighted the mass brawl in The Moy after ‘The Eglish’ was scrawled on a gable wall on the Terryglassog Road. Eglish natives descended on the home-patch of their neighbours in their thousands, declaring war on anyone with red paint on their hands or those ‘with a bad eye in their head’ which included the majority of the hamlet. 32 people were taken to hospital with pike wounds.
Tensions were high
“Lose The The” spokesperson and ex-county player Phillipe Jardin told us:
“We’re sick to the back teeth of people taking the mickey with our names. At school all Moy people were bullied by munchies and townies alike, calling us things like ‘the Phillipe from the Moy’ an all, even the bastard teachers. At the start it was a bit of craic with only the Blackwatertown boys saying it but even RTE have adopted the ‘the’ and its busting all our balls, even the women. Look at the signpost fer feck sakes.”
NTIMLA Militant Calum Donakey added:
“No more. From here on in, until the UK Deeds shower enforce the verbal abolition of ‘the’, we see anyone using ‘the’ with ‘Moy’ as a legitimate target. We have the support of the people. An Maigh Abu”
before bursting into a rendition of ‘Blanket on the Ground‘, their signature tune.
The Rock are monitoring the situation with interest.
Coalisland Chase Crows To Derrytresk
The conundrum surrounding the crow epidemic in Derrytresk has been resolved with the revelation that Coalisland locals have been chasing crows at night towards the loughshore wetlands.
An unnamed source broke ranks from the Coalisland Crow Cull (CCC) and informed us that the town’s clergy were finding it hard to sleep late into the morning due to the squawking from the enormous crow population feeding on scraps from the chips lying outside the town’s fast-food outlets from the previous night.
Mr H told us:
“The PP approached a group of us just standing on the Lineside smoking pot and asked if we’d like to get to heaven without question, as well as an immediate clean soul in terms of past misdemeanours. We all jumped at the instant redemption. He said we just needed to shoo the crows towards Derrytresk so that they could get a good night’s sleep. It was too good to be true and deadly easy. Sure we’re up all night anyways stoned out of our heads.”
Derrytresk, an hour ago.
Mr H managed to round up 400 other Coalisland layabouts, linking arms across a quarter of a mile radius and slowly marched towards the direction of Derrytresk, chasing the crows. After 14 consecutive nights of slow progression towards the Washingbay Road, the CCC had completely eliminated all crows from the Coalisland area with the clergy now happily rising around midday each morning and young lads completely absolved from all previous misdemeanors.
The Derrytresk locals are up in arms over this leaked information but are unable to leave their houses due to the amount of crow shite on the ground.
Augher/Clogher Twitter Row Escalates
The PSNI last night confirmed that they were investigating complaints that an unseemly cyber-war between two neighbouring villages had spiraled out of control, endangering relations within public houses and family households in the extended area. Hundreds of complaints had been filed regarding the ugly tit-for-tat typing which was apparently initiated when the Augher Community Twitter account claimed the Mid-Tyrone Belle competitor from Clogher was a rank outsider in the competition and posed the question whether she should ‘tog out atall with thon head on her’, all in 140 characters.
Augher Escort in Limbo
The Clogher Antique Tractor Appreciation Society (CATAS) Twitter account soon responded in kind and claimed that the Augher Belle was ‘fond of the lads’ and ‘would know her way around the St Macartan’s senior and reserve side rightly, including the subs’. From there on in it developed into a name-darkening session with words like ‘thunder thighs’, ‘face for crimewatch’ and ‘dirty fecking hoor’ tipping the debate into the realm of the macabre.
“Social networkers need to realise they can hurt thousands with the click of a button,” said the Augher Lord Mayor Justin Asken, “that young Clogher girl doesn’t need such negative attention, especially after the incident with the Fivemiletown Hockey team in the Drum Manor Forest Park last week.”
The PSNI have warned both twitter account holders that they are monitoring the situation and that if the cyber-war continued, they’d “award the Plumbridge Belle the title without hesitation despite her reputation for ridin anything within a 30-mile radius.”
Carrickmore Boy Runs Faster Than Bolt
Yesterday it was reported that Carrickmore speedster Little Tony Dumphrey broke the 100m world record at the Tattyreagh Caravan Site Junior Sports Day. The amazing athletic feat was accomplished into a 20mph headwind couple against torrentially angled rain, ‘that oul wet rain’ Site Master Old Tony Dumphrey claimed.
Artist’s impression from America
Those in attendance were gobsmacked at the 8 year-old’s feat and appeared privileged to be there at the time. It was estimated that 25 were in attendance but exactly half of that number were women looking after the one barbecue or nattering about Prince Harry’s balls.
“I completely missed the momentous moment,” said Little Tony’s mother Bridle, “but it doesn’t surprise me. He used to run like a mad’un when the TV man turned the corner, giving us plenty of time to play dead. I just wish I hadn’t been gabbling about Harry’s arse.”
The exact details regarding time and distance seems to have thrown a veil of uncertainty over the feat. Old Tony reacted angrily when asked about the specifics of the achievement and whether the Jamaican should be informed.
“No, the distance wasn’t measured nor was there a watch or clock handy. But ask anyone who was there. He ran faster than anything we’d ever seen and a lot of these boys chase badgers and stuff. It was from about here to over there somewhere. What do you want from me? Just put down 8 seconds and 100m. OK?”
Greencastle Woman Drives To Dublin In First Gear
It emerged yesterday that a former beauty queen from mid-Ulster had left home in shame after a weekend blunder of titanic proportions. It may have been a 1996 Datsun Sunny but it was tested to its limits on Sunday by the former Miss Greencastle, Susie McGurk. Having driven an automatic Peugeot since getting the test in 1990 which failed to start the morning of the hurling semi-final in Dublin, McGurk borrowed her father’s Datsun in order to make the game on time.
‘I just thought she was a noisy yoke but the payple waving at me did make me think something was up. So I just turned Sunday Sequence up further on the wireless and waved back. I also thought it strange that while I had her shoe to the burd, mopeds were passing me.’
The Datsun, Sunday 8am
It was only on getting out of the vehicle at Newry to be greeted with a steamy cascade causing excessive engine wear, excessive oil loss leading to engine failure, excessive fuel consumption, overheating and subsequent engine damage that she realised it wasn’t an automatic. Mr McGurk refused an interview but was overheard shouting ‘stupid fuckin bitch’ and’ won’t darken my door again’ at confessions that night.
Moortown Baby Boom Remains A Mystery
Experts are still at a loss to explain why there has been a 400% rise in births in the greater Moortown area in 2012. With local maternity wards unable to cope with the endless procession of nine-month gone women lining up outside their doors on a daily basis, many women have taken to home births or just ‘seeing what happens’ on shopping expeditions.
The Primary School used as makeshift maternity ward
Birthing expert Dr Manhan Dling has been monitoring the situation over the Summer and is at a loss to explain the sudden explosion in the Moortown population.
“I’ve analysed what the women are eating, what the men are watching and unemployment levels but there’s just no correlation between anything. I do have a sneaking suspicion regarding the fall in Lough Neagh pollan and eel levels, with families replacing these pets with children, but I’ve no figures to support it.”
One local expectant who didn’t wish to be named informed us that ‘there’s not much else to do in Murtin’ and that ‘we’re sick of the X-Factor and Jonathan Ross and ghost-oh the pint is too dear in the Battery’. As a result, the local church has started work on an extension as well as an application to build a new school in the area, named after one of the Lawns though they haven’t decided which one.
Aghaloo Man Mows Field Anyway
Artist’s depiction of Cant on a good day
Despite the the recent Amazonian rainforest conditions and against advice from the Downtown Radio Farmers’ Hour Phone-In Advice Section, Aghaloo farmer Emmanuel Cant yesterday bulled ahead anyway and attempted to mow down the grass from his 5-acre land. The pleas and screams from his wife and daughters were soon drowned out when he started the back-firing 1955 Massey at the access to the field. Ironically, Cant’s father, Aristotle, had taken a similar head stagger a decade earlier during the torrential rainfall of 2002 but aborted the mission after destroying a nest of seals.
Emmanuel ran into difficulty early on as the Massey jammed in the swampy conditions and was heard to shout “get the fuckin scythe”. He proceeded to manically hack away at the soaking hay until exhaustion set in around tea-time and he was physically removed by his brother Francis who owns the field adjacent but had built flats on it.
He was heard to say ‘I’ll not let the fucker get the better of me’, with locals speculating whether he meant the field or the brother.
Strabane Woman Refuses to Believe Proverbs
Alienated Strabane lady, Mifter Maguire, has enraged the local headmasters and clergy by publicly denouncing many proverbs that have reportedly held the town together as a close-knit community for centuries. Standing on a Guinness crate outside Mass last Sunday, Maguire rhymed off a litany of useless proverbs, often using extreme measure to prove their pointlessness.
Better than a biro
Starting off with ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’, she lifted a young lad from under her skirt (later identified as a nephew) and jabbed him several times in the thigh with a pen. After mild pleas from the boy to be released, she produced a machete-like instrument and hacked uncontrollably at the unfortunate guinea pig’s buttocks, the boy saved only by grabbing the aforementioned biro and stabbing Mifter in the ear.
As the crowds increasingly gathered closer, she dismissed many other idiomatic expressions including ‘you are what you eat’ by devouring a packet of Beef Faggots from Birmingham and asking the crowd to ‘explain that then’. Maguire was taken away by the local Health Care assistants midway through destroying the figure of speech that ‘it could be worse’ but long before a sizable few of the Strabane congregation left completely dejected at their life so far.
Galbally Girl Finds Face of Plunkett Donaghy in Potato
Leaked image of Plunkett Spud
The gruesome townland of Galbally was rocked yesterday when local girl, Maisie McGarrell, fell to her knees outside the Vivo after she spotted the face of 1980s Blonde Adonis Plunkett Donaghy on a potato.
Having innocently felt the weight of several bags of Kerr’s Pinks in preparation for feeding her extended family of 32, McGarrell let out an unmerciful scream, yelling “sweet mother of Jaysus, isn’t it Plunkett” and fell to the ground in convulsions.
“I thought she’d been robbed again”, said the shopkeeper from Pakistan, “She’s an awful hoor for leavin her purse on the counter besides the Kerr’s”.
The Parish Priest, Fr Dinsmore, arrived at the scene soon after and demanded that Mr Ahmed clear out all his stock and replace it with moving statues of Plunkett Donaghy, candles and rosary beads. It was soon pointed out to Fr Dinsmore that Donaghy was, in fact, still alive and wreaking havoc around the Moy every weekend. They decided to go ahead with the shrine as Galbally was ‘a brave lock a miles from the Moy anyway’.
Ardboe Man Heads To Board Plane
He’ll try again tomorrow
With the county side sitting at home eating crisps and drinking mineral, an elderly Ardboe man has taken the unusual step of heading down the road to board a plane in an attempt to spice up his mundane existence. Despite once having a ‘steady enough income’ at his souvenir magnet shop from pilgrims staring at a broken religious cross, Johnny Joe McPike has had enough of waiting for next year’s championship whilst looking towards the Lough hoping to hear the long lost echoes of a corncrake, and made his way to Aldergrove by foot on Sunday morning before dawn.
“Sure what harm can it do boy. Ghost oh, sure it’s only a plane lak. I’m off to Brazillia.”
McPike returned home six hours later as he had no documentation, money, clothes and couldn’t recall his reason for being there.
Tyrone Tribulations 