Ardboe man, 1000 years ago

Rumours persisted this morning that an Ardboe man who bought a DNA-testing kit over the Internet from India is to release startling results after secretly collating DNA samples from most families in the area. Barman Josh Coney, who boasts of an unhealthy interest in dismembering rodents and small mammals for the craic, stealthily collected pint glasses from punters in the front bar of the clubroom and tested the samples in his makeshift lab down at the bottom room of his house. His scientific henchman, Kyle Devlin, leaked the news to an undercover reporter posing as a priest at confessions last weekend. The transcript makes for startling listening:

“Ghost-oh, we couldn’t believe the results when they filtered back from Bombay, Father. It torns out that all Devlins and Coyles are inextricably linked to the pollan fish. Pollan is a silvery trout-shaped fish, with a dark greeny-blue back and you can sort of see that sort of hue off both sets of families in the winter. They’d have big trouty pouts too. Then there’s the McGuigans. The man in India says they’re closely related to pike. Northern pike are most often olive green, shading from yellow to white along the belly. I used to curt one of the McGuigan girls and she definitely had a green tint off her torso and big pointy gnashers would be showing when angered. Finally, all the Quinns appear to have the same make-up of the eel. I’ve had a few Quinns working here and when I think of it they were long slippery boys too.”

Scientists believe that, centuries ago, local fish may have settled on the land. Evolution saw to it that they began to resemble mankind after dubious and unthinkable mating rituals, not uncommon in that part of the world, were carried out. They claim that it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that Ireland could have a multitude of Olympic swimming golds waiting to be mined if they can get a few from Ardboe to head up to the swimming pool in Magherafelt for a slapping about session.