By our Monaghan Correspondent, Phil McCracken

Records were broken this week after a fire department employee was given his P45 in just 48 hours on the job due to dialectal differences which saw firemen pour fuel on the flames of a lorry as well as almost setting a depot on fire.

Monaghan firemen 

Trevor Farrell successfully applied to the Monaghan Fire Brigade last June, becoming the first Tyrone man to work in this depot since the great fire of 1988 near Clones which was started by a fireman from Trillick.

Trevor explained why he applied in the first place:

“Here I had no notion of doing that aul DCPC shit (The Driver Certificate of Professional Competence for all professional bus, coach and lorry drivers), what a waste of time, boy. I saw that the fire department was taking people on so be Jaysus I applied for the post and didn’t I get the job”.

On Trevor’s second night of his new job his week, he was on phone duty when a call came in about a truck on fire out by Balls Cross.

“Oh be God I was all excited, lad. I was waiting on that call since I started the new job. I tell ya, if I hadn’t got that call I was going to start a fire myself. No point in having men sitting around doing feck all like. Anyway I called out to they rest of the lads to get the plant lit up and blow her for Balls Cross. Well Jaysus after the boys left I went outside to find every fecking shrub in the station garden on fire.  I wonder to meself ‘what kind of thick glipes am I working with’.

Long serving fire officer David Boyle was on duty that night. He recalls:

“I was in the office when the call came in. Trevor told us to light the plants up and get to Balls Cross. Sure be Jaysus we thought that it was strange but we poured fuel over the plants and lit them and we were soon off to Balls Cross. Anyway we were half way out the road and that nutcase Trevor kept shouting down the two-way radio to “keep her lit boys, that road is clean and green”. Well never before did we here the likes of that. Sure for feck sake we had to stop by Foyles Filling Station to get drums of clean diesel and green diesel”.

Trevor had a different take on events:

“Ah be the Lord Jaysus the boys told me the were running five minutes behind because they had to stop to diesel up. What sort of bullocks doesn’t refuel the plant up when he comes back to the yard? I told them boys to get there quick and keep her lit until I got there”.

Fire Officer Jonathan O’Neill gave his views on the calamity:

“We wondered what kind of crazy dick that Trevor fella was. We radioed back to him that it was a Sawyers lorry on fire. All we could here from him was ‘oh Lord Jaysus lads, I’m on my way flat to the mat boys, I’ll keep her lit’. We never had to keep a fire lit before, and that man Trevor was on his way and he wanted to keep it lit so we started to pour the clean and green diesel over the lorry”.

Trevor remarked on his arrival at Balls Cross:

“Well feck me, how them thick runts got a job with the fire brigade is beyond me lad. Every fecking time the flames started to die down them crazy bastards put more fuel on that lorry, and they said it was my fault that lorry and fridge was burned to the ground”.

A disappointed Sawyers spokesperson added:

“Gutted boy, fucking gutted. I bet that Trevor fella worked with McBurnley Transport, fucking gutted.”

Sawyers Transport Lurgan has ordered a full investigation.

Garda in Monaghan also threw in their penny’s worth when adding:

“There won’t be an investigation because we don’t know if we should investigate the man that told them to keep her lit or the shower of savages that kept it lit”.

MJM Training confirmed that Sean is booked in next week to sit his DCPC.

Monaghan fire department revealed they have four officers off sick with burns after Trevor told them to ‘keep the toe on her boys’.