Category Archives: Lissan
Lockdown Sees Worrying Rise In Cousin Fancying Again Along Tyrone/Derry Border, Says Study
Scientists at the University of Ulster have confirmed that a lesser-talked about side effect from the last couple of years has been the rise in local men and women starting to fancy their cousins again, especially those on the Derry side of Ballinderry and Lissan.
Due to part-isolation and not straying too far from their localities, the century old problem of cousins tackling each other in hedges and bell towers has risen its head to levels not seen since the 1950s in the Mid-Ulster area.
Schools have already been asked to educate pupils on the dangers of cousin-fancying and point to some unusual looking families on the Tyrone/Derry border as evidence, although most of that was put down to just marrying Derry ones.
Ulster GAA have already confirmed that should Tyrone defeat in the preliminary round of the Ulster Championship and go on to meet Derry, there will be piles of segregation going on between the two sets of supporters to prevent further fancying, with a dozen priests signed up to roam the stand in order to cut out the scourge of related courting.
Stewartstown Man Demanding Half Of Winnings From Scratch Card He Gifted To Cousin On Birthday
A Stewartstown boiler servicer is currently involved in a stand-off with his cousin after the latter won £25 on a scratch card the former bought him for his 50th birthday.
Aphonsis Logan (51) is refusing to talk to his relative, Proinsias, until he hands back at least £12.50 from the winnings, and has even gone as far as saying he’ll settle for a tenner, reluctantly.
“What kind of a bollocks scratches a winning card that was gifted to him, and then boasts about it to the man who bought it for him. I’m currently in discussion with our other cousin Fergal to see if there is a legal entitlement here. And he can forget about crossing my land to get to the well.”
Proinsias has been instructed by his wife not to budge on the matter, insisting that the £25 has been spent already anyway, in the local butchers.
In other news, a speed bump has been erected up the aisle in a church near Lissan after the local priest complained of being put under pressure to dish out communion.
Sinister Trick Or Treat Children Demanding Double Amount of Sweets From Pensioners After Last Year’s Covid Washout
Graffiti daubed on various walls across the county have chillingly warned many pensioners in the county that their gates and gnomes will be stolen if they don’t make up for last year’s no-show due to the ongoing Covid restrictions at the time.
A wall in Moortown was demolished by authorities after a message, claiming punishment beatings would be carried out if the elderly didn’t dish out at least 10 Double Lollies per child, could not be erased due to it having been written in a permanent marker stolen from the local school.
One 85-year old man from Lissan, who wished to remain anonymous, explained:
“I urge all fellow pensioners to stock up for this one day. Three years ago I gave a lad two Chewits and he told me to go f**k myself and pished over my apple tree. And that was in normal times.”
When asked for a statement, a spokesperson for Tyrone Children has refused to calm fears, instead adding fuel to the flames by stating ‘we let you off last year. This year, fill our plastic bags or say goodbye to your water features. And we’re not dressing up either.’
Meanwhile, weather is to remain mild tomorrow.
Hungover Man Blames Jitters For Buying £50,000 Worth Of Ornaments At Cookstown Auction
A Cookstown boiler servicer has been refused a refund after purchasing over 200 items at a charity auction in Cookstown last weekend.
Patsy Sheehey, who had been at a 40th birthday party until 6am that morning, admitted that although he may have still been intoxicated the morning of the auction, it was the tremors that resulted in him bidding for over 200 items consecutively.
Sheehey returned home with a car full of useless household goods including a freshwater pearl, five broken grandfather clocks, an octopus mermaid ornament, a lobster in tangled lights ornament, a squirrel in underpants ornament, a toilet plunger ornament, a pirate girl pink flamingo ornament and a replica of Steven Hawking’s chair.
“It’s a disaster. I only went to see what an auction was like. I didn’t expect to spend £50’000 and come home with three cracked Belleek Crystal Bells amongst other stuff. It was just the jitters after the drinking session that had me bidding and I didn’t even know it.”
The charity has requested that Sheehey pays up in full by the end of the month, with the money going towards a much needed shelter for lonely and depressed donkeys in the greater East Tyrone area.
Meanwhile, a snowman was built on Tuesday morning at 5am outside Lissan.
Devious Plans To Expand Derry Into Tyrone Uncovered By Irish News Readers
As hundreds of Derrylaughan residents woke to the fact that they’re now Derry people, Irish News readers have contacted authorities in their droves to provide evidence that the media are in cohoots with Derry.
A blueprint for the Derry invasion of Tyrone was uncovered in a graveyard in Lissan, with Cookstown next to be annexed before Easter. However, The Irish News have been accused of simply relocating Tyrone townlands into Derry through their articles, unashamedly.
Derrylaughan stalwart Packie Kennedy admitted it was hard waking up a Derry man this morning:
“It was a bit of a shock to read in the paper yesterday that we are now in Derry. Though, to be honest, I found myself half fancying my cousins at Mass this morning so it must be true. Up the Oak Leaf.”
Cookstown have already brought in reinforcements with several Kildress and Greencastle men manning the main road up to Magherafelt. Rumours tonight suggest that Ardboe and Moortown have already fallen and it’s only a matter of time until Coalisland is under attack. Coalisland officials have postponed the rolling out of their one-way system until this is sorted.
Meanwhile, a Aghyaran woman walked three miles yesterday to the shops and her plastic bag split coming home, losing a pint of milk and three Freddos.
20 Stewartstown Students Get A*s In New ‘Acting The Lig’ GCSE
Acting the lig in Stewartstown in 1969
Calls for stiffer GCSEs have more than trebled today after the first cohort of students studying ‘Acting The Lig’ all passed with A* grades.
The new Acting The Lig course, which saw two practical exams where pupils had to stand in the corner of the The Square in Stewartstown lighting illegal French crackers and giving passers-by the fingers whilst sipping from small bottles of Buckfast, will offer students the chance now to head off to other towns now to gaunch about in style.
Despite their success, the general public have asked questions as to the appropriate difficulty of such courses. Padraig Logan, who passed an O Level in 1977 in ‘Cement Mixing’ maintains today’s generation aren’t really tested:
“Acting the lig in the 1970s was much more difficult back then. We were goading men with rifles and tacklin women from Lissan. These days a lig just gives the middle finger to oul women driving cars. Where’s the danger in that?”
Examination board CCEA have defended the course, adding that the question papers were set by some of the biggest ligs in the country, including several MLAs. One such question asked pupils ‘What is the best way to greet someone from Cookstown who may have mistakenly strayed from their ghetto?’ The two points were award if a candidate referred to ‘threatening to kick their bollocks in’.
East Tyrone Peaky Blinders Reign Of Terror Continues
A gang of about 12 Ardboe women, who peak through their venetian blinds at other members of their community going about their daily business and posting it online, have upped their reign of terror by setting up a blog whistle-blowing on people who are getting Jobseekers’ Allowance whilst working locally.
The notorious group also vowed to expose alledged under the counter deals, people driving whilst texting and general gulpin behaviour on their multiple social media sites by purchasing more venetian blinds for other minor rooms in their houses to look through.
Polly Coyle, the notorious Head of Operations for the Peakys, added:
“This is a new period of expansion for us. Ghost-oh, but the price of the venetian blinds is killing us though. And plasters too. A few of our women have sliced their fingers on these new razor-blade blinds. Our order of the Peaky Blinders will have to change to softer-edged ones.”
To date, the Peakys have waged war on communist Moortownians, Ballinderry unionists and pledged to sort out the Brocagh mafia before the year is out.
Meanwhile, a suspect crystal meth lab in Lissan which was raided on Monday has been deemed a false alarm. A local school teacher and his ex pupil were released after it emerged the lab was simply an elaborate poitin-making operation which is still legal in the village.
NEWSFLASH! GREAT NIGHT FOR DRYING!
Aghyaran, earlier
The Castlederg Met Office have issued a BROWN warning tonight which indicates housewives and modern househusbands should get the clothes on the line overnight as it’ll be a deadly night for drying with Hurricane Abigail approaching.
Farmers are also urged to cut any overlooked hay as it’ll be bone dry in the morning and ready for lifting.
Strabane woman Nuala McIlhinney revealed she’ll have everything on the line tonight:
“I’d be a woman who doesn’t buy new undergarments that much so the stuff I wear wouldn’t be in great shape. I wouldn’t be seen dead hanging them out normally. But in pure darkness I can dry the whole lot in the West Tyrone air without a care in the world.”
Strabane Council have reminded people that the 10-pieces-of-underwear rule which exists in the town is now suspended following the BROWN warning.
Old people have been urged to stay indoors after five pensioners were reportedly spotted sailing through the air over Plumbridge around 6pm after coming out of bingo. One has landed already near Lissan.
Young people have also been warned not to make faces into the wind as they might stay like that.
Paisley’s Library Reveals Admiration For Eoin Mulligan
Paisley and his tattered Mugsy book
The late Ian Paisley’s vast personal library, which opened for any member of the public to come and browse through a collection of 55,000 volumes, produced a couple of surprises after it emerged that Eoin Mulligan’s autobiography ‘Mugsy – My Story‘ was given pride of place at the front door, encased in bullet-proof glass.
Paisley, who rarely attended GAA games, is said to have closely identified with the Cooktown sharp-shooter and attended his book signing incognito, dressed as a farmer from Lissan.
Our journalist, Kenny Archibald, was allowed a sneak flick through Paisley’s copy and noticed a couple of annotations on the book:
“There were a few pages when Mulligan is describing an amusing incident in his life and you can see where Paisley has written ‘LOL’ or ‘some crack’. The chapter where Mugsy describes getting suspended from school for mooning out the window is heavily annotated with one comment, written in red pen, saying ‘he’s some boyo’. It’s obvious there was some connection between the pair.”
Archibald went on to describe a more startling revelation:
“More importantly, the book was signed at the front by Mulligan with a personal touch. It read ‘To the big Rev – Keep er lit – Lámh Dhearg Abú! ‘, suggesting Mugsy knew rightly on the night of the book signing that the farmer from Lissan was actually the former leader of the DUP. It’s quite a remarkable friendship.”
Coalisland journalist Ronan McSherry’s book Ronan’s Rants was also amongst Paisley’s collection. The only annotation was a moustache which Paisley had drawn on McSherry’s face.
Tyrone ‘Ghost-Oh-Buster’ Business Gets Off To Shaky Start
Hamill
BY SHENGAS MCGLUMPHIE
A Creggan man who set up a business offering to rid houses of troublesome ghosts had mixed success with his first assignment earlier today at a house in Lissan.
Plunkett Hamill was called to the property this morning to deal with a noisy poltergeist after 56-year old housewife Finnuala Loughran responded to an advert Hamill had placed in the Tyrone Times which read,
‘Call Ghost-Oh-Buster to rid your home of scary other-worldly forces, like demons, devils and dwarves. Experienced with witches, ghouls, goblins, munchkins and much more. Two-for-one deal on exorcisms during July’.
Hamill said he arrived at the house to find the poltergeist in full flow.
“Aye, there was this really loud ghostly rattling in the pipes and radiators, really angry like, making lots of clanking and knocking noises. It happened every time the central heating came on. Terrifying, but I ain’t afraid of no ghost”.
However, Loughran’s exasperated husband, John Joe, raged:
“I’ve told her a hundred times but she won’t listen. The only thing those damned radiators need is a bleed key but I can’t find it. Poltergeist my arse. To be honest I haven’t the energy for this. I had a huge vindaloo out the Rupali in Cookstown last night and can barely move. In the meantime I have that bollix wreckin’ about the house”. He continued, “He’s an eejit. He waltzed in pretending to be one the boys out of that Ghostbusters movie, wearing a rucksack with a fire extinguisher in it and a pair of swimming goggles on his head. Clift”.
Hamill had a different view.
“Blocked pipes? Never”, he insisted. “It wasn’t just the noise, it was the smell too. I was tip-toeing along the hallway hunting out the poltergeist, and I started to notice this really foul stench, really powerful, like something evil from the very depths of hell itself had manifested itself in the house. It was just outside the toilet. Jaysus, my eyes were doing some deadly watering. I kept going, but I think it must have sensed me and left the house, because the smell went away once I opened a window. Explain that”.
Hamill also spent several hours this afternoon examining a strange substance which he initially believed to be ‘solidified ectoplasm’, which turned out to be a half-eaten naan broad.
‘Health And Safety Gone Mad’ As Tyrone Thieves Forced To Wear Hi-Viz Jackets
Tattyreagh burglar
BY SHENGAS MCGLUMPHIE
The thieving community across the county last night said it was in crisis as the ever-increasing demands of health and safety tookits toll on the criminal fraternity.
Gang leaders claim that they are getting so many compensation claims in from gang members who have injured themselves that they have no alternative but to insist on taking adequate health and safety measures.
“It’s tara boys”, said Kieran, a crook from Fintona. “In the olden days you could steal a whole lock of cattle in a couple of hours and still be in time for last orders. Now I’m not allowed to do it unless I’ve done a two-week course in feckin’ animal husbandry. What’s that all about? It’s almost enough to force you into an honest living”.
But master-thieves were quick to point out they were merely reacting to changes in society. Bill Fagin, the head villain of a gang of thieves from ‘somewhere near the Dooish mountain’, said,
“It’s not our fault. It’s the claims culture. I’m getting demands for compensation left, right and centre. I’ve one boy who’s claiming five grand for having made him ‘allergic to the dark’, and another claiming the same amount after the eejit swallowed nearly a litre of red diesel when he was siphoning it out of a digger near Glenelly, and had to have his stomach pumped. That’s why we now give them manual handling training on how to lift a stolen plasma TV. They might hurt their backs and make a claim. Some handlin’. Literally”.
He went on,
“We can’t have them boys stumbling about in the dark on a remote farm in Killyman or somewhere when they’re trying to steal a lorry. They might bump into something and injure themselves. That’s why they need to wear the hi-viz jackets. And put up floodlighting. Or even better, come back and do it in the daylight. Safety first boys, safety first”.
But most thieves have condemned the actions as being over the top, and for compromising their chances of a clean getaway.
“We had one boy breaking in through the first floor window of a factory in Lissan last week”, confided Hugh, a swindler from Tattyreagh. “But he took so long filling out his ‘Working at Height’ form and putting up scaffolding that he got caught. Jaysus, in the good old days we just climbed up the drainpipe”.
Fully-qualified thief Declan from Plumbridge, was resigned to the changes.
“Aye, I suppose now I’m all trained up I won’t injure myself. I was breaking and entering into a big house in Donaghmore last month and although the risk assessments took over an hour to complete, at least I knew I’d be safe”,
he said, before being led back to his prison cell to complete a two-year sentence.
Dr Brian Cox Can’t Explain Concept Of Time In Stewartstown
A Stewartstown taxi-driver
After five days of intensive observation, housewife eye-candy Dr Brian Cox has headed back to England ‘despondent and bewildered’ after failing to explain how time has developed completely different dimensions in Stewartstown compared to everywhere else in the world.
Speaking from his laboratory in London, Cox revealed a few of the unsolvable conundrums which have left him a broken man:
“They kept this from us at the College of Physics I went to. For example, on the first night I went for a pint in the Roadside Tavern and the bartender said he’s be with me ‘in a minute’. I timed him and he returned to me in 4 mins 33 seconds. In that period he had checked the horse racing and spoke to another punter about Logan and the Under 21s. I just couldn’t work out if I’d just witnessed time travel or not. I couldn’t sleep that night.”
As Cox collected more evidence of a parallel universe in Stewartstown he explained another phenomenon which confirmed that time had different properties in mid-Ulster.
“I wanted to go to Cookstown to buy jeans in the world-famous market and asked a local if I needed to get a bus to there. He said it was ‘only down the road’ and that it was only ‘a locka minutes’. TWO HOURS it took walking and I was near wrote off on the Poplar Hill Road by a boy from Lissan in an Escort. That confirmed to me that ‘time’ as we know it has bypassed Stewartstown.”
Cox is also investigating the possibility that time is also standing still since the 80s after discovering the following telltale signs:
- 80% of 40 year olds are still wearing A-Team sweatshirts
- Every night closing time in pubs is signalled by the playing of ‘The Final Countdown’ by Europe
- Many parents collected their children from school on space-hoppers
- ‘I Shot JR’ is spray-painted on most gable walls.
- ‘Big Hair and Mullet’ combo sales in local barbers.
GAA Playing Animals Come Forward In Droves. Epidemic Level Of Fowl Play.
Derrytresk Goat, this morning
The news that a dog has been togging out for the successful Ardboe minor team has encouraged a flood of other animals to come forward and admit they have been playing football and hurling for years across the county. Beragh, Derrytresk, Urney and Stewartstown are only some of the clubs named today as having used animals in league games down the years and one in a crucial championship match.
A Bilberry goat, who wishes to remain anonymous, revealed he played three league games for Derrytresk in 2011 as the management rested players for important championship games:
“Yes that is true. Against Owen Roes I played corner forward, corner back against Dregish and in the final game I togged out in midfield against Newtownstewart, scoring 0-2. To be honest I felt a bit used. I was under strict instructions not to talk to the opposition or to the press afterwards. They also warned me not to do goaty things like eating the grass or excreting all over the place willy-nilly. I felt like a silly billy.”
At the same time a wolf from Beragh revealed he played an entire season in goals five years ago.
“Yes, I’m glad the Derrytresk goat opened the floodgates. I was goalkeeper for the Beragh Red Knights for 16 league games in 2008 and was also silenced by our tyrannical management team. That was bad enough but the slagging I got in the showers was unbearable. They goaded me so much calling me hairy bollocks and all that I snapped after a game in Brocagh and bit the nose clean off our captain. They left me alone after that but I was never one of the lads.”
Two unrelated donkeys, Sam from Urney and Donal from Stewartstown held a press conference at the donkey sanctuary in Tattyreagh. Donal told the waiting journalists:
“This is only the start. You’ll find a lot more animals coming forward in the coming days. We contacted the GPA but they weren’t interested. We’ve now created the GAA (Gaelic Animal Association) and will look for fair play. I played a championship hurling game for Stewartstown against Dungannon a couple of years ago and afterwards I was used as transport for the chairman and his wife who live in Lissan. It’s just not right.”
The county board is investigating the accusations as well as the rumour that an entire battery of hens lined out for Moortown in a 2007 end-of-season fixture against Aghaloo, losing by a point. The match had attracted mysterious bets from Thailand.
Civil War Unavoidable As Tyrone Lay Claim To Ballinderry Outright
Tyrone champions 2014?
Tensions are running high tonight in Ballinderry after a leaked document from the ‘maps department’ at Stormont indicates that Ballinderry will now be considered wholly in Tyrone, starting from August 1st, after a re-alignment of the Ballinderry River.
The Ballinderry parish has long straddled the Tyrone border with the sizeable Ballylifford village until now claimed as being on the Derry side with Derrychrin, a much more civilised community, on the Tyrone side. The Ballinderry River was seen as the natural geographical border but that is about to change with the proposed new route for the river. A Tyrone county council spokesman told us:
“If the rumours are true, then this is class news. Everyone knows that the best looking women at the Greenvale come from the Derry side of the river. Our parents didn’t allow us to fraternize with them for obvious reasons. More importantly, Ballinderry’s All-Ireland title in 2002 is now on our records. We will be parading that team around Omagh tomorrow week. I also believe they won 12 Derry titles. Those sides will now play our champions for that same year. The 1927 fixture will be hard to fix up against Donaghmore Eire ogs.”
Not all welcomed the news with such good humour. An elderly local, named simply as “McGuckin”, reacted angrily:
“Balls to this. We won’t go down without a fight. We used to bate the shite out of them Moortown and Ardboe ones on the field. We’ll do the same on our doorsteps when they come for us. We’ll lay waste to the land as a last resort. There’s no way I’m shouting for the red arses next year. Yiz can take Derrychrin but we’ll be Oak Leafers til the deathbed.”
The PSNI have issued a warning to anyone resisting the swtichover that they will be dealt with severely. On August 2nd, houses north of the river will be searched and any pictures of Dana, Seamus Heaney, Henry Downey, Enda Muldoon or Conleith Gilligan will be destroyed. Small statues of Frank McGuigan and Chris Lawn have been sent to all households in the present Derry region of the parish to help them acclimatise to the new changes. The whole of Lissan might be given to Derry as a thank you.
Evidence Of Tyrone Women ‘Doing Themselves Up’ For Obama Undeniable
Typical Augher woman today
The county’s tanning salons and hairdressers have reported a 300% rise in bookings in the last month, finally confirming that Tyrone women are going that extra mile to look a bit better in case the American president sees them on a random spin around the roads. Excitement amongst Red Hand women has reached fever pitch with many husbands and boyfriends complaining about their partners being ‘a right bit distracted’ over the last few weeks with the arrival of President Obama imminent for the G8 summit in Fermanagh. Mary’s Salon in The Rock explained the extent of the grooming:
“It’s been deadly. I’d say about three-quarters of the Rock’s women have their hair set already. Even women who should know better, grannies and the like, have been getting blue rinses since Easter almost on a weekly basis. Women from as far as Moortown were coming here to get their eyebrows mowed or for Turkish shaves. I’m completely out of Pond’s anti-wrinkle cream. The Fitzgerald family from Derrytresk bought the whole box. You’d think Robert Redford had landed in the county. Deadly stuff altogether.”
Mary’s have reported a rise in toenail cutting appointments from Eglish and hairy chin removals in Lissan with a noticeable rise in Tattyreagh women looking ‘them there push-up bras’. Omagh women have been the highest users of the leg-shaving services, preferring the cut-throat blade after years of neglect. Not all reports have been of a positive nature with stories of sabotage leaking through to us on a regular basis. Fr Kelly from Donaghmore says it could cut up rough yet:
“I see the way the wemen are looking at each other during mass, especially at those wearing new frocks. I saw it coming but last week a woman tripped her cousin going up for communion, ruining her sexy trendy banded casual above the knee mini dress, not that I would know about those things. I caught two of the sacristans pulling the hair out of each other during Stations of the Cross. I’ve a bad feeling about how this will end up.”
Neglected Tyrone Husbands have started up a website to cater for men who feel a bit hacked off about the whole thing. They can share stories and have a good old communal cry.
Greencastle, Kildress, Gortin & Donemana Call For Relocation Of Sperrins
Should I stay or should I go?
By Gombeen
Following on from yesterday’s news that Greencastle had tabled a motion at the Tyrone Congress that the Sperrins be moved from their present location, it has emerged that they have received vociferous backing from Kildress, Gortin and Donemana. In an added twist to the sensational developments, Glenelly, Strabane and Plumbridge have promised to fight tooth and nail to keep the mountain range exactly where it is for varying reasons. Donemana’s Richard O’Neill explains the stance of the four pro-removal townlands:
“Yousins in the rest of the county don’t know what it’s like to wake up til this giant thing towering over you everyday like big mad parent. Every buckin day. And what it is? A big hape of moss and bogland – useless to man and beast. They talk about the beauty of Mullaghcarn Mountain. It’d be damn well beautiful to me if it was sitting in Benburb or Trillick. And it’s freezing here. The sun can’t get at us. Sure you only have to look at the complexion of us indigenous peoples stretching the whole way across to Lissan. You’d think we’d been in solitary confinement all our lives with the gaunt skin and bags under the eyes. There’s so much we can’t see here – Portrush, the Aurora Borealis and the North Pole. It’s just not fair and another thing – there’s no drying at all here if the wind is coming from the north. That gigantic useless lump of turf blocks the whole thing. We’re calling on the Tyrone Sperrin Society to consider moving the range to the south west of the county of maybe abroad to Portygal or Egypt.”
Glenelly’s tourism spokesman, Eddie Parton, refutes the claims of the foursome:
“Listen, if them mountain glipes from Kildress hadn’t cut down all the trees 6000 years ago then it’d be a thing of beauty. They’ve greedily bogged the land out with their incessant burning of things. They’re always burning things down there. The Sperrins are crucial to tourism around these parts. Hikers usually try to go up them only to find it’s too wet and soggy and just freewheel down to here or to The Plum to buy coats and flasks and things. The Sperrins are here to stay I say. What about that lovely song concerning Slieve Gallion Brae:
My name is Joe McGarvey as you might understand
I come from Derryginnet and I own a farm of landAre there better lyrics on the planet than that opener?”
The four protagonists have been slow to distance themselves from a telephoned threat from a group calling themselves the Strabane Slashers to the tourism board warning that if the vote doesn’t go in favour of the removalists, they’ll blow the mountain range up anyway. Richard O’Neill added:
“We do not condone the use of explosives to rid ourselves of this monstrosity but let’s not get carried away. There’s worse things in the world than a couple of lads from Strabane blowing up the Sperrins.”
The Tyrone tourism board are to make a decision next week. They will also try to ask the Sperrins themselves by listening to the ground with a cocked ear.
Loughmacrory Coalman Gets Nod To Supply Coal For Vatican Smoke Signal
Cardinal Hjata throws on Loughmacrory coal.
There was much rejoicing in Loughmacrory this morning after it emerged that local coalman and animal balloon contortionist, Malachy O’Brien, has been chosen to supply the coal for the papal conclave’s fireplace today. Whilst the world watches on in anticipation for the signal, it will be Loughmacrory smoke emerging from the Sistine Chapel’s chimney which will hopefully spark a mass tourism boost for the beleaguered village.
“I’m delighted,” O’Brien told the assembled media. “I had a bad reputation a few years ago for selling that oul shite coal that burns out in seconds giving no hate (heat) at all. Now the hate is deadly. If you dig deep enough in Loughmacrory you’ll get the good stuff. Still, I didn’t expect to hear Benedict on the other side of the phone. He just asked if this was O’Brien from Loughmacrory and if I’d throw a lock of 20kg bags on a plane before they started the meeting today. I thought it was Red Loughran from up the road and started calling him all the hoors of the day. It wasn’t until I heard the distinctive German brogue coming down the phone when he threatened to ex-communicate me and all that hellish damnation stuff that I backed down and asked for forgiveness. We’ll laugh at it in years to come.”
O’Brien’s coal is burning at the moment but early reports have indicated that a couple of Cardinals have complained about the ‘deadly heat’ and that the coal was spitting a bit when a new batch is thrown on, burning small holes into an expensive furry mat they had made by slave workers in Cambodia. Loughmacrory Coals are investigating whether wetting the coal beforehand will dampen its explosive nature by doing experiments in a disused fireplace on the Drumnakilly Road.
Dear Tessie – Tyrone Agony Aunt Volume 1
DEAR TESSIE,
My husband refuses to go shopping. Years ago, when we were just curting, he’d blissfully browse around Marks and Spencers or the Spar with me as I agonised over whether to buy brown or white bread for three quarters of an hour. Now that we’re married and with twelve children, he won’t set foot in any retail establishment. He says he gets severe panic attacks at the thought of it and when I mention the word ‘shop’ he rocks forwards and backwards, slapping his face with his hand, screeching ‘no’. What can I do? MELISSA, CABRAGH
TESSIE SAYS:
I’ve seen this many times before. I used to have a husband who’d set himself on fire as soon as I mentioned painting the gable wall. One day I called his bluff and painted it myself, a nice big union jack. I never had to ask again. The self-flaming stopped. Call his bluff too, Melissa. The next time you’re out, buy him a pink cardigan and a pair of those jeans that hang down around the arse. That’ll do wonders for his ability to shop himself. Or liver sandwiches.
DEAR TESSIE,
My neighbour’s dog is sniffing around my bitch, a three year old Pomeranian. His dog is a heavy-set Alsatian. Should I be worried? MICKEY, MOUNTJOY
TESSIE SAYS:
Yes.
DEAR TESSIE,
I brought my children up to be good upstanding protestants. I taught them right and wrong, how to be courteous and respectful and to follow the path to happiness. You can understand my great shock when I read my son’s letter from Edinburgh where he is studying medicine. He tells me that he now does Jiu Jitsu. How could he turn against his own religion? GODFREY, TULLYHOGUE
TESSIE SAYS:
Give it time. It might just be a phase. My son went to Bundoran one weekend and came back with a Declan Nerney CD. I locked him in a dark room for a month. He’s OK now.
DEAR TESSIE,
Is it possible for a man from The Rock to find a deadly woman? I’ve been leeching about the Greenvale dance floor since 1999 and haven’t even got a sniff of a woman yet. If you look at all the lads still standing about at the end of the night, they’re either from the Rock of Greencastle. What can I do? I’m sick of piling into a Vauxhall Nova at the end of the night to do a bit of diffing to entertain ourselves. CIARAN, THE ROCK
TESSIE SAYS:
The Rock you say? Get used to it. If you have no second cousins in their mid-30s stuck for a man then you’re snookered I’m afraid. Embrace the diffing.
DEAR TESSIE,
I’ve recently found love but am in a bit of a dilemma. I have three brothers, one is in prison for repeated public exposure, one is a wanted drugs dealer in Dublin and the other lives in Armagh. Both my parents are also in prison for running a brothel in Kildress. My only sister sells counterfeit DVDs for paramilitaries. So, the big question is – do I tell her about the brother who lives in Armagh? PAUL, BERAGH
TESSIE SAYS:
No. Definitely not. She’ll run a mile.
DEAR TESSIE,
I sold the woman from Derrytresk the handbag she used against Dromid Pearses and Kerry man Declan O’Sullivan. Am I a bad person? SUSIE, COALISLAND
TESSIE SAYS:
Yes. Only because you didn’t fill it with hammers.
DEAR TESSIE,
I’d like to reply to the boy from the Rock further up on this page. Are you the boy who bought be a drink last weekend in the Greenvale just before midnight? If so, there was no vodka in the coke ye miserable clift. BERNADETTE, LISSAN
TESSIE SAYS:
Looks like Ciaran from the Rock will be single for another while at least.
Tyrone Tribulations 