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Out and About – Hopes For 2013
We took a scoot out to the market in Cookstown to collate the hopes and wishes for 2013.
“Wouldn’t it be great if ourselves and Augher finally put our differences behind us and mixed next year. At the church the Clogher ones still sit on one side and the Augher folk on the other. There’s no intermarrying. We drink stout; they stick to triple X. The brawls on the streets are now a daily occurrence. Let’s pray for peace and try to endure those fcukers for 12 months.” GERDY MCNABB, CLOGHER
“A good looking priest. We’ve been starved out here in Donemana of young virile clergy. In fact, the last PP was so old he still read in Latin. Someone like the boy out of The Thornbirds would be deadly. Get me up in the morning, hangover or none.” MARY MAGUIRE, DONEMANA
“Bring back hanging for cattle rustling and trespassing.” DAMIEN COYLE, PLUMBRIDGE
“The government to turn a blind eye to women who bate the shite clean out of their husbands. That lazy hoor of a man I have needs a quare hiding to get his arse into gear on a Saturday. Say, once a week would be great.” NOLEEN MURPHY, EDENDORK
“Women wearing less in and around the streets. There are women now with jumpers and coats on even in the summer. If the powers taxed the amount of clothing you wore, they’d be more inclined to wear loose blouses and skirts. I’m 88 but I’d make more of an effort to get out to the shops if the women would shed a few layers. Not the fat ones though.” CATHAL JACKSON, DONAGHMORE
“Mickey Harte to pick players from the south east of the county. What did we ever do on him eh? There’s talk that he ruined his motor driving at 60 down the Annaghmore Road during the 80s. Well, that’s what we deal with day in, day out. We all drive 1990s motors from Lithuania now. Don’t hold it agin us Mickey.” FRANCIE O’NEILL, DERRYTRESK
“The price of diesel to come down a bit in Castlecaulfield. Might as well hope to grow wings. Miserable bastards.” SUSIE FOSTER, CASTLECAULFIELD.
“A traffic warden in Coalisland. In fact, anyone official at all. Even a TV licence man. Just for the craic.” JUSTIN LAVERY, COALISLAND
“A gay bar in Kildress.” ANONYMOUS, KILDRESS
Caledon Gets Computer – Great Joy
Bonfires blazed well into the night in Caledon as news spread regarding the purchase of a computer by someone near the Iron Bridge. The little plantation village, which is still inhabited by some of the Pictish tribe from northern Scotland, had until now resisted all forms of modern communication including mobile phones, electric showers and kettles.
Recently, though, tribe leader Cecil McCreight expressed fears that Caledon might be wiped off the face of the earth if they didn’t promote it or even make people aware of its existence, especially those “middle-class fcukers” in Dungannon and Armagh.
“Yea, it was a tough decision but the majority of the tribe as well as a few natives agreed that it was time to buy a computer. Sometimes I head into Clogher or Dungannon (spit) and I’d say to people on the streets ‘hi I’m Chief McCreight from Caledon’ and all I’d get is a blank face or sometimes a punch in the bake. It’s time to put Caledon on the map.”
Caledon’s first computer
Thousands descended on the home of the person near the Iron Bridge as the delivery van arrived shortly after noon, the first such vehicle to drive through Caledon safely. Previous transport companies had lost fleets of lorries by taking a wrong turn through the village only to be torched and destroyed by the suspicious locals. Local juggler Barney Norris told us:
“Jaysus I’m deadly excited about this. I’d heard that you can see bare women from all over the world. I’ve never seen a bare woman before apart from the streaker at the Caledon Heathen Carnival in 1988. She was my aunt so I sorta didn’t look.”
Excitement levels are expected to reach a crescendo today when someone works out how to turn it on.
Augher/Clogher 2022 World Cup Bid Rejected
Residents in Augher and Clogher woke today to the disappointing news that Fifa have rejected their joint bid to host the 2022 World Cup at the first round of eliminations. The ambitious project was hoping to see off rivals Argentina, Australia and China but fell short in what Fifa described as ‘major accomodation issues’. Augher Lord Mayor Jackie McKenna, who headed the bid, announced the decision from Fifa this morning outside the Spar:
“We are bitterly disappointed. My committee put a lot of effort in to taking pictures of fields and makeshift pitches, put them all onto a PowerPoint and sent it in an email. Finding someone who could do all that computer stuff wasn’t easy. Although this is a set-back, we will regroup and perhaps target the 2024 Olympics. We will bring a major world event to Tyrone, mark my words.”
Plans were made for successful bid
Fifa sent back a list of reasons why they couldn’t advance the Augher/Clogher bid to the next round. They included the need to seat up to 100’000 people in a stadium, house half a million more fans in the area and general lack of media facilities to cope with 188 TV stations from around the world. McKenna claims this was a smokescreen:
To be honest, that’s a load of balls. There’s talk of a new Subway being built in Fivemiletown. We have this Spar, a Post Office and a few pubs. What more do these foreigners want? We got promises from a couple of local joiners that they’d build a big wooden stand and all. Also, my nephew is training to be a spark and he could have wired up a few plugs for the TV boys. As for accommodation, have they never heard of caravans? They’re prejudiced against small rural villages like ourselves. Aghayaran said they were laughed at by Fifa officials in 1970 when they tried to rival the Mexico bid.
In a show of strength, Augher is today hosting their Horn Dance which is performed by six deer-men who wear reindeer horns. The dancers follow a 10 mile course and perform the horn-dancing ritual in 12 different locations in and around the village, whilst the musician plays tunes such as “The Farmers Boy” and “Uncle Mick” on a melodeon, with accompaniment from a triangle.
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.”
Tyrone Tribulations 