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Mounting Concern Over Travel Agent’s Website Claims About Tyrone
Ballygawley Play Park?
By Shengas McGlumphie
News emerged last night that the Dungannon & South Tyrone District Council are investigating over 14’000 complaints from the US relating to false or exaggerated claims about Tyrone made by independent travel agent Sperrin Travels, based in Cookstown.
Sean Keegan, owner and manager of the business which caters for the lucrative American market, is accused of creating falsehoods or embellishments based on scant knowledge of the area, which were published on the website as fact. The site boasted a whole series of attractions, including:
Ballygawley Play Park! If you like Disneyland, Epcot and the Magic Kingdom, then you’ll love Ballygawley Play Park. Experience the thrills and spills of numerous rides including the Magic Slide, Runaway Roundabout, and the Neverland Swings that even Peter Pan would love! Fairytale dreams really do come true in Ballygawley Play Park!
“Damn it to hell” said a furious Biff Masterson from America. “We’d gotten our travel booked and came all the way from the good old US of A and darn it, now our whole darned itinerary is in a pickle. Gee, this guy really needs a kick in the fanny. Our first day at Ballygawley Play Park was a god damn tragedy. A swing, a slide and a drunk man singing ‘Three Blind Mice”.
Keegan has been accused of exaggerating the truth beyond all recognition and failing to check even the most basic of facts about Tyrone and its environs:
“Sure, it’s easy done” said a shame-faced Keegan, who only recently loved to Tyrone from Dublin 6 months ago. “Who’d have thought there would be a place called Greencastle without there being a feckin’ green castle in it? No mills in Newmills – that’s just a stupid name then.”
The website also said it could organise a tour of all the likely sites of ‘the world-famous ‘Pomeroy Diamond’, a rare gemstone worth millions buried somewhere in the County that has proved as elusive and as enigmatic as the one thon old woman dropped into the sea at the end of Titanic’.
Chet Hogan, also from America, said
“Wow, seriously. This dude needs to wake up and smell the coffee already. We’ve water-boarded folks in Guantamino for less”.
The website has since been taken off-line as Keegan hastily re-writes the website, including its descriptions of Coalisland, Windmill and Washingbay.
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.
Greencastle Man Thought He’d Slept For Days. Turns Out He Hadn’t.
Teague, asleep
By Gombeen
A Greencastle fitter, Malachy Teague, feared he’d lost days after taking too many flu tablets that the local doctor had prescribed for him. Although it explicitly said to only take two every four hours, an under-the-weather Teague mixed the numbers up and swallowed four every two hours.
“I went to lie down around 2pm for a quick sleep only to wake up and it dark. I was confused so I grabbed the tablet pack and saw they were done. On reading the label, I knew I’d made a terrible mistake and surmised that I must’ve been out cold for a few days at least. I’d seen that word surmised on Countdown a while ago and thought it was a great word.”
With all clocks and watches stopped in the house, Teague headed down to Eddie’s to find out what day it was, only to experience how difficult finding out that information actually was.
“I asked Sean behind the bar if he had a paper so I could check how my greyhound tip got on. I had no tip but just wanted to see the date on the paper. Sean asked what greyhound it was. I had to think on my feet and just made up a name – “Kissy Slippy”. Sean said it came nowhere and walked off. I went to the back bar and this time just asked for a look at today’s paper. Geordie said his wife had it upstairs and sure there was nothing in it anyway. Exasperated, I saw oul Johnny Devlin reading the Irish News at the back wall with a magnifying glass. At this stage I’d decided that if he refused to give me the paper I’d kill him, 93 or not. I just grabbed the thing off him, saw it was still today’s date and handed it back politely.”
It turned out that Malachy had just been sleeping for five hours due to the heavy flu.
“Gee I was quare and relieved to get that sorted. You just cannot go up to someone and ask them to give you the day of the week.”
In other local news, Greencastle GAC have started a petition to get the Sperrin Mountains moved.
Cheap Cars For Sale In Greencastle. FSO Shipment Error.
100 left-hand drive FSOs for sale
All roads lead to Greencastle this weekend in what is sure to be one of the biggest bargain days of the calendar year at the foothills of the Sperrins. Car merchant and general wheeler and dealer, Diarmuid Donnelly, has promised to put an entire fleet of FSOs, the famous Polish car manufacturer, up for sale at half price following a fatal error in translation yesterday morning. Donnelly, who famously sold a decrepit Lada to the Vatican in 1986, stands to lose thousands of pounds on the transaction but feels he has little other option.
“Some handlin. I left our blade to do the bartering as she has an O Level in Latin in 1977. Last time I do that. I’d my eye on the Fabryka Samochodów Osobowych (FSO) motors for a long time now as they’re the type of cars that would look well on the roads around Greencastle. I ordered, or well Deirdre did, 100 of them in all kinds of colours. They arrived within hours on a boat from Poland. I nearly choked when I saw they were all left-hand drive. 100 left-hand drive FSOs! When I phoned up the Poles they were unrepentant, claiming that we didn’t stipulate it was Greencastle Co Tyrone, not Greencastle Co Donegal. I was still a bit confused but they put the phone down and I wasn’t paying for another phonecall. I’m in enough debt.”
The FSOs will sell at £3000 tomorrow in his big field, with first come first serve. Donnelly is expecting a quickfire sale:
“Hotcakes at that price. Fair enough the left-hand driving will be a bit of a bollox initially but I’ve asked the council if it’s OK to drive on whatever side of the road we want, maybe on the left at the weekends or something at that. The new roundabout planned for the top of the village can be driven around anti-clockwise and the other one at the bottom can be approached either clockwise or anti. I can’t see many problems, well no worse that the current standard of motoring around here.”
Gate opens at 7am.
Greencastle Man Will ‘Mow The Head Off’ Next Person To Mention The Weather
Tracey this morning
A Greencastle unicycle mechanic, Tommy Tracey, has warned locals that he’ll “mow the head clean off” anyone who mentions anything to do with the weather for the foreseeable future. Tracey, who was arrested three years ago for firing a volley of snowballs at a stranger who wished him a ‘Merry Christmas’ in Omagh, announced his decision in Eddie’s Bar last night.
“I’m sick of that crap. Every day it’s ‘Jays it’s a cold wan’ or ‘gives it bad tomorrow’. Is there nothing else to talk about? Horse borgers, the Superboul, Tulisa’s skirt – there’s loads going on out there. But not here in Greencastle. It’s rain this, snow that. I can’t give two fecks if you’re foundered or sweltering. The next person who mentions anything to do with the weather in my vicinity will have their features rearranged, permanently. I mean it.”
Tommy didn’t stop at that and proceeded to list a plethora of topics which are now banned whilst in his company:
“Distance. I don’t care how far it is from Greencastle to Moortown avoiding the Omagh Road. Last week I said to a lad in the bar that I was thinking of going to Belarus this summer. You know what he said? “What road would you take out to that?” We’re obsessed with distances, roads and the weather. And just to reiterate – no happy birthdays or any seasonal greetings in my company. Happy birthday my hole. As if they give a feck about how happy I am on my birthday. I never get people asking me how happy it was after it is over. Save your buckin breath will yiz.”
A group of lads from Kildress are reportedly gearing up to torture Tracey this weekend at the senior friendly between the sides by talking about the weather, distances and roads whilst greeting each other at regular intervals.
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.
Miss Greencastle Pageant Passes Off Peacefully. Aussie Actor Adjudicates.
Bishop was a big Greencastle fan
The 2012 Miss Greencastle pageant did not require a visit from the police for the first year since its inception in 1964, sparking a great night of celebration in the clubrooms. Formerly called The Loveliest Girl from Greencastle (1964-1969), The Beautiful Blade (1970-1989) and You’re A Quare One (1990-2004), this year’s Miss Greencastle was adjudicated by Neighbours actor Ian Smith who plays the angelic Harold Bishop in the long-running Australian Soap. Smith was called in due to the previous incidents which have plagued the highlight of the Greencastle Community Weekend. Harold Bishop (Smith was in character over the weekend) was seen as a safe option what with his Christian outlook in the programme itself.
‘We couldn’t chance another disaster”, gala director Dermy McDevlin told us. “Last year we had Alf Stewart from Home and Away and sure didn’t he wreck the place after he got his first taste of Guinness. There were a few of the potential Miss Greencastles he didn’t like the look of and hurled out insults like “flamin thunder thighs ye galah” and “strewth, bingo wings” much to the anger of boyfriends and family. It was a bomb-site after the riot receded. Harold was a gentleman and even blushed when one of the Miss Greencastles told the story of her slipping on a pick axe when dunging out the yard, displaying her knickers for everyone to see. I thought he was going to pass out.”
The winner, Magdalene Teague, won easily, scoring 79 points out of 100. Her party piece was plastering over a hole in the makeshift lorry truck in under 12 minutes. Her interests included shouting at GAA matches, playing dead and mooing. Last year’s winner Henrietta Tracey didn’t take the defeat too well and was caught slashing the tyres on Bishop’s Ute shouting “stick that in your blinking barbie, fair dinkum?”
Bishop, as expected, was in typical charitable form:
“Ah, one of God’s creatures gone astray, the young jillaroo. Up the ‘Castle. I’ve been a fan of them since way back you know. Yes, they’re a real rip-snorter club. Madge loved them and we’d a picture of Sean Teague in the bedroom.”
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.
Tyrone Tribulations 