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Glenelly Fight Night Still Raging, Two Weeks On
The Glenelly Boxing By The River Fight Night, originally staged at the Mellon Country Hotel last weekend, is still raging on as four bouts have yet to witness a knock-out or retirement. Eight boxers from Glenelly, Gortin, Newtownstewart and Strabane have completed a total of 3022 rounds of fighting at the time of writing. The longest fight, involving Sheerin and McGlinchey, has just surpassed the 1000 rounds mark with ‘Give Em Hell’ McGlinchey finally showing signs of tiring today, day 12. Referee Leon McCaul insists it’s only a matter of time before Sheerin hits the canvas:
“You have to admire these lads. Sheerin had an advantage a couple of days ago when McGlinchey experienced a bit of a cold but a good sleep on Wednesday night saw ‘The Red Devil’ in fine fettle at the sound of the bell at 9am this morning. We normally call it quits at 7pm so the lads can go home, watch the soaps and refuel for the following day. I don’t think Sheerin will last that long today. He has only the one tooth left and has been blinded by the swelling since Sunday. It’s only one clean uppercut away.”
Other bouts have been less civilised. The McAnena fight has spilled onto fields in the surrounding area with members of both families taking welts out of each other on a daily basis as the main fight edges towards its conclusion. Local politician, Gary McVeigh, says the madness must stop:
“Ah come on now lads. What does it matter who wins now? McGinchey’s face is resembling his arse at this stage, and that’s not a sight women and children need to see. Tim Harney’s fight (round 886) is just a hugging match. It’s like the slow-set at Sense. Harney’s tongue is hanging out, for the love of God. This isn’t great for Glenelly’s image atall and our bid to host the paralympics in 2022.”
PaddyPower has suspended betting on the four remaining bouts after unconfirmed rumours suggest McGlinchey might take a dive in round 1011.
Poetry In Critical State In Tyrone. Valentine Competition “Cat”.
This year’s Tyrone Valentine’s Limerick Competition was the “worst standard in living memory” prompting the county council to write an email to all school headmasters to “up the literacy skills a notch” according to sources at the Clogher Poetry Society Headquarters.
The annual poetry competition attracts thousands of entries from single men from all over the county looking for a partner. The top three poems are read out at a dance in the Clogher Halls by the winning poets who usually head home with three women from the pack who gather to hear and inspect the talented wordsters.
“Eff me pink, it was cat altogther,” Henry Wisdom, chair of the Clogher Poetry society told us. “I had to wade through mountains of pure tripe. I’d reckon that 90% of the entrants managed to slip in farm machinery or drinking. One boy, from the Moy, was able to somehow rhyme ‘X Factor’ with ‘Caterpillar Track-Type Tricycle Tractor’. Romance is dead in Tyrone. I pity the women, I really do.”
Despite the falling standards, the panel eventually managed to narrow the entrants down to three, with “Ardboe Women” getting top honours for its depiction of a man sneakily looking at a naked woman around the Lough shore.
Winning entries below:
1ST PLACE – ARDBOE WOMEN: By James Devlin
It’s great to live in Ardboe
To Moortown I’d hate to go
The women here are fair
And great when they’re bare
Like my neighbour beside me on Sundays, ghost-oh
2ND PLACE – NICE STRABANE MAIDENS: By John McElhaton
The women in Strabane are wile nice
But there’s none I can entice
What’s wrong with me?
I’ve a diesel turbo SUV
I’d buy you a chicken fried rice
3RD PLACE – LONELY IN BRACKAVILLE By Godfrey Gillis
This year I hope someone says yes
Now that I’ve a permanent address
But, if you say no
I couldn’t stick the woe
And I’ll have to torch the buckin wedding dress (that I bought in the Island)
Strabane Prepares For End Of Civilisation on the 21st
Strabane today. Last minute worship.
Strabane, traditionally a few steps ahead of the rest of the county, have shown the way again by drawing up a watertight schedule for the end of the world on Friday. Whilst other towns and villages in Tyrone have received the Mayan prophecy with a sizeable degree of scepticism, the home of Hugo Duncan have bought one hundred percent into the doomsday scenario and have all received leaflets tonight offering instructions and advice for the apocalypse. Driving the initiative is local lunatic Damien McElhinney, a former taxi driver for the clergy.
“You have to laugh at them eejits up in Sion Mills. They’re waltzing about thinking things will be OK. Well, they’ll be kicking themselves when they’re hurriedly faced with the Final Judgement unprepared whilst the Strabane ones don’t bat an eyelid. I have been able to pinpoint the cataclysm at around 9:30pm on Friday, just before The Late Late Show starts. All farmers in the area have been told to have the milking done and land red up by around six. Then the spuds should be on the table long before The One Show starts. The rest of the time should be set aside to tidying the house, homework completed and then baths for the children, and general relaxation before the planet implodes and we’re transported to our everlasting paradise. Them Omagh ones are going to be raging at our meticulous planning whilst they worry about hair straighteners left on or the dog roaming the rampart.”
Although refusing to be drawn on the exact nature of the End of Times, McElhinney says there’ll be an unbearable sound of wailing and gnashing of teeth coupled with horrifying groans of the fatally maimed, but not in Strabane.
“We’ve decided to bring forward the Strabane Community Lottery a day from Saturday as there’d be some complaining about it from this shower, even up in Nirvana.”
What’s On In Tyrone: Oct 20-21
COOKSTOWN
Wife-carrying competition. All participants must register in the field behind the convent. Women must be over 12 stone and fully clothed. Distance 400 metres. Winner receives a token for a pint in Mulligans as long as they buy another. Sunday 9am.
STRABANE
Sat, 4pm. Tar-Barrel Racing. This annual event involves people racing through the streets of the town, carrying flaming wooden barrels of burning tar on their backs. This ancient game has been a staple feature of Strabane life since 1888 when John McElhinney was convicted of stealing his neighbour’s underwear from her line and made to walk through the town carrying a tar barrel alight. Patron please take notice that there’ll be no medical facilities on offer.
BALLYGAWLEY
This weekend sees the return of Plough Sunday, a day when ploughmen traditionally blacken their faces with cow clap (or manure) and dance up and down the Whitebridge Road singing “Hickory Dickory Dock”. No one knows the origin of this but people flock from all over to see these strange customs. Stalls will be on display, showcasing homegrown Ballygawley produce such as grass, blackberries and sticks. Paudge Quinn will lead the dancing, heavily manured.
MOY
Strabane Woman ‘Not At Herself’ After ‘Bad Oul Bug’
Farmer, this morning
One of Strabane’s most respected citizens, 86 year old ex-stripper Jane Farmer, has still not completely recovered from a ‘bad oul bug’ she thinks she got after not washing her hands immediately after visiting an old people’s home in Sion Mills. Farmer, who used to dance seductively for visiting American soldiers during the Second World War for twenty dollars, claims she is ‘not at herself’ at all since the worst of the bug left her system.
“Feck me pink”, the octogenarian said, ” I put some time of it in there. Anything I ate came straight up and I love me pork chops. That was hard to take but it wasn’t the worst part. The shite was flying straight out of me. I’d be queuing up for the pension and you’d just hear the slap of it hitting the ground. I’m too long in the tooth to be embarrassed about it and if others were offended then they need to toughen up. These modern day people are useless with their private computers and mobile telephones. In my day you’d be mopping up your family’s dung every day and never bat an eyelid. Don’t get me started. What are them young people wearing. I saw a lad today and his trousers were below his briefs. A boy like that would have been strung up on a lamp-post in Strabane town in my day. Big dirty boxer shorts. Some bollocks that.”
Farmer thinks she contacted the bug when visiting her younger sister (82) in an old people’s home four miles away. Maisie Farmer, like Jane, never married and lived with her sister until they fell out over religion in 1999. Since then they have patched things up with Maisie moving in the the old people’s home to chase one-time dreamboat Dick Logan (89) who was an ex-marine from the 1950s.
“Maisie said she wasn’t at herself either and had been throwing up all week with the odd dose of explosive diarrhea. I asked her why the feck she hadn’t said it earlier. Typical selfish demented oul bitch. She just sits and stares at that tramp Dick Logan and him completely insane, dribbing away like a child. The smell of pish off him too. Stupidly, I got back into my Nova without washing my hands. Driving home was another bad experience with these sunglassed hoors in their massive cars and a pack of screaming spoilt pricks in the back. In my day you went to bed elated if you only got one welt around the head for coughing or sneezing. Don’t know they’re born.”
Jane hopes to be at herself tomorrow.
New Public Toilet For Newtownstewart
Horns were blaring through the historic village of Newtownstewart tonight after the Tyrone County Council (TCC) announced they have granted permission to erect a public toilet in the centre of the Main Street. In the second of its kind in Tyrone, the TCC hope it will bring tourists to the hamlet and give the locals something to be proud of.
“We want the Newtownstewart people to puff their chests with pride when they see a foreigner stopping off to do their business in the toilet”, said TCC spokesperson Audi Pyper. “It’s a state of the art facility with velvet toilet roll, a flush that you hardly hear from the outside and these hand driers that blow air onto your hands. Call me crazy but I can envisage people from as far as Strabane coming here for a rattle at it.”
The Coalisland toilet debacle, May 2012.
The TCC will be keeping a close eye on the lavatory after the failed experiment in Coalisland earlier this year. A £10 million toilet was opened in the East Tyrone town but only one person managed to have a go on it. The celebrations were so wild after the first successful attempt at a flush that hundreds of frenzied locals began ripping the thing apart, in sheer excitement. It was only afterwards, when they looked at the rubble, that they realised what they’d done. Newtownstewart Lord Mayor Mary Murray told us that no such scenes will be repeated on her patch.
“I can assure the public that this toilet will stand the test of time. Anyone who gets too excited after the first successful usage and flush will be shot, no warning. Also, after the first roll of toilet roll is done, users will be asked to provide their own toilet roll or docken leaves. Anyone who blocks the toilet because of an unusually big stool will be banned, permanently.”
Schools in the area have begun an essay competition to see who will have first go on the new toilet, entitled “I’m Right To Have A Shite”.
Urney Mule Talks
Urney woke this morning to the sensational news that a mule in the field beside the shop possibly spoke to a tourist last night, shortly before midnight. The startling claim was made by Lithuanian clown assistant Mustafa Lukatit who was making his way home to Glenelly by foot from Strabane after a children’s party.
“I was just taking in the manure-ridden scenery on the way back from Glenelly when I heard it. At first I thought it was the mind playing tricks but as I turned I saw the mule looking straight at me with sad eyes, waiting for a reply.”
Smoking Urney Mule?
Lukatit marched straight into the local public house, ordered a half’un and spilled the beans to the only other man in the pub, Fr Jake McGraw, the local curate, who in turn paid for the drink.
“Fr McGraw was well-oiled but when he heard the story he staggered out towards the field and began exorcising the mule, gathering water from the shuck, blessing it and then flinging the stuff straight at the Equus Asinas. I felt a bit bad about the whole thing as I couldn’t be sure if I’d heard anything at all. But it definitely looked at me like it had said something.”
When asked what the mule had said, Lukatit was evasive and said it might have “asked for a light“. When it was pointed out that local hobo Francey O’Hagan always lay in the ditch at that exact point, the Lithuanian became aggressive, accusing the journalist of “asking too many effin questions” and retorted that Urney was a “munchie shit-hole of a place” and that he’d not be recommending it to the Lithuanian community back home in eastern Europe. Whilst walking off he added that it was common for mules to smoke on the continent.
Strabane Woman Refuses to Believe Proverbs
Alienated Strabane lady, Mifter Maguire, has enraged the local headmasters and clergy by publicly denouncing many proverbs that have reportedly held the town together as a close-knit community for centuries. Standing on a Guinness crate outside Mass last Sunday, Maguire rhymed off a litany of useless proverbs, often using extreme measure to prove their pointlessness.
Better than a biro
Starting off with ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’, she lifted a young lad from under her skirt (later identified as a nephew) and jabbed him several times in the thigh with a pen. After mild pleas from the boy to be released, she produced a machete-like instrument and hacked uncontrollably at the unfortunate guinea pig’s buttocks, the boy saved only by grabbing the aforementioned biro and stabbing Mifter in the ear.
As the crowds increasingly gathered closer, she dismissed many other idiomatic expressions including ‘you are what you eat’ by devouring a packet of Beef Faggots from Birmingham and asking the crowd to ‘explain that then’. Maguire was taken away by the local Health Care assistants midway through destroying the figure of speech that ‘it could be worse’ but long before a sizable few of the Strabane congregation left completely dejected at their life so far.
Tyrone Tribulations 