The Heraldy Press

An Irishwoman living in the village of Ernsk, a small hamlet just meters from the magnetic North Pole, is preparing herself for the area’s worst snowstorm since earlier this afternoon. Olivia Hannon (that’s not her in the accompanying photo, it’s some other lady having an oul’ laugh in the snow), an 84-year-old native of County Longford, is at risk of losing her home, a two-bedroom mansion situated in a tree behind the village’s only bar/restaurant, The Freezin’ Kip. The thrice-divorced Olivia moved to the region in the mid ’80s in search of love (‘All the nice lads in Longford were either married, emigrating, elderly or from Roscommon’, she says), and stayed. Just after both of the town’s locals finished watching tape-delayed footage of Dennis Taylor’s 1985 Snooker World Championship Final win this morning, the area witnessed almost 11 feet of snow fall, beating the previous day’s record by almost four inches. Homes, livestock and possessions are in danger of being lost, and the bar’s beer garden may also be forced to close after lunch for an hour or two.

A heavy metal fan, last week some time.

A self-described ‘metal head’ from County Longford is said to be in mourning, following the tragic passing of rock icon Lenny, from Radiohead. Declan Flavin (29), with an address that made little sense to the trained eye, claimed to have over 40 hard rock songs on his iPod, and when his brother gives him back his Dire Straits “Sultans of Swing” tape, that total will edge towards 51, once he figures out how to get cassettes onto his laptop. “I’ve been into metal and rock since this weeks, but sure, Black Sabbath or the Deaf Leopards, they never tour the Irish midlands, so I gave artists who do play that easy listening oul’ country shite a chance first, as them oul bollockses do be always playing the halls around here, so they are, like”. When told of the tragic passing of Lemmy, from Motorhead, Flavin corrected us and said that it was Lenny; “Sure what’s Lemmy short for, Lembert? Cop on, would yeh?”

The Boy on the Beach
No soldiers, no football, no dinosaurs too,
No trains, cars or airplanes, or fun he was due,
The love and the laughter, the dreams and the joy,
All now but memories of that gorgeous boy
The child on the beach, remembered in song,
Once loved, now a symbol of all that’s gone wrong,
A world undeserving of his short troubled life,
A beautiful kid, dealt a hand filled with strife.
In an era of hope, he’s been cast against type,
He was nobody’s problem, or anyone’s gripe,
A baby, a toddler, a boy, not yet a teen,
The world should react to this horrific scene,
No soldiers, no football, no dinosaurs too,
He could have belonged to me or to you.

1) Are you trying to get me drunk?

Yes, I am, because you’re an elderly man with bits of yesterday’s soup, at least I hope it’s just soup, in his beard, and I desperately want to touch your bum.

2) Duuuuude!!!! I’m Irish too yo!

Maybe one of your grandparents were, and they’d be so proud to see that green vomit on your fake Aran sweater.

3) I Love Your Accent, Is It Real?

Of course it is, I was born in Denmark, and raised in Milwaukee, but the bits you hear, are probably from my time spent working as a Norwegian language instructor in New Zealand.

4) Can I Plug This In Somewhere?

Plug what in, your magical personality creator? Yes, bend over and ask your mother to plug it in, oh, sorry, she’s your girlfriend?

5) Can you make my shot extra strong?

Sure, just let me call Jack Daniel’s/Jameson/Johnny Walker/Jose Cuervo and ask them to change their recipe for you.

6) What’ve you got on tap?

Just the beers that are eight inches from your eyes, and the ones listed on the list you’re holding but too ****ing lazy to read.

7) Oh, the guy who used to work here used to give us a break on the bill.

I guess that’s why he ‘used to’ work here.

8) Hey, is that waitress single?

She sure is, and she’s not been asked out by a drunk, boring, ugly bastard who’s 24 years older than her, in a while, and you look like just her type, so don’t even pull your fly all the way up or hide that wedding ring, oh, that steak sauce on your hands, it is just steak sauce right? Leave it there and just go for it dude!

9) Hey, where’s the other bartender?! 

He heard you were coming in so he took the night off.

10) This drink (which I’ve never heard of/ordered/tasted before), you made it wrong. 

I sure did, they make much better ones in the bar down the street, why don’t you piss off down there instead?

11) Y’all got pool table?

No, because tossers like you kept putting the balls in their mouths to perfect that dumbass accent.

12) Do you have a bathroom?

No, here, use this bag.

13) What’s this for? (Note – Points at something they’ve never seen before, like cocktail shaker, or soap).

It’s for scratching my more delicate areas when you’re not looking.

Words By Bosco Coppell, Research by Sean Hannigan.

A Tea Party member upon being told that Alaska and Africa were different places.

Representatives from America’s political movement, The Tea Party, are said to be furious, after a recent study found that its members ranked close to the bottom of a league table with regards to intelligence levels in political circles.

The report, carried out by 27 institutes of higher learning in the US, New Zealand, Malaysia, Denmark, Argentina and Spain, interviewed 22,000 members of 146 political organizations worldwide. The US-based Tea Party, which opposes Equal Rights and Common Sense, were astounded to find themselves third from bottom, just above Germany’s ‘Unicorns Do Exist, We Seen One With Our Own Two Eyes’ Party, and Bolivia’s ‘Divorce Rights for Goblins, Elves and Pixies’ movement, both of which are owned and operated by the same man, Oliver Higgins of Wisconsin, each party’s only member.

While angry, members are slamming the report, with one claiming that Argentina and New Zealand were America’s least important states, so they didn’t care nohow. Another said these nations would; “Be sorry, as Tea Party members ain’t no stupid-ass fool, no sir, how else could w’all (a variation of y’all) wave flags and shout at same time”. Except, when he said ‘stupid’, he misspelled it.

The Tea Party was founded in 1971 to oppose the wearing of trousers by women, twice more in the 1980s when they heard slavery had been abolished 120 years previously, and again last Tuesday, to prevent the sale in stores, of music by; Elton John, George Michael, The Pet Shop Boys, Boy George, Erasure, Freddie Mercury, Ricky Martin, Michael Stipe and The Village People, as they are all rumored to own not one single automatic weapon. Also, there’s a possibility that some of them might be gay.

The movement and its members is known for its anger towards things that make them angry and things they don’t understand, such as things unlike them, and things that have an opportunity to be unlike them in the future. We asked one former member, who was asked to leave once his IQ level reached double digits of the inside workings of the party, but he told us to **** off.

Another Tea Party member, who declined to give his name, but was wearing a badge on his lapel which read: ‘Hi, I’m Ted Klein, I’m Here to Help’, for his opinion on the angry and dumb stereotype that the organization had been lumbered with. He replied: ‘USA, USA, USA, y’all’.

Words by Bosco Coppell, picture by Esmerelda’s Vintage Curtain Rods and Daggers.  

UFC Champ Conor McGregor.

Almost 200 Irish towns and villages have attempted to claim to be UFC champion Conor McGregor’s birthplace. Of those, 192 have considered legal action, with two (Enniscorthy, County Wexford and Tullamore, we’re not sure what county that’s in, but we think it’s one of the ones in the middle) even going to the High Court, in an effort to convince several ‘really important judges’ of their supposed rights to the recently-crowned champion.

Mr. McGregor (26) defeated Chad Mendes last weekend in Las Vegas, Nevada, to clinch the interim Featherweight belt (current champion Jose Aldo pulled out of a fight with McGregor due to a rib injury), and in the chaotic days since, towns all over Ireland have been proudly claiming his citizenship.

Harry Dwyer, the curator at the ‘Conor McGregor Museum and Gift Shop’ in Bundoran, County Donegal (and former proprietor of County Cavan’s Ronan Keating superstore), had this to say: ‘Sure we’ve been with Conor since the start, last Tuesday morn, I think it were. We’ve as much rights to him as anyone, and if you listen closely to the way he does say some things, you can almost hear a Donegal accent, so you can, to be sure there now aye. But that might have been some lad standing behind him when he was talking’.  Mr. Dwyer’s wife, Bernie, agreed, saying; ‘Aye’.

Despite speaking with a pronounced west Dublin brogue, Mr. McGregor has had towns across the breadth of the country attempt to claim him as ‘one of their own’. We spoke with Fine Gael’s Deputy Minister for Sport and Stuff, Mrs. Mary Doolin, who said that it was unfair that Dublin gets all the good ones. ‘The Dubs have had their time, they’ve had the likes of Sinead O’Connor, Frank Sinatra, Nelson Mandela and Ryan Tubridy born there, ’tis about time the rest of us get an oul’ star or something. Sure where I’m from, Offaly, all we have is Kevin Spacey and some lad who used to play hurling for Westmeath’.

Currently, the main contenders for Mr. McGregor’s birthplace, are; Crumlin, where he’s reported to have grown up, Lucan, where his family is said to live, Glendalough which he visited on a school tour, Portlaoise, which he once took a picture of from a plane and Tubbercurry, County Sligo, which kind of sounds like ‘Tub of Curry’, and we just included for the craic.

If somewhere outside Dublin is officially recognized as being Mr. McGregor’s birthplace, it will be the first town outside the capital to claim a world champion since 1927, when Herbie O’Rourke, two-time world juggling champion, resided in Navan, County Meath, for several weeks, while his mansion in Clondalkin was being renovated.

Words by Bosco Coppell. Picture by Beatrice’s Antique Trinkets and Rifles.