Author Archive for M. Toole

GREEN BEER NO HELP WITH ERECTILE DYSFUNCTIONS

Health Claims Disputed

(Montrose) Green beer, often associated with non-sanctioned St Patty’s Day parties thrown by gentiles, offers absolutely no relief in the arena of erectile dysfunction and other related maladies as determined by a prestigious Hibernian disorder.

The colored beer, often seen as a crude offense (much like potato tossing and brick stacking competitions) by persons of the Irish persuasion is only cheap draft turned green by adding dye. It has no clear properties that might vaguely be considered beneficial to anyone, even livestock.

“In a desperate defense of the product we presume that the intake of enough of the stuff will create a feeling of light-headedness and in extreme cases temporary euphoria,” said Padriac McGinty, owner of The Freckled Druid, a traditional pub in Dublin. “However most people tend to throw up, wet themselves or pass out before that condition is achieved.”

According to endless disclaimers found on the side of mugs or pitchers, green beer has been found to have little affect on singing ability and could lead to drooling and stupidity. It has been linked to unsolicited rounds of barking and sudden attempts at flight. In addition, according to the warnings, the use of green beer as sun block has little consequence and regular use of the stuff can lead to chronic constipation in persons over 90. – Melvin O’Toole   

LOCAL COW GIVES GUINNESS

(Ridgway) A Swiss Brown cow, appropriately named Brownie, continues to fill pint glasses full of rich, creamy Guinness Stout according to Onfre DesPlants, the gifted bovine’s legal guardian. At last count Brownie had thrilled thirsty alpine audiences with more than 17,000 gallons of the popular brew.

Sources across the sea expressed concern that the zealous cow might create an imbalance in trade since the United States may find it unnecessary to import kegs of Guinness, leaving the Irish brewery anxiously searching for new markets.

“Ironically enough Brownie was sent to the U.S. as a gesture of friendship in 2007,” said Sean McCoxcomb, a former dairy farmer from Waterford who now spends his days taste testing a variety of intoxicants for little or no pay. “We thought if we donated a few logistical awards to influential parties in North America we might continue to enjoy favored nation status no matter what the political climate here in Ireland. Imagine receiving a fully mature Swiss Brown in the mail,” he laughed. “That’s bound to gain someone’s attention.”

The cow’s efforts have already generated a lucrative industry in Ouray County with over 20 people employed in the many small storage units and another 50 at the main Brew Barn, located across the river.

Brownie has brought renewed credibility to the struggling ranching profession,” said DesPlants. “Already there’s talk of a bottling plant going into the Old School Building and a pipeline has been discussed to bring Brownie’s nectar to market.”

The beauty of the current situation is that Brownie appears to be quite satisfied eating sagebrush, willows and piñon nuts, all of which are available in abundance in the surrounding country. Recently compiled statistics even suggest an increase in tourist traffic due to the phenomenon.

“I’m not letting any of those loony birds near Brownie,” said DesPlants. “She’s sensitive to flash bulbs and polyester. Besides, all the commotion could cause her to plug up. I’ve seen it before.”

DesPlants went on to describe the tragedy of another bovine, a fragile Hereford named Lady Bird, who reputedly gave chocolate milk on a daily basis back during World War II. Apparently the cow, owned by local rancher Walter Domka, kept local kids happy despite rationing and other inconveniences endured during those troubled times. After the war she was acquisitioned by the government for psychiatric testing, and later branded a Communist sympathizer during the McCarthy witch hunts. Undaunted by these marginal setbacks the resolute dairy cow changed her name, moved to Utah and was elected mayor of Blanding, serving in that capacity through most of the Fifties.

Most readers will recall the saga ofWest Dallas Porkie, the nervous, politically correct chicken that laid square, geothermal eggs, and Hoss the two tone, multi-ethnic quarter horse that shat Cuban cigars along the shores of Cow Creek until his untimely demise (an Oklahoma hunter mistook him for a gelding cheroot in 1967) just two days before his 26th birthday.

Anyway, getting back to Brownie, the economic impact continues to marvel even the most sardonic of cowpunchers. Just yesterday local resident and clothing designer, Ralph Lauren, owner of the Double RL Ranch, west of Ridgway, announced a new line of ladies’ on-the-hoof ranch wear bearing a likeness of the cow. Lauren, who is reportedly scouring the lower Manhattan garment district in search of a suitable mate for the gifted Brownie, plans an extensive collection of perfumes in honor of the stout-hearted celebrity.

“Some of them have even been jawing about movie rights,” said DesPLants, “but we’ll have to wait until her book comes out first.”

Brownie’s literary agent refused to embrace a common agenda with regards to publication dates saying that her client is quite satisfied producing a monthly column in the San Juan Horseshoe about the evils of temperance.

“She’s been busy with the writing, the demands of her early morning milkings and assorted charity work with the disadvantaged over in Telluride,” said the agent, a stodgy, dark woman from Yonkers. “She barely has time to entertain a whirlwind over-the-sea romance with Finbar, a young Hibernian Shorthorn from County Mayo. Finbar, whom locals insist secretes 100-proof Jameson on major holy days, is a graduate of Trinity Ag School and former ambassador to Holstein-Friesian.

The two met while visiting a veterinarian in Ayrshire in May.

Despite the outcome of the bovine romance, spirits are up in Ridgway.

“The Santa Fe and Chinchilla Northern is already laying track in apprehension of yet another boom,” chirped DesPlants. “Hell, maybe even the Little Chef will reopen.”

– Rex Montaleone

 

 

THREE FROM THE OULD SOD

 

An Evening at the Harcourt

When we hit Dublin it was still raining from the year before. The pastel gray Liffey blended with the faded gray alleyways peppered with foggy people in wrinkled long coats and proficiently ducked heads. Umbrellas were on every street corner. No frowns on crowded O’Connell Street. Hard to tell what evil lurks behind the walls of nearby Dublin Castle, for centuries a symbol of British control.

“The weather here has only been like this since about 300 AD said Richard Kelly, the same man who at the Harcourt bar assured us that the Dublin City Ramblers would perform at nine, ten o’clock at the very latest.

“It’s a week night and the people of Dublin have to work in the morning,” he smiled, embracing a Paddy’s. “Besides, by Irish law the pubs must shut their doors and half past ten.”

We had only arrived that afternoon, after a groggy trip from Denver. The only thing less appetizing than airline food is airline sleep.

“What do you mean you don’t have Cork Gin? What kind of airline is this anyway?”

The taxi ride to Tavistock in Ranelagh was an eye opener as our driver, Brian, covered 2500 years in about 15 kilometers.

“That’s the General Post Office and the Ha’Penny Bridge. There is Steven’s Green and Trinity College, and over there is the eternal flame to the famine victims.”

Everywhere people hurried about, a Saxon city, a Viking city, a Norman city, the Pale…now back in the hands of the ancestors of Repeal, forced emigration, landlordism. The survivors of a terrible potato famine, slow murder by unofficial Parliamentary decree. A place on the landscape.

But we were here to drink pints of Guinness, not dwell on the pains of my ancestors. (“No, I’m not here to find my roots…I’m here to find a good seafood restaurant.”) We stepped into a three-story pub off Parnell Road. We had been coached by the wise…the Dooleys, the Walshes, the Sullivans, the Healys.

“When you’re in Ireland and you’re thirsty, step up to the barman and simply ask for a pint,” they had told us. “You don’t need to say a pint of what. They will know what you’re after, and they will appreciate your knowledge of local custom.

We stood at the bar and were greeted by a red-headed colleen who could have been the Young Ireland poster girl.

“What’ll ya have?” she asked.

“Two pints,” I answered as Tuatha De’ Danainn might have done.

“Of what? was her curt response. It turned out she was an American student, unfamiliar with drinking manners and, as it turned out, much of the noted social curriculum at all.

“Did ye rent the hair too?” Slight disappointment overcome with the arrival of the dark stout. Where is The Gingerman, Sebastian Dangerfield, when we need him?

“Maybe a nap would put us in league with Dublin’s lovely night life,” someone suggested.

By now it was approaching seven and already dark on the shores of the Irish Sea. Strolling with the flow along Grafton we came upon the Harcourt and a sign in the window: “Tonight: The Dublin City Ramblers.

What good fortune. These people put on one hell of a show. I saw them in Boston some years back. What a fitting arrival to Dublin’s fair city.

We walked into the bar and were greeted by soccer on the big screen, (they call the game soccer here so as not to be confused with Irish football, hurling, rugby, or even horse racing, which, along with swilling the Product, makes up the recreational side of this culture.) The pub was full of men in suits who forgot to come home from work that evening. My beautiful companion began receiving offers of marriage right there at the bar.

“I don’t usually do this but in your case I will have to make an exception…”

Then the first of many pints arrived at my thirsty elbow. I acknowledged the gift, raising my glass in the direction of my benefactors.

“My name is Richard,” said the big man to my right, “and this is my mate, Tommy.”

We exchanged the basics, marinated in room temperature Guinness. The duo, with their British accents assured us that the band would begin any moment now. It was 8:30 and the pubs had to close and all.

As it turns out Richard and Tommy were in the British Army together during the 1970 Troubles in Ulster. Both were the off-spring of Irish parents who fled the starvation economics of their own country for better conditions abroad, in this case Liverpool. When the two were old enough the army looked to be the best prospect and they joined. Both volunteered for duty in Derry, a decision that continued to haunt them. Now both lived in Dublin.

“It all makes little sense,” I offered, “to hear you scream Some Say the Devil is Dead with a cockney accent.

As a gentlemen in Rosscarbery would later explain it: “Layers, laddie, layers.”

This cruel Anglo-Irish whirlwind of love and hate.

Finally the band arrived on the stage and played till about 2 am punctuating their rowdy performance with the Irish National Anthem. A Nation Once Again. The two of us got lost by the Grand Canal, going home. It was still raining.

 

Small Paradise at Castlefreke

The two Americans arrived in idyllic Rosscarbery, once home of patriots O’Donovan Rossa and Michael Collins (born in Clonakilty), after spending the five o’clock hour negotiating the under-construction sidewalks of Cork City. And we never left the car.

West Cork: The beach at Owenahincha. Templebryan, Longstrand, yet another Murphy’s Pub. The castle near Gally Head that Maureen O’Shea neglected to say was there when she sent us out for firewood to go with our processed peat bricks and lamb chops.

“Oh, I’d forgotten. We’ve so many castles and you’re from the States. Sorry, but castles are easier to find than kindling. They’re everywhere! Ignore the trespassing signs. If you’re confronted play dumb. Nobody really cares either way. Yes, I’ll have a wee nip of your Tyrconnell while we negotiate the tariff.”

The Irish forest, tromping through an 11th Century relic of rock and moss, a monster overlooking an expanse of more green and green on top of that. We’ll stay in Rosscarbery a few days, maybe forever.

It was on one of those accompanying nights that we met Timothy Fry, anchored in the doorway of what had been his bachelor abode for the past 65 years. A fine gentleman but a little too responsive to my lovely companion. With a tolerating glance in my direction he suggested Murphy’s at ten “and don’t be late if you’ll be wanting a seat!”

In the Rockies social hour hovers around dusk. Here it doesn’t start until later in the evening. We arrived and saw Mr. Fry seated in a booth. He waved us over. He was a farmer. He awoke every day at five and worked the fields until dark. Then he took his supper and a nap.

“That’s the way to beat the odds,” he smiled. “Then I walk down to Murphy’s for a pint or two before bed. It makes me sleep well.”

We sat in Murphy’s and watched the crowd grow larger, every cap and cane trying to out-animate the other. Pint upon pint, laughter and music. Then I made my first mistake.

When traveling in Ireland one must realize that one is among experts in the field of sacred bedevilment. At a tittered coming of age every Irishman worth his pipe spends at least 80% of his waking hours engaged in the holy obligation of aggravating his mates. It really doesn’t matter what else is accomplished. The art of getting another’s goat falls somewhere between nettled malarkey and playful wrath. It is rampant and I would fall victim to the razor-sharp wit time and again until, hammered mercilessly, I learned to keep quiet.

The fool’s errand: “So, Mr. Fry,” I said scanning my non-existent time piece in charade, “It’s almost midnight. Don’t you think it’s time you got to bed?”

He banged his cane down hard on the bar and a frightened silence invaded the room like muted Viking raiders securing a sneaky beachhead.

“Let me get this straight, lad…” he began, “I’ve been in town for 79 years and you’ve been in town for three days, and you’re setting me bedtime!”

The stares and the shaking heads. Don’t these Yanks have any manners?

Quick thinking on the starboard side.

“I’d like the buy Mr. Fry another pint, please,” I mumbled, embarrassed in the direction of the waiting barman. Then everyone smiled and went back to their chatter. Good craic, all right, for a week night.

Mr. Fry mustered a hopeless frown and rolled his eyes as he dove into the foam and turned to my companion, “And now lass, as I was sayin’…”

 

Blasket John and a lesson in stouts

It had just stopped raining in Dingle. Dick Mack’s Pub looked like the place to be. The tiny bar was maxed with Friday afternoon’s finest, all, of course, talking at once. A mixture of Gaelic and English, sifted through the wit of a Kerryman. Across the room stood Blasket John, as a youth a bare knuckles boxer in London, now a mildly contented 65-year-old grandpa “with all of me children living between here and Ballyferriter”.

Next to him swayed Ian, the half-asleep bachelor from Inishtooskert, who was reputedly “afraid of women”. John had grown up hard as the eldest of seven kids on an impoverished Great Blasket Island, a region that was finally abandoned due to played out fishing in 1954. At 15 he had journeyed to London to fight and send money home. He spent almost five years there, lonely, missing Ireland, the Gaeltacht.

One look at his well developed biceps told us this was no story. He had fought men ten years his senior and held his own. He had no love lost for the British, or the Germans for that matter.

Then, during a rare visit home to see his aging parents he met Mary Brennan and “that was that”. He never went back to England. They acquired a small farm and “did all right considerin'”. Six children came along and later 14 grandchildren.

“And they all live on this very peninsula,” he cracked. “I thought I had lost my family in those flea bag hotels of South London. Sometimes one has to have faith, one just has to hold out a little longer.”

He bought a round. I ordered a Murphy’s and to my surprise got a lecture:

“No laddie, you don’t drink Murphy’s up here, only in Cork. The stuff’s not fresh here. You drink Guinness here,” he pressed, engaged in a serious point of order.

I thanked him for the advice and later when it came for my round I bought Guinness for all four of us. He smiled approvingly. Slainte!  Some more bragging about his grandchildren, a wake-up nudge toward his sleeping friend and on to tell us about turf cutting near Lispole and turnip snagging at Inch Strand.

The next afternoon, which greatly resembled Colorado in blue sky and sunshine, we spent at Ceann Sleibhe, Slea Head, one of the most beautiful places on earth, on the recommendation of Blasket John.

– Kevin Haley

 

 

PADRIAC AND THE DEVIL

In the days before modern court reporting, an elderly lawyer of County Kildare had a young servant named Padriac, who was endowed with a phenomenal memory. The old lawyer had good reason to be proud of Padriac’s amazing talent. His servant was able to sit in court and, at any point in the process of a trial, he could reel off every word of testimony that had transpired before. Padriac’s reputation was so great that his evidence “on the record” was accepted in any court in the county.

One day, the lawyer was in his study, contentedly smoking his dhudeen, when the Devil appeared.

“What do you want?” demanded the lawyer.

“I have come for Padriac,” was the answer.

“Ah, so it’s Padriac you’d be taking’, is it?” Well my fine Dhioul, I can’t spare him, so be off with you!”

“It can’t be helped achora,” said the Devil impertinently. “His time is up. And he’s losing his memory.”

“Come now, you’re a sportin’ man,” argued the lawyer. “I’ll make a little bet with you. If Padriac’s memory is failing, he’s no good to me and you can take him. Test the man, and if you can fool him, he’s yours. But if you can’t he stays.”

“Agreed,” said the Devil with a smirk and disappeared.

Padriac was in the field digging knassters, when suddenly the Devil appeared before him.

“Do you like eggs?” asked the Devil.

“Yes,” answered Padriac, and the Devil disappeared in a puff of smoke.

The following years, from 1840 to 1851, were hectic ones in Ireland. The potato famine caused untold misery. Then the old lawyer died and Padriac was thrown out on his own. After that came a renewal of “the troubles” with England and Padriac fought the British up and down the east and west coasts of his homeland. He survived many years of hunger, of wandering and fighting with little more than a few wounds. Finally, now silver-haired and bent, he settled down on his own piece of land.

One day while Padriac was cultivating a little lot, the Devil appeared to him.

“How?” asked the Devil.

“Fried”, said Padriac.

– Patrick Ireland

 

IRA TO CHANGE NAME

(Derry) The Irish Republican Army has voted to change its name so as not to be confused with the IRS, the Internal Revenue Service, a rogue taxing agency located in the United States.

Citing negative name association, the IRA will now be known as either the Knights of Hibernian Interference or the Saints of the Fenian Brotherhood. The final name is under consideration.

“In this day and age one has to be careful with one’s public relations,” said Sean O’Casey of the Republicans, who for about 700 years have been attempting to gain complete independence from England.

In 1922 the 26 southern counties formed a nation but the 6 northern ones remained chained to the British Empire.

“We decided on the name change so as to present a more human face,” said Casey. “Right away we agreed that proximity to the acronym IRS was not the way to go. Why lock on to someone else’s bad vibes?”

The IRS had no comment since the majority of agents/landlords within that infrastructure are busy harassing its citizens with demands for tribute which will then be used to build a missile defense system or something.

RUMBLINGS FROM HELL

(Updated Version from 2012)

The scene: Scale model of Kilmainham Jail, Hades.

Jailer: “Oliver! You haven’t finished your lunch. We thought you liked rancid potato skins and maggot juice. You could be in for a long night without dinner. And look, your commode has overflowed. We’ll just call that nice Irish plumber, Mr. Murphy. I’m sure he’ll have the whole mess cleaned up as soon as possible. Oh, those despicable warts…They’ve taken a turn for the worse, haven’t they. You Puritans are so bad with the personal hygiene. Even Lucifer himself cannot stand the sight of you. Have you finished Ulysses yet? It’s your eternal punishment, you know. It was either that or De Valera’s speeches piped in on a 24-hour basis. You’ve had 100 years. They’ll be no dinner for you with that attitude.

(Later that day-Act II)

Jailer: Faith Oliver! You’ve tried to hang yourself again. Don’t you get it? You’re already dead and damned to eternal agony because of the way you acted on earth. Don’t you know that the Irish still spit when your name is uttered? What a legacy…driving the Irish off nine-tenths of their own land then making it illegal for them to buy Irish land in Ireland. Oh but that’s all water under the bridge, heh? Wouldn’t you like a nice cool black and tan? Sorry we just ran out! Ha!  There…there. Here’s your Horatio Nelson statue compliments of the IRA men who blew it up just a few years ago. That should make you happy…or at least help digest your Sinn Fein stew. Good news! You’re getting a roommate. It’s John Chivington from Colorado. You probably met in the de-lousing line. He’s the guy that murdered all the unarmed Arapahoe at San Creek quite a time ago. We hope you get along better than you did with Joe or Adolph. What’s that Oliver? God save the Queen? Yeah, well, she’s over in minimum security. See, while she was admittedly a cold, heartless beast, she fell short of cold-blooded murder in the name of religion. I’ve got to tend to the other prisoners, Oliver. Keep your head about you, you know your one of the devil’s favorites. All the shawlies say: The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know. Maybe you could reflect on that one. You’ve got nothing but time.

(That evening)

Satan: I understand, sir, that you have registered a complaint and we Puritans have to stick together, heh? Saints preserve us! Oliver…It’s hot as the blazes in here. What happened to your air conditioning? What? It went out in 1658? Don’t despair, there’s got to be a working fan around here some place…I’ll be right back.